Author's School

Brown School

Author's Department

Social Work

Document Type

Journal Article

Publication Date

2013

Abstract

An established literature indicates that organizational factors such as culture and climate can impede the implementation of empirically supported treatments (ESTs) in real world practice. What remains unclear is whether certain worker attitudes create barriers to implementing ESTs and how these attitudes might impact the working culture and climate within an organization. The overall purpose of this study is to investigate workers’ openness towards implementing a new EST and whether the workers’ openness scores relate to their workplace culture and climate scores. Participants in this study (N=1273) worked in a total of 55 different programs in a large child and family services organization. Participants completed an organizational culture and climates survey and a survey measuring their attitudes toward ESTs. Results indicate that work groups that measure themselves as being more open to using ESTs rated their organizational cultures as being significantly more proficient and significantly less resistant to change. Further, they rated their organizational climates as being significantly more functional and less stressed. Work groups with open attitudes towards using ESTs create a culture and climate that also foster using ESTs. With ESTs becoming the gold standard for professional social work practices, it is important to have accessible pathways to EST implementation.

Comments

This is an author's original manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Social Service Research © 2013 Taylor & Francis; DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01488376.2013.804023%20

Embargo Period

10-25-2013

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