SOCIAL PROGRAM INNOVATION AND DISSEMINATION: A STUDY OF ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE PROCESSES

The dissemination of social program innovations that have been demonstrated to be effective through rigorous evaluation is an important issue. The classical dissemination framework emphasizes the position that programs implemented with fidelity to the original model are most likely to produce the positive outcomes demonstrated in the model's evaluation phase. However, critics suggest that local programs that are extensively modified are more likely to meet local goals and, therefore, are more likely to be sustained within the organization. The present research examined the implementation, effectiveness, and routinization of seven innovations replicated in a nationwide sample of organizations. The innovations were diverse in both content and implementing context and were located in a variety of sites, including schools, courts, prisons, police departments, and social service agencies. The results suggest that the innovations were replicated with acceptable levels of fidelity to the disseminated program models, and that higher-fidelity implementations tended to be more effective than those implemented with lower fidelity. The implications of the findings for social program dissemination policy are discussed and the authors propose an expansion of Berman's contingency model of innovation dissemination.     

Political choice and the child labor statute of 1938: Public interest or interest group legislation?

Federal regulation of child labor (unlike that passed in early nineteenth century England) did not materialize until the New Deal of the 1930s. The present paper examines, using anecdotal and empirical evidence, the motives underlying the passage of depression-based child labor legislation embodied in the Senate vote on the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Our study, which utilizes both dichotomous and trichotomous probit models of the vote, finds evidence that there were critical and dominantprivate as opposed to public interests behind the restrictions that the FLSA placed on child labor and the exemptions that it established.