Conversion to Integrated Employment: Case Studies of Organizational Change, Volume 3

Continuing the expansion of integrated employment opportunities requires a clear understanding of the organizational and systems factors that influence change and expand access to integrated employment. This monograph will focus on change at an organizational level in four organizations that were engaged in a change process during 1998 and 1999. This work represents the second phase of a study of ten community rehabilitation providers, including six that successfully closed a facility-based program in the period between 1989 and 1994. The first six organizations are profiled in Volumes I and II of this series (Butterworth, Fesko, & Ma, 1999; Fesko & Butterworth, 1999). The project was designed to answer three primary research questions:

  1. What are the motivators and barriers that have influenced programs-- decisions to convert resources from facility-based services to community employment?
  2. How did each organization approach the planning, communication, and implementation of the change process?
  3. What obstacles have organizations experienced and how have they responded to these obstacles to maintain the change process? What strategies and variables have had a positive impact on maintaining organizational change efforts?

This chapter presents a summary of the research, the experiences of four organizations that are in the process of expanding their integrated employment services, and a comparison of these organizations with the six original organizations that closed a facility-based program.


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