Transforming Social Regularities in a Multicomponent Community-Based Intervention: A Case Study of Professionals'...

This paper presents an in-depth case study of the dynamic processes of mutual adjustment that occurred between two professional teams participating in a multicomponent community-based intervention (CBI). Drawing on the concept of social regularities, we focus on patterns of social interaction within and across the two microsystems involved in delivering the intervention. Two research strategies, narrative analysis and structural network analysis, were used to reveal the social regularities linking the two microsystems. Results document strategies and actions undertaken by the professionals responsible for the intervention to modify intersetting social regularities to deal with a problem situation that arose during the course of one intervention cycle. The results illustrate how key social regularities were modified in order to resolve the problem situation and allow the intervention to continue to function smoothly. We propose that these changes represent a transition to a new state of the ecological intervention system. This transformation appeared to be the result of certain key intervening mechanisms: changing key role relationships, boundary spanning, and synergy. The transformation also appeared to be linked to positive setting-level and individual-level outcomes: confidence of key team members, joint planning, decision-making and intervention activities, and the achievement of desired intervention objectives.