A representative community sample of 274 breast cancer (BC) patients from the Metropolitan Detroit Cancer‐Surveillance System was studied longitudinally during the year after their BC diagnosis. The adjustment of these patients to their disease was examined in terms of (1) the changes in their physical and mental health functioning; and (2) the factors that predict or facilitate the recovery process, including the independent and interactive effects of age. Comparison of the outcomes at 4 and 10 months after diagnosis manifested a significant and consistent improvement in physical functioning. In contrast, there was an absence of any improvement in indicators of mental health and well‐being. Whereas the cross‐sectional analyses demonstrated that stage of disease had an impact on physical impairment, the longitudinal analyses revealed that physical impairment at time 1 was the significant predictor of deteriorating mental health at time 2. Furthermore, younger age was shown to exacerbate the impact of impairment on mental health. The more seriously impaired younger patients experienced significantly greater deterioration in their mental health and well‐being than similarly impaired older patients. However, older age was found to exacerbate the impact of more extensive surgery on symptoms that produce limitations in activity.

Recent studies of small work groups emphasize comprehensive models of team effectiveness. A survey-based operationalization of one such model, Hackman `s Model of Group Effectiveness (Hackman, 1987, 1990), is applied to 15 interdisciplinary treatment teams working in three public psychiatric hospitals. Mental health professionals answered a self-administered questionnaire I developed (N = 98, response rate = 91%). Analysis was conducted at three levels: (a) by all respondents; (b) by team; and (c) by organizational characteristics and professional discipline, and their interaction. Through use of a structural equation model, particular initial and enabling conditions successfully predict teams' meeting standards of the required task teams' cohesion, and members' personal well-being; standards met and cohesion of team also predict overall team effectiveness. These findings emphasize the importance of measuring the various types of organizational and group factors contributing to team effectiveness, as well as the specific aspects of team effectiveness. Implications for team training are discussed.

The authors examine a selected array of agency-influenced work and employment conditions and assess their impact upon social workers' job satisfaction, motivation, and intention to seek new employment. The study makes correlations with past empirical studies on job satisfaction and retention, with staff development concerns as stated in social work administration textbooks, and with conditions subject to administrators' influence. Some specified motivational issues included are salary, fringe benefits, job security, physical surroundings, and safety. The analysis demonstrates the contribution of certain contextual and motivational factors to a prediction of job satisfaction or of intent to leave the organization.

This articles uses case studies to explore the theory that nonprofit management support organizations (MSOsC ONTEMPORARY challenges facing nonprofit organizations and local communities-from government devolution to accountability movements to for-profit competition-have been met with increased calls for collaboration. And the concern today is not just for collaboration among nonprofit agencies but for collaboration across the sectors in order to encourage community-wide discussions of desired outcomes and the use of resources to reach them. Such collaborations are taking the form of government-mandated community boards for sheltering or workforce issues, intersectoral planning groups for neighborhood revitalization, and sustainability coalitions concerned with economics and the environment.

Two hundred eighty‐two respondents, representing 141 married couples with either one child (N= 71 couples) or two children (N= 70 couples), were interviewed about their considerations and intentions regarding whether or not to have another child. Reports of their actual subsequent family planning behavior were obtained 12 months later via a mailed questionnaire. The data was gathered and analyzed according to Fishbein's attitude‐behavior model which stipulates that the individual's actual behavior is a function of one's behavioral intention. This intention, in turn, is determined by two multiple factors: (a) the individual's beliefs about the consequences of performing the behavior multiplied by his/her evaluation of those consequences, and (b) one's normative beliefs multiplied by one's motivation to comply with the perceived norms. The results provided substantial support for the model; both behavioral intention and actual behavior were successfully predicted from the attitudinal and normative components of the model. It was also shown that the behavioral intention mediates the relationship between the model's attitudinal and normative components and actual behavior.