An Exploratory Study of the America's Family Program: Using a New Leadership Paradigm to Break the Cycle of Failure

Abstract

Millions of U.S. employees work in the service-sector at relatively low wages with little or no benefits or advancement opportunities. Due to high turnover rates, business organizations often limit spending on human resource (HR) practices for these workers. In turn, these employees become less committed to the organization, thereby reinforcing this “cycle of failure.” In this manuscript we present a preliminary study of a new approach, involving a partnership effort among government, non-profits, and business, to break this cycle of failure. This new approach is based on the principles of the new governance model of public administration. Both interview and organizational data are collected to assess the impact of this program on both employees and the organization. Implications for research in business and public administration are discussed, including insights from the emerging spirituality leadership literature into the underlying motivation for developing this type of program.

Keywords:

• Spiritual leadership
• public partnership
• low wage workers

Notes

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