Navigating Complex Frontiers: Introduction to the Special Issue on “The Future of Human Service Organizational and Management Research”

Abstract

Research on human service organizations and managers is essential and is needed to support both practice and scholarship. In response to a proposed imbalance between the two (between what we do and what we know), this special issue presents 10 commentaries that identify longstanding practice dilemmas and suggest new avenues for practice and research in social work and related helping professions and disciplines. Review of the commentaries supports three interrelated themes: (1) increasing complexity facing the environment of practice; leading to (2) proposed approaches to managing complexity across levels of practice; resulting in (3) implications for the future of macro practice, research, and education. The introduction concludes with a brief reflection on the future of human service organizational and management research. The overall aim of our analysis and the special issue is to illuminate that which is often hidden in plain view.