Case management (CM) teams are playing a central role in the provision of community-based care to people with severe mental illness. However, there is little consensus about the appropriate goals of case management and the best means for attaining those goals. Various conceptual models of case management exist, but little research has documented the specific ideologies of care (i.e., systems of beliefs about the most appropriate goals and methods for attaining those goals) held by case management team members. The study being proposed will empirically determine these ideologies of care, assess the strength of team members' endorsement of various ideologies, and describe the extent to which CM teams have """"""""ideological cultures"""""""" (shared strong commitment to a particular ideology among team members). The organizational culture literature and research on work teams suggest that ideological perspectives will shape the services provided by the teams, the processes through which the team does its work, and the well-being of the team members. This study will examine these relationships, and will also assess the extent to which consumer outcomes are related to CM team members' ideologies of care. The research design entails collecting data using multiple methods (i.e., self-administered questionnaires and observational techniques) and from multiple sources (i.e., CM team leaders, other CM team members, research project staff observers). The inclusion of both survey data and observational data allows for cross-validation between the data sources and also allows the qualitative observational data to help illuminate the meaning of the survey results. In addition to using multiple methods and multiple sources, the research questions and measures are multi-level (i.e., individual team member and CM team). The participants in the study will be all of the case management teams that serve adults with SMI in two counties of Ohio (n = 60 teams, approximately 300 employees). All of the members of the 60 teams will be invited to participate in the survey data collection. For the observational data, a sample of 20 teams will be taken. Individuals' assessments of beliefs, practices, and team processes will be aggregated to the team level. The correlation between the aggregated self-reports of CM team members and the aggregated responses of the team observers (2 observers X 5 observations) will be calculated in order to cross-validate the team level team process measures. Factor analysis will be used to identify the structure of the ideologies of care. Multiple regression analysis and structural equation models will be used to assess the magnitude of the hypothesized relationships at both the individual level and the team level.
