Critical Factors in the Relationship Between Rural Recipients of AFDC and Their Financial Workers

This study examines which personal and systemic factors precipitate a relatively productive or nonproductive relationship between a rural Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) recipient and her financial worker. Financial workers are the primary contact within county social services agencies for recipients of AFDC benefits. Recipients and workers are bound together hy a complex eligibility determination process that provides little incentive for recipient self-sufficiency, least of all in rural areas. This qualitative study is based on a triangular framework of focus groups and guided interviews with 23 recipients, four financial workers and two gatekeeper professionals. Interview questions were based on emerging themes in two initial focus groups, composed of nine unduplicated recipient subjects. Major themes explored in focus groups and ensuing interviews were: attitudes, stereotypes, access to information, and implementation of AFDC rules. Four factors were identified as significant influences upon the recipient-worker relationship. These were: 1.) institutional rigidity, 2.) dehumanizing environment, 3.) incompatible realities, and 4.) internalized stereotypes. Because three factors are systemic, this study suggests that leadership must be exercised at several levels in order to increase the productivity of the relationship

The Environment and Change: Leadership and the Role of Middle Management in a Correctional Agency

Middle managers possess technical knowledge and awareness important to public policy formulation and environmental interaction, which is a predominant source of change for the organization. As an organization, Hill County Correction Departrnent\u27s bureaucratic structure is ill-suited to respond to its complex and unstable environmen. Yet this structure is explained because HCCD is a public organization directly accountable to external bodies; its services are ambiguously defined and interpreted; and its environment hostile. This structure encourages a reactive rather than proactive position for the organization with the environment. Hierarchical structure, role obligation, and uncertainty promote risk-aversive activities by middle managers through remaining within clear role boundaries. Yet leadership appears to involve the deliberate effort to create room beyond normal role obligations in which personal discretion and influence can be employed. Opportunities for the middle to engage in leadership activities with the environment seem to exist as supervisors create room to maneuver in informal sitruations or through membership in professional associations

The Effects of Cross-cultural Experience on Travel Participants

The principal hypothesis of this study is that within a group of travel participants, individuals\u27 perceptions of the effects of the trip will differ, but at the same time there will be identifiable convergence of perception. The specific problem addressed is how the lives of Project Minnesota/Leon trip participants have been affected by visiting Nicaragua. The research methodology used was the speech communication theory of Symbolic Convergence and the data was examined by quantal analysis. Three distinct types of participants were found, supporting the validity of this theory and soundly defending the principal hypothesis. A corollary hypothesis is that cross-cultural experiential programs have the potential to promote multiculturalism required for effective leadership in today\u27s interdependent world. While the research design does not permit a quantified link between attitudes and experiences, trip participants exhibited mutuality with Nicaraguans as well as some understanding of cultural pluralism and diversity