Improving Delivery of Research-Supported Practices in Human Service Organizations: A Narrative Review of Organizational Dimensions in Dissemination and Implementation

Abstract

Dissemination and implementation (D&I) research has evolved as a major field of inquiry to close the research-to-practice gap in human service organizations (HSOs). The current review aims to support HSO practitioners and researchers by bringing greater awareness to organizational dimensions in D&I models that target organizational-level change. We conducted a narrative review of 118 D&I models with inductive (i.e. model-driven) and deductive (i.e. organizational theory-driven) approaches. Our review identified seven salient organizational dimensions: (1) Structural and material resources, (2) Organizational culture, (3) Organizational policies and procedures, (4) Leadership within organizations, (5) Collaboration across stakeholders, (6) Interaction with the external environment, and (7) Alignment between technology and organizational contexts. Our narrative review facilitates HSO practitioners’ organizational learning processes toward evidence-informed D&I efforts and contributes to D&I researchers’ conceptual considerations by capturing, synthesizing, and interpreting important organizational dimensions in HSOs’ D&I efforts.