WORKERS, CASES, AND ERRORS

Autor: William W. Vosburgh, Timothy Baker
Rok vydání: 1977
Předmět:
Zdroj: Administration in Social Work. 1:161-170
ISSN: 1544-4376
0364-3107
DOI: 10.1300/j147v01n02_05
Popis: A relationship between average case load size and agency effectiveness has long been assumed in social administration, especially in the public field. This study uses multiple regression analysis to explore that relationship, using public welfare staffing and case load data over a seven-year period. Effectiveness is measured by error rates based on audit data. Initial analysis shows no relationship between either work load size or change in work load size and outcome. Further analysis shows that increases in the number of cases lead to increases in the number of workers and that this has a significant effect. In addition, when other variables such as complexity of task are added, up to 41 percent of the variance in some kinds of error is explained. The research poses several implications for administrators and administrative researchers: "work load" must be broken into components (cases and workers), and these analyzed separately; lag effects must be taken into account; type of case and procedures make a ...
Databáze: OpenAIRE