Approaches to quality for third sector organisations delivering social care in Scotland

Purpose: Third sector organisations are required by key stakeholders, such as government funders and regulators, to implement quality initiatives to make operations effective, fulfil strategic priorities and contribute to their long-term viability. Furthermore, improving the quality of services is considered a health and social care priority. However, there is little evidence from the literature on the implications of implementing quality for the third sector. This paper aims to improve understanding of how third sector organisations in social care address their stakeholder requirements. Methodology: Drawing on interviews and observations from third sector organisations delivering social care in Scotland, the research explores how quality initiatives are identified, adopted, implemented and evaluated. Findings: Operating in a complex knowledge deficit field driven by key stakeholder requirements, third sector organisations drew on informal and formal networks to support inter-organisational learning on quality approaches. This was relevant to the identification, adoption and implementation of approaches to quality, and revealed a gap in respect of evaluation. The most recognised quality approach in use was the EFQM Model. Findings also showed that quality initiatives were closely connected with mission and values. With implications for both policy and practice in the recently integrated health and social care services in Scotland, this exploratory research improves our understanding of the barriers to implementing quality, as well as the factors which may contribute to its effectiveness. 2 Research limitations: This research focuses on large, major, and super major third sector organisations with capacity to support such initiatives. Small and micro third sector organisations are unlikely to have similar resources to devote to implementing quality initiatives, despite similar demands from stakeholders, and future research should be directed to such organisations. Originality/Value: This paper uses empirical evidence to add to the body of knowledge on the application of quality for third sector organisations, as little research has been done in this area this makes a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge, with implications for policy and practice

Organisational performance measurement in the third sector

Effective organisational performance measurement supports the long-term viability of third sector organisations. It provides its many stakeholders, including funders, with critical information about the value for money received and beneficiaries, about the quality of service provision. However, there is limited empirical and theoretical research on how third sector organisations measure their organisational performance. An exploration of how Scottish third sector organisations in social care measured their performance was undertaken in order to further understanding of the field. Extant literature focused on the key drivers for addressing approaches to organisational performance measurement by third sector organisations as being: accountability, legitimacy and improvement. Building on this literature, this thesis employed expert interviews with key third sector stakeholders, group interviews with members of inter-organisational stakeholder networks and observations of the same groups. The findings suggest that the paradigm of organisational performance measurement in the third sector is, at times, shifting away from a dominant mechanistic accountability, where the performance requirements of funders typically take precedence, towards a more holistic approach in which organisational performance forms part of an organisation’s ecosystem. This research makes a theoretical contribution to the field of organisational performance in the third sector by responding to calls to apply stakeholder theory to this area of research, particularly in the context of a multi-stakeholder service delivery environment. The evidence showed that the salience status of key stakeholders may be shifting from high power to that of increasing their legitimacy, and third sector organisations are working normatively to prioritise the performance requirements of their beneficiaries. This is taking place in an environment in which there are institutional failings of regulation and commissioning. The key drivers of organisational performance were the organisational mission, an evaluative organisational culture and peer led, inter-organisational stakeholder networks. In order to ensure a fit with culture and mission and to manage the inherent complexity of performance, third sector organisations are driving organisational performance measurement towards a crossroads in its own history as it diverges towards an embedded, evolved, sustained approach, away from a focus on compliance and towards a more collaborative outlook

People in suits: a case study of empowerment and control in a non-profit UK organisation

Purpose: Drawing on Simons's levers of control (LoC) framework, the primary aim of this study is to advance an understanding of the balance between empowerment and constraint in a non-profit UK organisation. In particular, this study examines the antecedents and manifestations of LoC (im)balance, in relation to employees' level of engagement with the control systems in place. Design/methodology/approach: For this study, 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted with different organisational members, from directors to non-managerial staff, to gain an in-depth appreciation of the main differences between managerial intentions in the design of management control systems (MCS) and employee perceptions regarding the role of such systems. Findings: This research reveals that suppression of interactive systems and internal inconsistencies between different types of controls hinder the balance between empowerment and constraint. This imbalance is then found to have important consequences for employee buy-in, in some cases, defeating the purposes of control. Research limitations/implications: This study enhances our understanding of the gap between the design of control systems and the employee perceptions of it in an unusual organisational setting (non-profit and bringing together clinical and non-clinical staff and operations). Originality/value: The study of MCS and its role in organisations has long been the focus of both academic and practitioner research. Yet, while extant literature focused on management's perspective on MCS, few studies have explored employees' attitudes and behaviours that accompany the implementation of control. What is more, little is known about the specific uses and behavioural outcomes of MCS in the context of non-profit organisations. Drawing on Simons's LoC framework, this paper addresses these gaps in the literature and investigates the balance between control and empowerment of employees in a UK non-profit organisation with significant clinical remit

Stereotypes, Dehumanization, and Disciplining Disability: Psychological Mechanisms that Fuel the School-to-Prison Pipeline

The overrepresentation of students with educational disabilities in the school-to-prison pipeline is a crisis of civil rights and social justice in need of a comprehensive explanatory theoretical model. Research has convincingly demonstrated the greater likelihood of students with disabilities to be disciplined and the link from these exclusionary school discipline practices to eventual justice system involvement. Yet, why students with disabilities should receive these punishments at greater rates than non-labeled peers, when procedural safeguards and tenets of reduced culpability would predict otherwise, has never been investigated. The Stereotype Content Model (SCM) and the related Behaviors from Interpersonal Affect (BIAS) Map have demonstrated a robust pattern of emotions and behaviors that follow from the content of a group’s stereotype. That is, groups stereotyped as warm and competent elicit admiration and helping behaviors, whereas groups stereotyped as cold and incompetent elicit contempt and harmful responses (i.e., punish, remove from class, ignore, or demean). Thus, how students with disabilities are stereotyped may help explain the harsher disciplinary responses they receive and thus their greater likelihood to enter the school-to-prison pipeline. Research suggests another possible explanation for different disciplinary responses is that students with disabilities are more likely to be dehumanized than are non-labeled students, thereby altering their moral status as deserving of protection, and justifying the punishment decisions that schools make. Through two studies, this research explored and tested the role of stereotype content and dehumanization in school discipline decisions. Study one first mapped the positions of students with various educational disabilities on the dimensions of warmth and competence and established that the affective and behavioral responses predicted by the SCM do indeed largely apply to these groups in a school context. It also detected strong links among stereotype content, dehumanization, and tendencies to harm. Study two tested the causal impacts of a disability label and student race on teachers’ disciplinary recommendations for a hypothetical student who violated the school’s discipline code. Results from Study 2 failed to detect any effects of race or disability on discipline decisions, but suggest that access to restorative justice programs may effectively close the discipline gap, particularly for students most vulnerable to exclusionary discipline (i.e., students with Emotional Disturbance). Although the predicted effects were not observed for individual students, an overall theoretical relationship among the affect elicited from teachers, dehumanization, and discipline was uncovered, showing that, across both studies, key emotions (i.e., fear, anger, contempt) seem to drive dehumanizing attitudes, which in turn were found to mediate punitive actions directed towards students. Interpersonal and structural interventions are discussed as potential disruptors to the pipeline

Oceanic forcing of interannual and multidecadal climate variability in the southwestern Indian Ocean: evidence from a 160 year coral isotopic record (La Réunion, 55°E, 21°S)

We have developed a new 163-year bimonthly coral δ18O record from La Réunion (55°E, 21°S). Interannual variations in coral δ18O are coherent with the Southern Oscillation Index but not with regional sea surface temperature (SST). Correlations with the global SST field suggest more negative seawater δ18O (δ18Osw) during La Niña years. We propose that the signal results from changes in the strength of the South Equatorial Current and the Indonesian throughflow, which carry low salinity water. Multidecadal variations in coral δ18O are coherent with regional SST, but the sign is of opposite sense as expected from the coral δ18O-temperature relationship. This requires multidecadal changes in salinity large enough to overprint the SST contribution in the coral δ18O record. Our results suggest that multidecadal salinity variations result from modulations in the transport of the South Equatorial Current, which varies in response to the surface wind field and/or the Indonesian throughflow

LUNEX5: A French FEL Test Facility Light Source Proposal

http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/IPAC2012/papers/tuppp005.pdfInternational audienceLUNEX5 is a new Free Electron Laser (FEL) source project aimed at delivering short and coherent X-ray pulses to probe ultrafast phenomena at the femto-second scale, to investigate extremely low density samples as well as to image individual nm scale objects

The LUNEX5 project

http://accelconf.web.cern.ch/AccelConf/FEL2012/papers/froa03.pdfInternational audienceLUNEX5 (free electron Laser Using a New accelerator for the Exploitation of X-ray radiation of 5th generation) aims at investigating the production of short, intense, and coherent pulses in the soft X-ray region. The project consists of a Free Electron Laser (FEL) line enabling the most advanced seeding configurations: High order Harmonic in Gas (HHG) seeding and Echo Enable Harmonic Generation (EEHG) with in-vacuum (potentially cryogenic) undulators of 15 and 30 mm period. Two accelerator types feed this FEL line : a 400 MeV Conventional Linear Accelerator (CLA) using superconducting cavities compatible with a future upgrade towards high repetition rate, for the investigations of the advanced FEL schemes; and a 0.4 - 1 GeV Laser Wake Field Accelerator (LWFA), to be qualified in view of FEL application, in the single spike or seeded regime. Two pilot user experiments for timeresolved studies of isolated species and solid state matter dynamics will take benefit of LUNEX5 FEL radiation and provide feedback of the performance of the different schemes under real user conditions

An analysis of learning in an online biology course for teachers and teacher candidates: A mixed methods approach

Due to discipline specific shortages, web-based learning has been proposed as a convenient way to upgrade the content knowledge of instructors interested in learning to teach science. Despite quantitative evidence that web-based instruction is equivalent to traditional methods, questions remain regarding its use. The efficiency and practicality of this approach with teachers in particular has not been extensively studied. This investigation examines learning in an online biology course designed to help teachers prepare for science certification exams. Research questions concern flow teachers learn biology in the online environment and how this setting influences the learning process. Quantitative and qualitative methodologies are employed in an attempt to provide a more complete perspective than typical studies of online learning. Concept maps, tests, and online discussion transcripts are compared as measures of assimilated knowledge, while interviews reflect participants' views on the course. Findings indicate that participants experienced gains in declarative knowledge, but little improvement with respect to conditional knowledge. Qualitative examination of concept maps demonstrates gaps in participants' understandings of key course ideas. Engagement in the use of online resources varied according to participants' attitudes towards online learning. Subjects also reported a lack of motivation to fully engage in the course due to busy teaching schedules and the absence of accountability