Since the first edition was published in 1992, there has been a tremendous amount of change in the arena of human services organizations. This book in many ways laid a critical framework of viewing human service organizations as a separate entity than mainstream organizations and management. It sets the foundation to view human services differently because human services organizations work on people and therefore have a different set of principles to take into consideration. It presented the idea of viewing human services organizations as organizations that process people as raw material (people processing or people changing).

The new edition will pay particular attention to the cultural perspective and social justice as well as the feminist approach and the view that human services organizations are gendered (i.e., that mostly women work in human services except for men in management). It also will address the issue of advocacy and agents of social change.