Publication Date

1987

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Minor, W. William

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Sociology

LCSH

Guardian Angel Home (Joliet; Ill.); Children--Services for--Illinois--Joliet; Organizational change; Negotiation

Abstract

The Guardian Angel Home is a private, not-for-profit social service agency which has served the Joliet, Illinois, area for the past 86 years. The initial purpose of the Home was to care for orphans and dependent children. However, as times changed and children in need began to be cared for in their own homes or in foster homes, the Guardian Angel Home (GAH) also changed its mission and focused on children in crisis and on the care of emotionally disturbed children and their families. While the type of child who was cared for changed, the purpose of the Home remained to serve children in need. An examination of this social service agency shows how a negotiated order approach can be used to demonstrate the conditions under which negotiative activity occurs. Researchers using a negotiated order perspective must examine phenomena which influence the content and direction of negotiations. This is necessary in order for the researcher to discover what holds the organization together in the face of change. To study how an organization is created and then changed, data were obtained from interviews of individuals familiar with the history of the organization, available records in the organization's archives, and participant trying to understand how an organization continually works at establishing social order. Significant changes in the GAH occurred over a period of 86 years. Chapter III is devoted to the early history of the GAH, while Chapter IV is devoted to the actual conditions which encouraged negotiations and eventual change in the Home and its services. The final chapter is an examination of the GAH's response of the growing population of status offenders in the Joliet area. By 1983, the GAH developed an entirely new program aimed at dealing with this population of adolescents. Child advocacy is discussed as a current example of the negotiation process used by the GAH throughout its history. Additionally, Chapter V examines the implications of the research and proposes the use of a negotiated order perspective in the study of other social service agencies and businesses to determine whether negotiations are unique to social service organizations.

Comments

Bibliography: pages [116]-118

Extent

118 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS