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Human service corporations: new opportunities for administration in social work.
Abstract
An important transformation has gone largely unnoticed by social welfare administrators in the United States--the rise of the human service corporation. Since the mid-1960s, for-profit firms have proliferated in several markets: long-term care, health maintenance, child care, home care, hospital management, continuing care, and corrections. By 1985, 65 human service corporations reported annual revenues above ten million dollars. Two of these--the Hospital Corporation of America and National Medical Enterprises--reported revenues exceeding total contributions to the United Way of America. For that year, each of these corporations employed more than 80,000 workers, by far more than the number of state and local public welfare employees in any state in the union. Yet, relatively few social work administrators worked in the proprietary sector. According to a 1982 National Association of Social Workers survey, 52.4 percent of administrators worked for private nonprofit agencies, 43.4 percent worked for governmental agencies; but only 3.9 percent worked in for-profit organizations.
Journal
(1989)
vol13
no3-4
pages183-97
Categories
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Nonprofit Organizations (Theory)
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Structures and Processes
