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SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORKTHE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK SW390N3. Theories of Administration, Planning, and Program Policy Course Number: SW390N3 Faculty: Jim Schwab Unique Number: 64810 Office Number: SSW 2.240 Semester: Fall 2005 Office Phone: 471-9816 Time: Wednesday: 8:30 am - 11:30 am Email: [email protected] Place: SSW 2.132 Office Hours: By appointment Course Domain: Most human service activities are carried out within the context of organizations. The management of decisions and program policies of these organizations greatly influences the services that social workers provide to clients. Therefore, it is essential for social workers to understand and develop skills for working in, with, and through organizations. This tutorial/seminar explores major theories of organizations and management as they are applied to human service organizations. It examines the historical development of major schools of organizational and management theory and the dynamic evolution of those theories in human services management. Course Objectives: The stated mission of the doctoral program of the School of Social Work is to produce “graduates who can become effective teachers, intellectual leaders, and knowledge builders in professional education for social work and professional practice.” Pursuit of this mission will be the overall objective of the tutorial/seminar. By the end of the course, students will be able to demonstrate: 1. 1. Familiarity with the major ideas and theories of organizations and management. 2. An understanding of contemporary issues in social work administration/management as developed in the social work literature and other social and behavioral sciences. 3. Familiarity with major issues in the effective delivery of human services to vulnerable populations including minorities and women, and the employment of minorities and women in top management/administration in human service agencies. 4. An ability to apply abstract organizational and management theories and concepts to everyday problems in human service delivery, especially as they relate to the client-worker relationship and the relationship between the worker and the organization. 5. An ability to propose and provide support for proposals to enhance social service delivery through research and the on-going development of the social work administration/management knowledge base. - 1 -6. An ability to formulate good research questions which address important issues in contemporary social work management and to develop sound research strategies for answering these questions. 7. An ability to critically evaluate contemporary research on organizations and human service management. 8. An ability to evaluate and select appropriate material from the vast body on organization and human service management for incorporation into social work curriculum. Course Structure and Requirements: The requirements for this course are divided into four types of assignments as outlined below. Details for each type of assignment are provided under each heading. 1. Readings in Social Work Administration Classes 2 through 4 of the course are devoted to understanding the current state of the literature on administration in Social Work. As indicated in the schedule below, we will cover most of the readings in the text The Handbook of Social Welfare Management. Some of the chapters will be assigned reading for all and some chapters will be reviewed and presented by a subset of the class members. A one-two page synopsis of each assigned chapter will be prepared for distribution and presentation in the class. In this section of the course, the synopsis should focus on the key idea(s) of the chapter and how might one design empirical research to substantiate the ideas in the chapter. For chapters that cite empirical research findings, the research proposals should build on the findings presented in the chapter. For class 2, all students should prepare the chapter by Yeheskel Hasenfeld, "Social Welfare Administration and Organizational Theory" and the chapter by Hillel Schmid, "Agency-Environment Relations: Understanding Task Environments." Chapters for individual presentation will be assigned in the first class. 2. Readings in Organizational Theory In classes 5 through 8, we will focus on the larger topic of organizational theory. Again some readings will be assigned to all class members and some will be prepared and presented by individual class members. The one-two page synopsis should focus on the key ideas of each article and its applicability to the administration in social work chapters covered in the first section of the course. In this section of the course, we want to identify the extent to which the social work administration chapters reflect the best available thinking about organizational and administrative theory, and how we might improve the research ideas identified for the different chapters. - 2 -3. Research on Organizations, Management, and Administration in Social Work An extensive list of empirical research articles is provided on the electronic reserves site for this course, grouped into major themes in administration and organizational research. The list provides a hyperlink to the abstract of the article and the complete text in PDF format. Each student will be expected to select three research articles to summarize and present in the class on that topic. (If the article is over 25 pages, the article may be counted for two articles). The analysis of the article should outline the theory upon which the research is based, the specific hypotheses or research questions to be answered, the strategy for collecting the sample, the measures used for the constructs in the hypotheses or research questions, the statistical analysis used to answer the question, the findings, and implications for social work practice. 4. Proposals for Organizational or Administrative Research Each student will develop and present a written proposal for a research study on a topic in administration and organizations. The proposal should include a brief literature review, a theoretical basis for the hypotheses to be tested, a reasonable strategy for collecting data, and the measures that operationalize the constructs in the hypotheses. It is expected that proposals will be 15 to 20 pages in length. Proposals will be distributed and presented in


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UT SW 390 - SYLLABUS

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