Building Cultures and Climates for Effective Human Services

Understanding and Improving Organizational Social Contexts with the ARC Model

Anthony L. Hemmelgarn and Charles Glisson

Evidence-Based Practices

Provides a theoretical model based on empirical evidence for understanding and improving organizational social contexts
Utilizes actual case examples throughout to deepen the reader's understanding of organizational social context and strategies that improve services
Features ARC strategies tested with "gold standard" research designs using randomized controlled trials across multiple organizations
Provides the only organizational development model that triangulates the deployment of three recognized strategies within a comprehensive and orchestrated model to assure sustainable improvement to organizational effectiveness
Includes both a research and practitioner perspective to ensure that empirical evidence and clear strategies for practice are provided to the reader
Based on 40 years of the authors' high quality research that has informed and shaped organizational change theory within human services

Building Cultures and Climates for Effective Human Services

Understanding and Improving Organizational Social Contexts with the ARC Model

Anthony L. Hemmelgarn and Charles Glisson

Description

It is widely acknowledged that many healthcare, behavioral health, and social service organizations provide less-than-optimal services and that the challenge of improving services depends on successfully changing organizational culture and climate. However, there are almost no organizational-level strategies that have been tested with randomized controlled trials. Building Cultures and Climates for Effective Human Services addresses the need for evidence-based organizational strategies for improving human service quality and outcomes by uniquely describing the authors' own case examples, nationwide studies, and randomized controlled trials to explain how organizational culture and climate can be assessed and changed. The two authors use their decades of research and practice experience in assessing and changing human service organizations to explain how organizations can improve the services they provide using the authors' ARC model, which effectively removes service barriers and supports the implementation of evidence-based practices and other innovations. The book also blends case examples with research from nationwide studies, regional experiments, and randomized controlled trials to explain the ARC model of organizational effectiveness and how it works to improve services. It provides a balance between theory, empirical research, and actual case examples to help researchers, organizational consultants, administrators, and service providers gain a practical understanding of how culture and climate affect services and how they can be improved. Furthermore, the text describes the three ARC strategies, each composed of multiple elements, to: (1) embed key organizational principles, (2) implement core organizational component tools, and (3) apply mental models to alter shared reasoning and beliefs that affect success. No other organizational-level strategies for improving services have been so well documented and tested.

Building Cultures and Climates for Effective Human Services

Understanding and Improving Organizational Social Contexts with the ARC Model

Anthony L. Hemmelgarn and Charles Glisson

Evidence-Based Practices

Chapter 1. Improving Organizational Social Contexts for Effective Human Services

Chapter 2. Case Examples Illustrating the Importance of Social Contexts in Human Service Organizations

Chapter 3. Understanding and Assessing Organizational Social Context (OSC)

Chapter 4. Introducing the Availability Responsiveness and Continuity (ARC) Organizational Strategies

Chapter 5. The Impact of ARC in Human Service Organizations

Chapter 6. ARC Infrastructure, Preparation, and Key Strategies for Creating Effective Human Service Organizations

Chapter 7. ARC Stages and Component Tools

Chapter 8. The Role of Mental Models in Organizational Change

Chapter 9. Mission-driven versus Rule-driven Human Service Organizations

Chapter 10. Results-oriented versus Process-oriented Human Service Organizations

Chapter 11. Improvement-directed versus Status Quo-directed Human Service Organizations

Chapter 12. Participatory-based versus Authority-based Human Service Organizations

Chapter 13. Relationship-centered versus Individual-centered Human Service Organizations

Chapter 14. Conclusion and Future Challenges for Improving Human Service Organizations

References

Building Cultures and Climates for Effective Human Services

Understanding and Improving Organizational Social Contexts with the ARC Model

Anthony L. Hemmelgarn and Charles Glisson

Evidence-Based Practices

Author Information

Anthony Hemmelgarn, PhD, is an industrial psychologist who has worked with researchers, organizational leaders, and practitioners nationwide to improve organizational cultures, climates, and effectiveness for over two decades. He is a primary co-developer and the lead implementation expert for ARC, an empirically-proven organizational development model that has improved organizational social contexts within human services across the nation, as well as client, staff, and organizational outcomes. He and his colleagues' publications in leading journals have helped shape research, organizational change theory, and organizational strategies to improve cultures and climates within human service organizations. He continues to promote and develop innovative approaches to optimize human services outcomes in healthcare and other human service organizations today.

Charles Glisson, PhD, is currently Chancellor's Professor Emeritus at the University of Tennessee Knoxville and an active consultant for organizational research and implementation projects focused on improving human services. He has directed organizational research funded by the National Institutes for Health, W.T. Grant Foundation and other funders for over 40 years and authored over one hundred publications on human service organizations. Professor Glisson is internationally known for his work on assessing and changing organizational social context to improve human services with the OSC and ARC and was awarded the NASW Lifetime Achievement Award in Health and Mental Health in 2014.

Contributors:

n/a

Building Cultures and Climates for Effective Human Services

Understanding and Improving Organizational Social Contexts with the ARC Model

Anthony L. Hemmelgarn and Charles Glisson

Evidence-Based Practices

Reviews and Awards

"Everyone who cares about human services should read this book. Packed with lessons from four decades of research and illustrated with compelling case studies, this book details the powerful impact of organizational social context on service quality and outcomes. More importantly, it shares the welcome news that evidence-based, organizational strategies can improve goal setting, decision making, leadership, training, job redesign, and data feedback cycles-all to the benefit of better intervention delivery and better client outcomes. " -Enola K. Proctor, PhD, Shanti K. Khinduka Distinguished Professor, Brown School; Director, Implementation Science, Washington University Institute for Clinical and Translational Science

"This is a timely, must-read book for those involved in leading, managing, or working in human service systems and organizations. The authors describe their rigorous and systematic approach and take the reader deeply into the why and how of improving human service organizations. They also provide practical strategies for attaining positive organizational change. This work demonstrates the importance of focusing on organizational context as prerequisite to considering implementation of specific service models or evidence-based practices. While there is often an assumption that changing a service model or implementing a new treatment will be enough to improve outcomes, this rigorous body of work demonstrates that optimizing organizational culture and climate sets the stage for serving clients and patients in ways that lead to improved outcomes." Gregory A. Aarons, PhD, Director, Child and Adolescent Services Research Center, University of California, San Diego