Urban community organizations and local government: Exploring relationships and roles

There is an increasing interest in using local community organizations to assist in the development process. Observers who evaluate the contribution of such groups frequently classify them into two clusters: those which are closely tied to the government and focus on service delivery, and those which guard their autonomy and engage in development rather than service delivery. This dichotomy, however, downplays the developmental role of groups allied with local governments and obscures some important contributions they can offer. Three different models are proposed and two case studies of service-oriented groups in Cairo are presented. The cases suggest that an important criterion in assessing voluntary groups is the extent to which their service delivery role enables them to develop an organization. From this perspective their role is potentially much broader than expediting government services.     

Books in review

He is the co-author, with William G. Scott, of Organizational Values in America.     

Human service reorganization and its effects: a preliminary assessment of Florida's services integration 'experiment.'

The present discussion reports on some of the first statewide data gathering and analysis to assess the consequences of the 1975 reorganization of the Florida Department of Health and Rehabilitative Services. Two major concepts guiding the reorganization were: (1) integration of services in order to cover more adequately the needs of clients, including "multi-problem" clients, and (2) decentralization of administrative authority of all programs under a single, district-wide management structure. Despite widespread interest in the Florida system, and two previous studies, no systematic, detailed study of the impact of reorganization at the service delivery level has been conducted until now. The results of this study indicate that departmental employees perceive substantial decentralization of authority and progress toward integration of services since the 1975 reorganization. Perceived improvement in client services is also indicated. Major factors cited as influential in the change are the move toward collocation of services, the establishment of administratively interlinked service networks, and to a lesser extent, the development of generalist managers.