This study is an exploratory investigation of the construct of organizational effectiveness. The multiple-constituency approach to effectiveness is used as the major theoretical framework for exploring and understanding meanings and measures of effectiveness. Pragmatically, it presents a conceptual framework and process for community-based health services (CBHS) providers, showing how an effective measurement of organizational effectiveness can be realized. Theoretically, it advocates the multiple-constituency approach as a viable alternative for examining effectiveness through an investigation of both the normative and descriptive elements embodied in this approach to organizational effectiveness. / Four local CBHS organizations were drawn on for the study sample. The methodological design comprised 40 semistructured interviews and 9 focus group interviews with a total of 115 respondents from 10 constituency groups (i.e., managerial staff, direct service staff, board members, a funding organization, a local organization, service users, volunteers, a school partner, hospital partners, and a self-help organization partner). A Delphi process was also conducted with the participation of 7 expert panel members. These experts possessed expertise in the areas of performance measurement and CBHS delivery. The Delphi process required completing 3 iterative rounds of the Delphi questionnaire before consensus was achieved. / The analysis and categorization of the qualitative interviewing data showed that the meaning of organizational effectiveness is contingent on the constituency being asked to describe it. This means that competing and sometimes conflicting values and conceptions are embedded in organizational attributes, which in turn influence measures of effectiveness. The qualitative findings and analysis also supported an initial conceptual framework for defining and measuring the effectiveness of CBHS organizations composed of 120 effectiveness criteria distributed among 6 dimensions and 18 composite categories. These dimensions are service development and delivery, support and resource acquisition, organization design and process, adaptation to the changing environment, organization development and improvement, and corporate governance. / The converging pattern of the results after the 3 iterative rounds of the Delphi questionnaire demonstrated that a satisfactory level of consensus had been reached among the expert panel on the criteria of effectiveness within the initial framework. This further substantiated and established the validity of the conceptual framework for future applications. Mapping analysis confirmed clearly that the 68 important and consensual effectiveness criteria within the final conceptual framework of the performance of CBHS organizations, drawn from supposedly incompatible perspectives, are nonetheless used simultaneously in organization practice. The findings further suggested an inward focus of CBHS organizations in Hong Kong, in respect of perspectives on organizations and organizational effectiveness. In addition, the engineered-rationality, resource dependency, population ecology, and organization development perspectives on organizations dominate the definitions of effective CBHS organizations. In conclusion, the results of this study caution against a simple-minded approach to improving organizational effectiveness and suggest that the effectiveness of CBHS organizations is in fact a multidimensional construct. Indeed, the design, planning, management, and evaluation of a CBHS organization can be seen as an ongoing process of balancing and compromising alternate concerns and interests of multiple constituencies within the fluid and sometimes contradictory construct of organizational effectiveness. / Thesis (PhDBusinessandManagement)--University of South Australia, 2004.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/267556 |
| Creators | Chui Ying Yin, Dominic |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | copyright under review |
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