New directions for research on the organizational and institutional context of child welfare agencies: Introduction to the symposium on “The Organizational and Managerial Context of Private Child Welfare Agencies”

Bowen McBeath, Crystal Collins-Camargo, Emmeline Chuang, Rebecca Wells, Alicia C. Bunger and Mónica Pérez Jolles

Children and Youth Services Review, 2014, vol. 38, issue C, 83-92

Abstract: This paper argues for a conceptual reorientation to research and practice that emphasizes the prominence of institutional and organizational factors in the lives of those who are involved in child welfare systems. Current child welfare reform efforts are premised on the idea that agencies—their structures, management, and internal approaches to organizing their workforce and frontline services—may be influential drivers of and barriers to innovation in practice and policy. We unpack this premise by providing an introduction to the institutional and organizational context of child welfare practice that highlights the diverse contexts and contributions of public and private child welfare agencies. We then review five domains for future research and present examples of studies that might be undertaken. The paper concludes by introducing the symposium papers and identifying their contributions to child welfare and human service research.

Keywords: Child welfare agency; Management and leadership; Nonprofit organization; Human service organization; Institutional theory (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740914000279
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:38:y:2014:i:c:p:83-92

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2014.01.014

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().