Hi, welcome to my blog 4master

Here may find the content of my master’s degree work «Authentizotic Organizations and Organizational Effectiveness». On the right side bar of Portuguese page 4master is available some general and essential information about the content, links, videologs, etc. Hope you can find what you need.

Basically, the construction of this blog had five purposes:
1 – Force myself to publish the content and also compel me to summarize all the steps.
2 – Reveal this work, done inside Portuguese prison systems.
3 – Eventually, let current work be known by Professors whose investigations were the basis of it. I am talking about Professors Kets de Vries, Sandy Staples, Albert Bandura, Kevin Wright, Marco Ramos, Terance D. Miethe and Hong Lu. I have spent many many hours making web research and reading their texts and books.
4 – Eventually, encouraging and helping colleagues who, like me, have projects in areas as Organizational Climate, Self-Efficacy or Stress.
5 – Finally, publicly thank to whom also turned possible all this process. I would highlight three people:
The Professor Luís Martins, my advisor that most motivated me; the Professor Francisco Nunes, who has the great responsibility for my decision of keep going for a master degree; and the dra. Paula Vicente, the head of all PGISP project and that opened me all doors in prisons in order to finish the current work. A huge thank for all three.

How did this idea come?

This study, «Authentizotic Organizations and Organizational Effectiveness», was done inside the Portuguese prison system. The idea came after a global organizational changing of prisons, a national project named PGISP (Managing to Innovation of Prison System). Because ISCTE's Business School was deeply involved, I was given opportunity to make my inquiries inside the facilities.

What’s PGISP purpose?

Improving and changing prisons in 4 areas: People, Innovation, Results and Processes. Which meant Organizational Climate, Leadership, Motivation, including on what inmates was concerned, like reintegration and facilities’ conditions.

This project started in 2005 and finished in March 2008, after three measurement's moments.

How many facilities were involved?

There were 5 Control (Alcoentre, Izeda, Tires, Covilhã and Viseu) and 4 Pilot (Leiria, Beja, Castelo Branco and Sintra) facilities. However, political changes lead to the closure of Castelo Branco Regional’s facility during the study.

What was my purpose?

First - Kets de Vries - Characterize the Organizational Climate in the two groups of facilities (Pilot and Control) in order to know in what extent were they Authentizotic or not, according to Manfred Kets de Vries’ model.
Second - Albert Bandura/Sandy Staples - Measure levels of Self-Efficacy and cross them with the Climate, according Sandy Staples model, based on Albert Bandura theory.
Third - Sandy Staples - Measure Stress levels and see correlations.
Fourth - Biographic data - What effects can we see in organizational climate, stress and self-efficacy according Age, Genre, Qualifications and Seniority Career?

Results and general conclusions

A note – There are four main professional categories in prisons, mentioned in statistical tables: Corpo da Guarda (wardens or guards); Chefias (top warden or manager); Técnicos Superiores (correctional staff, highly qualified people) and Técnicos Administrativos (clerks, office people who handle all the bureaucracy).

All the tables are available (4master portuguese page), so instead of deepening the subject, I will just summarize some of the conclusions we can take from this study.

Organizational Climate (Authentizotic levels, according Kets de Vries theory) – The Prison system is not Authentizotic, but all the changing process PGISP promoted in Pilot facilities during three years of work lead to a better atmosphere and a positive perception of all employees (4 professional categories).
Nevertheless, the study tells us that Wardens’ team (which we call Corpo da Guarda or Guardas) had the most negative perception, with results under the midpoint, 3,50. There are only two items somehow close to a positive perception, «Learning and Development Opportunities» and «Open and Candor Comunication With the Hierarchy», 3,40 and 3,14. One item claims attention, «Camaraderie Sense», with a low average 2,70.
We see the same value in Re-educators staff (what we call Técnicos Superiores, that are correctional personnel), 2,80 in Control facilities, against a large rise in Pilot facilities, 3,49.

Stress levels (Sandy Staples) - Of course, there is stress in prisons. It’s quite obvious. The worst result came from wardens (Corpo da Guarda or Guardas), and the best from Re-educators (Técnicos Superiores), who showed an almost «absence» of stress.
There is something very interesting going on with Re-educators (Técnicos Superiores): stress levels grew from Control to Pilot. This situation may be explained by an increase of responsibility during all the changing process in Pilot units, as well as changes, challenges and hard work.

With regard to Self-Efficacy (Albert Bandura / Sandy Staples) - All the professional categories had a great perception of their efficacy, but there's an interesting fact: Even in a positive field, above the midpoint (3,50), only Re-Educators had better average in Pilot facilities. All their partners had a less positive perception in Pilot.

Not confirmed Hypotheses

Hyp. - 5 - Self-Efficacy perception levels are low in the prison system
Not confirmed. All the employees had high perception of performance levels, according to results, which show us results above average, 3,50. As a matter of fact, the «worst» result is 4,57 and belongs to top Warden (manager).

Hyp. 6 - Self-Efficacy Perception is high in Pilot facilities
Not confirmed. Actually, levels are higher in Control facilities. This may be explained by the changing process, which could lead to a hard and challenging work and to many activities.

Hyp. 7 - Older and elder career employees resist more to change
Not confirmed. Surprising, because we all think elder people dislike changes. In this case, they had the higher positive perception. 46 years old average employees had a 4,03 of perception.

Hyp. 9 - Lower qualifications employees tend to resist to change
Not confirmed. These are interesting results. Actually, the best results came from lower and higher qualifications employees.

Confirmed Hypotheses

Hyp. - 1 - There's no Authentizotic climate in prison system
According to general results (Control and Pilot), the average stood at 3,33, slightly below the midpoint. However, there are some dimensions with even lower values, which show us a negative perception of climate. I am talking about «Camaraderie Sense» and «Credibility and Trust in Hierarchy».

Hyp. - 2 - Pilot units are generally authentizotics than Control units
The climate tend to be authentizotic in Pilot units but below of a truly positive perception (3,48, when the midpoint is 3,50). But this situation is not enough to deny the hypothesis. There are anyway two facilities above midpoint, Beja, 3,64, and Castelo Branco, 3,65.

Hyp. - 3 – There is stress in prison system
It was said before, it is quite obvious there is stress in the prison system. The worst result came from wardens (Corpo da Guarda or Guardas), the best from Re-educadors (Técnicos Superiores) that nearly indicated «absense» of stress.

Hyp. - 4 - Stress is higher in Control units than in Pilot ones
It is confirmed too. Control units staff had higher stress levels, 3,20, while Pilot 3,40. Both average values are below midpoint, 3,50. However, there's an exception when we look at the values by professional category. Re-educators (Técnicos Superiores) had positive values in both type of units, 4,12 in Control and 3,98 in Pilot, which means too the only category feeling less comfortable in Pilot. The opposite happens to the remaining categories.
Something quite different happened to Clerks (Técnicos Administrativos). They had negative perception in Control units, below midpoint, but in Pilot the reality is not the same: 3,97 shows us there is an acceptable stress level, above midpoint.

Hyp. - 8 - Female employees are more open to a changing process than male ones
It is confirmed. Changing positive perception from female employees, 3,98 (above midpoint) against 3,29 from male ones (below midpoint) what suggests some discomfort.

What more may I say?

What more may I say? First, although the results have been somewhat residual, I am happy for having done this work. Statistically, we can find strong correlations and significance.

Have a look at two correlation tables and check. The more Authentizotic, the greater the Self-Efficacy perception. In a lower intensity, the same happens with stress levels.

Before finishing this overview, time to tell about some troubles I faced during this study, possibly with direct implications on the results.

1 - An interruption of PGISP's project has made me stand still, waiting for permission to apply my inquiries. This interruption happened under government orders and eventually had some consequences with regards to prison staff.
2 - Meanwhile, as I mentioned before, one unit has been extinguished, Castelo Branco Regional. So the number of Pilot units came to four, against five Control units.
3 - The large number of applied inquiries made people got tired. 45 minutes seems to be plenty of time.
4 - My inquiry had questions about climate and leadership, also PGISP inquiries, although different. This kind of repetition confused people by making them suspicious.
5 - Meetings. When I went to Alcoentre and Leiria units, there were staff meetings that prevented many employees from filling the inquiries.
6 – At last, Portuguese government made some changes that affected all the public administration, with regards to retirements, bonus, etc. This situation brought a lot of dissatisfaction at prisons staff.

And that's all. As I have told you before, this is a small overview of this work. If you would like to check any table you have to return to 4master, Portuguese version.

Thank you for your care, feel free to comment or to email me ruacas@gmail.com