Testing an Organizational Change Model of Relational Coordination within a Comprehensive Youth and Gang Violence Collaborative

• In Event: Altering the Trajectories for At-Risk Youth

Abstract

Crimesolutions.gov identifies the Comprehensive Gang Model (CGM) as a promising practice to reduce gang and youth violence. The CGM is a program structure through which communities can organize their gang and youth violence reduction approach. Despite its promising dimensions, barriers to goal achievement have most often been attributed to inter- and intra-organizational challenges of collaboration, leadership, and data. Research has shown that when violence prevention initiatives fail, it is most often because of lack of organizational change, not necessarily because of specific interventions employed.
This paper discusses a quasi-experimental design in which two urban communities were selected to receive the organizational change intervention (treatment) and two similar sites serve as comparison sites to best understand changes that occur as a result of the organizational change intervention. We test the theory of relational coordination (RC) as a mechanism through which collaborators can affect inter- and intra-organizational change. Relational coordination is a relatively young, but robust theory for understanding how groups collaborate to accomplish outcomes of interest. The paper focuses on the organizational change dimensions of the CGM to better understand if organizational change-targeted guidance via RC affects change in stated CGM and community goals.

Authors

• Brenda J. Bond, Suffolk University

• Erika Gebo, Suffolk University