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Table 5 Sample field note content stratified by “best,” “average,” and “worst” Organizational Social Context agencies

From: A complementary marriage of perspectives: understanding organizational social context using mixed methods

Construct

Worst agencies

Average agencies

Best agencies

Affect

Supervisor pulled me aside and was almost tearful and asked if she could mail in her forms and that she was feeling overwhelmed after completing the Organizational Social Context measure because she has been in meetings all day.

Faces were made by several therapists when [researcher] mentioned that they would have to rate their leadership.

One therapist was nervous and asked if we were doing the experiment todayand if she needed to prepare.

The therapists were in general very lively. There was laughter around the question, “I think evidence-based practice is a waste of time and money for this team.”

When the supervisor was asked to leave the room, she asked the therapists to “Be kind.” Lots of laughter around that.

Leadership

Two of the therapists said that they didn’t know the clinical director very well.

When I brought up that they would be rating their executive director, many of them said they had only met their executive director once or had never interacted with her.

One therapist raised his hand and said that they only had good things to say about their clinical director.

The therapists were playful with one another and their supervisor. They were less talkative when the other administrators joined us.

Faces were made by several therapists when [researcher] mentioned that they would have to rate their clinical director and executive director.

Cramped, therapists had one common work room, very few therapy rooms.

Stress

[Participant] says old timers are resistant to evidence-based practices because they don’t understand it and are stressed about their jobs.

Therapist offices were small and darkly lit without a lot of posters, decorations, or toys in the rooms.

The intercom was bothering a few of the therapists who felt frustrated that it kept going off and interrupting them.

Lots of laughter around Organizational Social Context question about fatigue. Said they were always tired.

When the clinical director came to drop off her packet, told us “Sorry if I seem distracted. There is some emergency going on.”

Could hear people walking around the house (as it was an old row home) and secretary kept calling on the intercom for therapists.

Therapist said that she had a case load of “75-85” clients. Said that she was really stressed out, that she “loved her kids” but felt overwhelmed.

  
  1. We used latent profile analysis (LPA) which uses all six dimensions of culture and climate simultaneously to categorize the organizations into “best,” “average,” and “worst” social contexts. This table provides information on our mixed-methods analysis. Each row represents a construct from our qualitative analysis and details the actual observations made about that theme, stratified by type of organizational social context.