ABSTRACT
Two of the greatest challenges facing HSOs are to better service their advocacy agendas and to ensure their ongoing ability to do so. By capitalizing on the new, digital media, which are designed for this very purpose-it would seem that both objectives can be achieved. However, very little data, for or against this assertion, exists. This effort begins to address this deficit. Specifically, we propose and test a model that links the aforementioned organizational imperatives-policy goal achievement and organizational sustainability-to the development of a particular organizational “culture” that is designed to promote these ends. Drawing upon Open Systems Theory, the author has demonstrated that human service organizations’ sustainability, but surprisingly not their policy agendas, are important determinants of the “organizational cultures” that evolve to service these two organizational imperatives. As such, the “systems maintenance activities” of human service organizations-achieving greater organizational visibility, capacity, access to volunteers and acquisition of resources-are indirectly serviced by the development of an “externally focused” organizational culture which facilitates the adoption of newer digital “tools” the effectiveness of which these organizations attest to. While servicing an advocacy agenda is not a determinant of this more “facilitative” organizational culture, it is nonetheless the case that the policy agendas of these organizations have significant direct impacts on the acquisition of these digital tools and the perception that they are effective in promoting those agendas. In effect, then, we find, admittedly qualified, support for the claim that new “digital age” tools like social media are instrumental in helping human service organizations realize their objectives. Our support is necessarily qualified because the “evidence” for this claim rests on the subjective assessments of the members of these organizations. Needed are more controlled comparisons between human service organizations that do, and do not, adopt these new digital technologies. Until that time, however, the data provided herein can be considered consistent with, but not proof of, the possible benefits of adopting these media to achieve essential organizational objectives.
