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"This book is about an innovative approach that lets members of progressive organizations function as applied scientists and problem solvers. This means that in such organizations work becomes more mindful. Decisions can be made based on inventories of information and analysis of data-couched tentatively, to be sure, subject to ratification through additional study. At the working level, planning and action can become linked, and the organization thereby becomes problem-oriented rather than crisis-reactive. It is ironic that this problem-oriented approach has evolved most explicitly and self-consciously in policing. We tend to think of police in terms of brawn rather than brains, and we may conceive of police officers as spending time wrestling with suspects and engaged in hot pursuits of fleeing felons. Police are perceived as the embodiment of blind reactivity, and yet an applied social-scientific focus on work has sprung up and taken root within the ranks of police. This book is addressed to those interested in the process of organizational change in settings in which a problem-oriented focus may be relevant. I am interested, therefore, in making the process of problem-oriented activity come alive and in conveying some sense of what such activity means to those who engage in its exercise"--Introd. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved)

Contemporary reform efforts in the public sector are more prone to be Tayloristic or traditional than those in the private sector. This fact is paradoxical, because a number of attributes of public sector organizations-including uncircumscribed technology, professional responsibilities of staff, inhouse promotion of managers-suggest payoff for participatory strategies. Such strategies in the public sector can encompass clients and staff, and can include continuing 'self study' evaluation. The paper summarizes two experiments-one involving police officers, and another featuring prison guards. In both cases, research was a component of a QWL-job enrichment effort combining personal and organizational development.