The Norval Morris Project Blog

Interesting Reads

2009-08-27T19:21:55Z

The two topic teams (Population Reductions & Workforce Transformation) for the Norval Morris project will be meeting soon in Denver, Colorado to move forward with these areas of the project. In preparation for the meeting and through discussions with various team members, we (J-SAT) have begun to compile a list of articles and books that have been recommended. Below is our preliminary list and we will ad more through the comments sections below. If you are interested in this project or are already...(read more)

"How Technology Enables Transformation of Human Service Administration" by M. Geffen and J. Kost

2009-02-16T15:29:24Z

This article focuses on human service organizations whose ultimate service mission to public clientele is attainment of self-sufficiency. The authors cite various reasons for an ever-evolving 21 st Century human services model of enormous complexity that must exponentially increase its service delivery capability to keep up with increasing and varied client demands; demands which, in turn, are fraught with an increase in the pace and frequency of individual needs. Thus, that ultimate goal of users...(read more)

"Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail" by John P. Kotter

2009-02-13T15:26:29Z

The author begins the article citing his experience with over 100 companies attempting to remake themselves, from General Motors to Bristol-Meyers Squibb. Successful change within these companies has ranged from very successful to total failure. Because of these experiences, it is recognized that change is in itself a process which contains a series of phases that must all be completed in order to produce satisfying change. Kotter identifies eight phases or stages a company must successfully complete...(read more)

"The discipline of innovation" by Peter Drucker

2009-02-12T15:19:18Z

Most successful innovations, according to Drucker, come from a conscious, purposeful search for innovation opportunities. He saw four areas of opportunity inside organizations: unexpected occurrences, incongruities, process needs, and industry and market changes. Opportunities also exist outside organizations in its social and intellectual environments: demographic changes, changes in perception, and new knowledge. Together these seven account for almost all opportunities for innovation. Effective...(read more)

"Improving the Transition from Basic Efficacy Research to Effectiveness Studies: Methodological Issues and Procedures" by Gregory N. Clarke

2009-02-10T15:16:16Z

This article was inspired by Weisz, Weiss, and Donenberg’s (1992) look at positive child psychotherapy effects in research suggesting “…a key task for researchers [is]….identifying those proper conditions under which effects of child therapy may be optimized.” The authors suggest controlled methodological experiment changes to enhance generalizeability in effectiveness trials in clinical/service delivery settings. It calls for including methodologies to transfer desirable aspects of efficacy research...(read more)

Toward a Sociology of the Network Society

2009-02-09T16:30:00Z

This article invokes a provocative view of a changed society poised on the cusp of high potential for innovation because all of us (in developed nations) now function amidst a vast complex of macro-level social networks (and thusly a new framework for the study of sociology needs to be erected). Just when consortium members might think they’re ready to spin hypotheses about promising innovative inroads in technology and organizational culture, Castell comes along with fresh insight into our changed...(read more)

"Disruptive Innovation for Social Change" by Clayton Christensen, et al

2009-02-06T15:20:35Z

Catalytic innovations provide good-enough solutions to inadequately addressed social problems. They are similar to Christensen’s disruptive-innovation model, which challenges industry incumbents by offering simpler, good-enough alternatives to an underserved group of customers. (see Christensen and Bower’s HBR article “Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave” January-February 1995.) Five qualities are shared by catalytic innovators: They create systemic social change through scaling and replication...(read more)

Technology Transfer and Public Policy: A Review of Research and Theory

2009-01-30T16:20:17Z

The author provides an exhaustive review of technology transfer/diffusion through his own lens: i.e., a framework he calls the Contingent Effectiveness Model; it earns its name from the fact that there are multiple ways of defining transfer effectiveness (6 by Bozeman’s count). Before outlining the key factors in parsing out what constitutes innovation/technology transfer/diffusion, it should be noted that (1) Bozeman’s focus is mainly on public sector (university and government labs), and very little...(read more)

“People in Charge: Creating Self Managing Organizations”

2009-01-29T16:16:27Z

This book contains a step-by-step guide to help people redesign their workplaces to be team based and self managing. In addition there are chapters from nine contributing authors about self management in the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Land Bank of South Africa, the U.S. Federal Court System, an Australian winery, a U.K. call center, and various other organizations. It looks at what makes team based organizations succeed and fail. The process described in this book has been used by many organizations...(read more)

“Futures That Work: Using Search Conferences to Revitalize Companies, Communities, and Organizations”

2009-01-28T16:13:21Z

A search conference is a participative planning event that enables people to create a plan for the most desirable future of their community or organization, a plan they carry out themselves. Search conferencing has a long, rich history. The first search conference happened in 1960 in Great Britain when leaders of two aircraft engine manufacturers came together in the first search conference to merge their two companies into one. The inventors of the method and the leaders of that first search were...(read more)

Innovation. Management Benchmark Study

2009-01-26T16:10:51Z

In the chapter, “Innovation,” Baker provides an overview of innovation research, definitions of the three main types of innovation ( process, product/service, and strategy/business concept ), the levels of innovation ( incremental to radical ), and capacities for innovation , which either enable or hinder organizations’ ability to embrace change. Process innovation involves an organization’s ability to respond to internal and external changes. Product service innovation concerns product and process...(read more)

What Do We Know About Developing and Sustaining a Culture of Innovation

2009-01-23T16:05:25Z

This article gives a brief overview of organizational culture including its definition, various models, and both qualitative and quantitative methods of studying an organization’s culture. The author begins by discussing culture in general and sites Hofstede’s early findings from research with IBM. She then talks about management research on specific dimensions of organizational culture (innovation and risk taking, attention to detail, outcome orientation, people orientation, individual and team...(read more)

Building Culture Strategically: A Team Approach for Corrections

2009-01-22T16:18:28Z

The guide, developed under the Strategic Planning, Management and Response project, encompassed six tasks: 1) identify/develop a strategic planning model/process useful to facilities; 2) & 3) develop a strategic management model/methodology and strategic response model/methodology to be used in facilities; 4) prepare a guide to provide and train staff in their implementation; 5) develop a process for measuring the effectiveness of the models; 6) write a literature review encompassing strategic...(read more)

"Cognitive-Behavior Modification and Organizational Culture."

2009-01-14T22:59:59Z

This article discusses the application of Cognitive-Behavior Modification (CBM) to organizational culture in order to influence organizational behavior. The author sites the work of Karl Weick and constructivist theory which states that individuals create the organizations they are apart of, while in turn they are impacted by those organizations. The article explores the cognitive-behavioral framework for interventions including constructivist narratives that can be analyzed and reconstructed to...(read more)

An Introduction to Changing Organizational Culture

2009-01-12T22:55:16Z

Cameron and Quinn’s first chapter (An Introduction to Changing Organizational Culture) sets a radically assertive tone. Their arguments and claim that organizational culture separates all other previous researcher attempts to explain sustained organizational success, both public and private, are at once compelling and doubt-evoking. Later in Chapter 1 the authors conclude that former initiatives attempted on a global scale, such as TQM, downsizing, and organizational reengineering, all have a common...(read more)