”Strategies when facing a silver tsunami” -an explorative case study on the process of organizing a Village, in the Village-movement.

Abstract

The aim of the study was to explore the organization of two Villages in the Village-to-Village network. The network consists of elder care organizations with the core principle of using older adults and volunteers to construct their organizations. A case study was made on two Villages in the USA. Data collections took place by visiting members, volunteers, staff and facilities but also through interviews with several people connected to the field. Data was later analyzed by applying a theoretical framework, based on the assumption that organizations are constructed entities, examining four stages in the process of organizing and finally comparing the cases.

The findings suggest that in order to construct a Village one has to start with the need of the member. In an adapting process the organization work will benefit from finding a common identity and through the resources of the members themselves, and/or volunteers and staff create an environment where the possibility to engage socially will be promoted. The reason for this is that the social dimension of coming together seemed to, both create identities inside the network, and attract people to the network. The need for further research was identified to be: observation of the actual process, research in how to leverage the social dimension into practical use, research in how to adapt the Village model to other ethnicities and lower economic classes and research in how we tell the stories of our organizations.