Effects of Transmission Delay on Client Participation in Video-Mediated Group Health Counseling

In face-to-face group counseling, active client participation contributes to the counseling agenda by a variety of social processes, but little is known about how video mediation shapes client participation. In this article, we use conversation analysis to investigate how transmission delay affects client participation in video-mediated group counseling through shaping the resolution of overlapping talk. Data are video recordings from three video-mediated group health counseling sessions recorded simultaneously in the two participating locations. The delay changes the timing of the overlapping turns and pauses at each end of the mediated counseling, making it difficult to interpret who should take the turn after the overlap. This may pose obstacles to client participation. While mediated counseling services can increase access to services and thus improve client participation at a macro level, transmission delay can pose threats to active client participation at the micro level of interaction.

Development of the Clients’ Perceptions of Providers’ Cultural Competency Instrument

Introduction: This study developed and validated the Clients’ Perceptions of Providers’ Cultural Competency instrument. Method: A sequential exploratory mixed design identified three constructs derived from the studies of Leininger and others. Constructs were compared with publications on cultural competency. A panel of experts reviewed for content validity. Results: Three hundred and nine mostly Asians and Native Hawaiians completed the questionnaire. Twenty-two items with item-to-total correlation coefficients >.2 were retained. Overall instrument Cronbach’s alpha was .89. Construct validity demonstrated the three constructs accounted for 49.6% of variance supported by distinct items with Cronbach’s alphas of .82, .83, and .76, respectively. Preliminary criterion validity revealed no statistically significant differences in scores based on the location of services received or race/ethnicity. Discussion: The Clients’ Perceptions of Providers’ Cultural Competency instrument is congruent with nursing principles of equity and justice by measuring provider cultural competency from a client’s perspective. Active client engagement in care contributes to transcultural nursing’s goals to improve health equity.

Managing Social Anxiety, Therapist Guide

This Therapist Guide presents information on the nature of social anxiety, empirically supported cognitive–behavioral techniques used to treat it, how to best implement these techniques, and how to deal with the problems that arise during treatment. The authors strive to offer a complete treatment that is informed by individual case conceptualization within an evidence-based practice framework. Socially anxious individuals commonly view anxiety as an all-or-nothing experience: Some people have excessive social anxiety, and others—healthy people—do not experience social anxiety. It is helpful for clients to begin to think of social anxiety on a continuum. In this treatment, collaborative empiricism is operationalized as an active therapist and active client working together to overcome social anxiety. The therapist brings expertise about social anxiety and cognitive–behavioral therapy. The client brings expertise about herself and the motivation to make changes in her life. For this treatment to be successful, the therapist must be comfortable with clients who may become extremely anxious.

Identifying client project manager competency in Indonesian construction project

The influence of active client involvement towards project construction success is gaining recognition in the last few decades. The growing concern on the client involvement has drifted the perception towards client away from the passive role into contributor of project success. During client involvement in the construction project, a representative from client or client project manager (CPM) should be complemented with certain competencies in order to succeed in commissioning construction projects. Evidence shows that some public construction projects in Indonesia failed due to the lack of competency of client project managers. Whilst most of the previous studies concern on the competency of general project managers, this paper specifically investigates competency of project manager from client side who works as a civil servant, and commissioning public construction sectors. This paper aims to identify the important competencies required by CPM in construction projects in Indonesia and examine current Indonesian CPM competency standard. Relative Importance Index (RII) was employed to assess the important level of competencies. The findings will enrich understanding on client project manager competency and become a basis to undergird further empirical research in client project manager development areas.

The active client: The boundary-spanning roles of internal consultants as gatekeepers, brokers and partners of their external counterparts

This article examines the active client of management consultancy as a key agent in managing and mediating knowledge flows across organizational boundaries. From a qualitative study of a particular case of active clients—internal consultants managing their external counterparts—three boundary-spanning roles are identified. Active clients can act as a gatekeeper, broker and partner with respect to both consultants and the knowledge they bring. These roles are shown to vary according to a client’s expertise, formal project responsibilities and personal reputation, as well as the different phases of consulting projects. They not only elucidate an otherwise neglected or static dimension of management consultancy—client activity—but highlight the dynamic and essentially political character of serving as knowledge barriers and/or bridges in the intermediation and co-production of management knowledge across organizational boundaries.

Inviting Participation in Organizational Change Through Ownership Talk

This article takes the practitioner’s view toward and focuses on participation through talk within multiparty settings of one process consulting case. From the perspective of discursive psychology, the authors ask what happens in interaction when the consultant is working to put into practice the ideal of active client participation in organizational change. They argue that participation is established when psychological ownership of the process is displayed through talk in interaction. This happens when what the authors call “ownership talk” is used: A person is sharing his or her views, interests, and experiences related to the change process.The authors provide detailed observations and interpretations about how local rules of displaying ownership talk are provided by the consultant and how they are negotiated, tested, and followed by the participants. The value of the ownership talk concept in developing theory and practices within the fields of organizational change, organizational development, and process consulting work is discussed.