Application of Scenario-based Approaches in Leadership Research: An Action Research Intervention as Three Sets of Interlinked Practices

Abstract

This article illustrates how scenario planning (SP) and scenario analysis as can be conceptualised as practices contributing to an action research (AR) investigation of leadership development. The project described in this article was intended to strengthen leadership capacity in Australia’s rapidly changing aged care and community care sector. A research team comprising academics from three universities and managers from two faith-based not-for-profit organisations providing aged and community care participated in this study. As part of the research, two sets of scenario-based workshops were held: the first, to identify possible futures using SP; and the second, to deal with plausible scenarios these organisations are likely to face with the changes happening in the aged care environment in Australia by using scenario analysis. Although the researchers did not consider a link between practice theory and AR during the SP phase, practice theory became useful during the scenario analysis phase. The article includes a brief literature review followed by a discussion on the relationship between AR and practice theory. The processes used in the two sets of scenario workshops are then described in detail along with the data collected and analysed. The article concludes with some reflections on the use of scenarios in practice as well as an acknowledgment that practice theory would be useful in investigating leadership capability development.

Appendix: Sample Scenarios

BCS, Morning Session, Scenario

Recruitment and Retention of Staff

The Federal Government has just handed down its Budget for 2011 and its major focus is on job creation with significant funding going to training of the long-term unemployed, persons with a disability and young people. Your organisation has the opportunity to be involved in providing cadetships and training programs to boost staffing levels and skill mix in your facilities. In light of these training opportunities your organisation has decided to review its processes for recruitment, selection and retention of staff. You have been given the opportunity to participate in this process and have been encouraged to bring innovative and new ideas to the table. Your employer would like the focus of this review to include planning and solutions in the medium and long term that respond to predicted future increases in clients requiring care due to population ageing and increasing rates of disability and chronic disease.BCS, afternoon session, scenario

It is 1 July 2012.

Following an extensive investigation of options for aged care reform and the development of a new industry blue-print by the Productivity Commission, the minority Federal Government developed legislation to enact the key components of the Commission’s findings.

Regrettably, the legislation did not pass the House of Representatives when it went to the vote in June because the opposition and some independents voted against it. Several issues key to the reform package had become divided along party lines including:

• The plan to abolish Residential Aged Care bed licences and restrictions on the number of community care packages after 2017 and the opening of the market to competition from any eligible provider. The need for aged care recipients to contribute more to the cost of their care and accommodation (except supported residents)

• Allowing accommodation bonds for all Residential Aged Care and removal of the distinction between high and low care.

• The reverse mortgage proposal was labelled “A great big new death tax”.

Due to the failure of these reforms, the existing weaknesses of the aged care system will only get worse:

• It is increasingly uneconomic to build new high care beds or to replace or upgrade ageing buildings used for high care—services already lose more than $18 per day on average for every high care bed they have (with the exception of ‘extra services’ beds)

• Government funding has not kept up with increases in costs, especially labour and energy costs, for many years and more than 70 % of services nationally are now operating in deficit

• The demand for low care has been dropping because of the increased availability of in-the-home support. Not only are vacancy rates increasing but the amount held in accommodation bonds is reducing fairly rapidly.

• The availability of Community Care packages to address the rapidly growing and higher care needs of the ageing Australian community will remain constrained and unable to meet demand.

• The funding (both government and private) that would have enabled the payment of more competitive wages to care staff will not become available.

Incidentally, a medium sized for-profit aged care provider in Victoria has recently appointed administrators because of trading difficulties. The administrators have declared the services to be unviable and are now seeking to sell the assets which include some services on valuable inner-city land.

You are part of the executive management team of a medium sized faith-based aged care provider in NSW. How will you respond to the circumstances in which the industry now finds itself? LCC, morning session, scenario

In 2011 the Productivity Commission released a detailed options paper for redesigning Australia’s aged care system to ensure it can meet the challenges facing it in the coming decades.

The Australia Government, in its consideration of the Productivity Commission’s recommendations, endorsed some but not all of the options that were proposed. The reforms that were endorsed include the following:

• 1. Changes to regulatory restrictions on community care packages and residential aged care bed licenses:

  • a. Removing restrictions on the number of community care packages and residential bed licenses;

  • b. Removing the distinction between residential high care and low care places;

• 2. Changes to regulatory restrictions on residential accommodation payments:

  • a. Introducing accommodation bonds for all residential care that are uncapped and reflect the standard of the accommodation;

• 3. Changes to co-contributions across community and residential care:

  • a. Co-contribution rate set by government;

  • b. Means testing co-contributions according to the ability of the client to pay;

  • c. Placing a lifetime limit on co-contributions so that excessive costs of care cannot totally consume an older person’s accumulated wealth—the limit determined by an independent regulatory commission;

• 4. Provision of residential care to those of limited means:

Providers required to make available at proportion of their accommodation to supported residents;

This obligation will be tradable between providers within the same region;

• 5. Introduction of a single gateway into the aged care system

  • a. The establishment of an Australian Seniors Gateway Agency that provides information, assessment, care coordination and carer referral services delivered via regional networks;

• 6. Consumer choice

  • a. Individuals can choose which approved provider or providers they wish to access in order to obtain the specific services that the Gateway Agency decides they are entitled to;

  • b. Block funding of programs will be replaced with funding according to consumer entitlement at the individual level;

• 7. Housing regulation

  • a. De-coupling of regulation of retirement villages and other specific retirement living options from regulation of aged care;

• 8. Workforce

  • a. Promotion of skills development of aged care workforce through expansion of courses to provide aged care workers at all levels with the skills they need.

Key recommendations that were not endorsed included the following:

• Increased remuneration for the paid aged care workforce;

• Establishment of an Australian Pensioners Bond scheme to allow age pensioners to contribute proceeds from the sale of their primary residence, exempt from the assets test and income deeming rate, and able to be drawn upon to fund living expenses and care costs;

• Establishment of an Australian Government backed equity release scheme to assist older Australians to meet their aged care costs whilst retaining their primary residence; and

• Increased subsidy for approved basic standard of residential care accommodation.

As a leader in your organisation, you are responsible for guiding the organisation through this change process.

LCC, Afternoon Session, Scenario

(Note that this is similar, though not identical, to the second BCS scenario.)

It is 1 July 2012.

Following an extensive investigation of options for aged care reform and the development of a new industry blue-print by the Productivity Commission, the minority Federal Government developed legislation to enact the key components of the Commission’s findings.

Regrettably, the legislation did not pass the House of Representatives when it went to the vote in June because the opposition and some independents voted against it. Several issues key to the reform package had become divided along party lines including:

• The plan to abolish bed licences in residential aged care after 2017 and the opening of the market to competition from any eligible provider

• The need for aged care recipients to contribute more to the cost of their care and accommodation (except supported residents).

• The abolition of accommodation bonds and their replacement by periodic payments.

• The reverse mortgage proposal was labelling “A great big new death tax”.

Due to the failure of these reforms, the existing weaknesses of the aged care system will only get worse:

• It is increasingly uneconomic to build new high care beds or to replace or upgrade ageing buildings used for high care—services already lose more than $18 per day on average for every high care bed they have (with the exception of ‘extra services’ beds).

• Government funding has not kept up with increases in costs, especially labour and energy costs, for many years and more than 70 % of services nationally are now operating in deficit.

• The demand for low care has been dropping because of the increased availability of in-the-home support. Not only are vacancy rates increasing but the amount held in accommodation bonds is reducing fairly rapidly.

Incidentally, a medium sized for-profit aged care provider in Victoria has recently appointed administrators because of trading difficulties. The administrators have declared the services to be unviable and are now seeking to sell the assets which include some services on valuable inner-city land.

You are part of the executive management team of a medium sized faith-based aged care provider in Queensland. How will you respond to the circumstances in which the industry now finds itself?