In recent decades, many countries have witnessed the introduction of quasi-market regulation, predominantly in the field of personal services where social enterprises (SEs) and for-profit organizations (FPOs) increasingly compete. The goal of this article is to contribute to the SE and nonprofit literature by analyzing the influence of enterprises’ missions on the quality of low-skilled jobs and to the public policy literature by assessing job quality in quasi-markets. Specifically, we investigate job quality in FPOs and two types of SEs distinguished by their missions (work-integration social enterprises and home care services organizations). This analysis is based on a set of indicators developed to capture job quality and data collected through a questionnaire submitted to 600 workers from 47 enterprises. The results indicate that the distinction between FPOs and SEs does not explain all the differences in job quality across firms: Enterprises’ missions also matter.

Collaboration between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and public institutions, in accordance with the new public governance model, may contribute to actions by such organisations on behalf of both the co-production and co-construction of social services. The aim of this article is to assess the role of selected traits of NGO leaders in determining the chances of collaboration between NGOs and rural gmina offices in central, post-socialist Poland. The authors present the results of studies on selected subjective determinants of such collaboration, in which 104 leaders of NGOs from 29 rural gminas participated. Five independent research tools were implemented. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the role of selected traits of NGO leaders in determining the potential for collaboration between NGOs and rural gmina offices. The final model indicates that the potential for collaboration between an NGO and a rural gmina office increases alongside higher levels of education, social competences and locus of control and decreased control ideology among NGO leaders. On this basis, the authors formulate practical conclusions concerning the education of leaders of rural NGOs in post-socialist Poland.

Multiple-identity organizations possess identity characteristics that belong to different and potentially conflicting value systems. How exactly these identities are projected in such an organization’s external communication has hardly been investigated. Here, we present a method that provides a systematic way to analyse the projected identity of multiple-identity organizations. A quantitative content analysis of the annual reports of a Dutch multiple-identity organization shows the presence of its utilitarian and ideological identity through the years 1998–2016. Results suggest that the relatively strong emphasis on the ideological identity of the organization is not in line with the identity perceived internally. Contextual knowledge about changes in the leadership, stakeholders’ demands, and the annual turnover provides a more thorough understanding of the research results. This study shows the volatility of identity, and it supports the presupposition that multiple-identity organizations are flexible in adapting their identity to changing circumstances.

Food pantries typically operate in a partnership structure where they are primarily supported by a larger food bank. However, the ability to execute that mission through cooperative arrangements greatly depends upon accountability, a key dynamic that ensures partners are fulfilling expectations and key roles. This exploratory study utilizes qualitative interview data (n = 61) from a large food bank network to understand the extent to which a lead agency (i.e., a large food bank) meets expectations of accountability among partners. The interview results demonstrate that the extent to which expectations are met relate to different types of relationships between the lead agency and partner members. Furthermore, the ways in which partners assess the strengths or weaknesses of the food bank’s accountability reveal different types of relationships within the network, namely that of supplier–customer, supporter–customer, and supporter–collaborator.

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) sometimes disagree with their funders’ accountability requirements; however, their dependence on the funders’ resources makes it difficult to express their disagreement. This dilemma for NGOs may keep funders from substantively holding NGOs to account and cause mission drift for the NGOs. This paper analyzes an in-depth case study of an understudied scenario: how a newly founded NGO engages with multiple funders with varying competence in accountability practices. By analyzing a Chinese NGO’s accountability relationships with its funders, we found that the NGO’s responses varied according to its organizational interests and how it perceived the funders’ competence. Better trust meant better compliance. Therefore, to secure compliance, it is important to enhance NGOs’ trust in funders’ competence. Based on the findings, we suggest that funders be more aware of NGOs’ agency, be ready to engage in ongoing collaborative learning with NGOs and align NGOs’ interests with the accountability requirements.

This study addresses the research question: ‘What factors encourage neighbourhood associations to assume the roles of a service provider and a local government partner in urban governance?’ For that purpose, a survey with the title ‘Understanding the Roles of Neighbourhood Associations in Urban Governance’ was conducted with 154 representatives of neighbourhood associations in Seoul. Social capital theory, government failure theory, and third-party government theory offered a starting point in formulating hypotheses on the relationships between neighbourhood interactions, community characteristics, and the roles played by neighbourhood associations. This study finds that the social capital created by neighbourhood interactions and community characteristics facilitates neighbourhood associations to play the roles in urban governance.

This study analyzes the strategies displayed by non-governmental organizations in the social services sector to face the resource dependence on public administration in Southern Spain. We focus on the reorganization of the public subsidies system in Spain and its specific impact on the entities registered in Andalusia. In 2017, the Autonomous Communities assumed the management of a proportion of the subsidies with a charge to the Personal Income Tax for “social purposes,” which was previously managed by the General State Administration in its entirety. The case study combines the description of (a) the process of transferring the management of a line of subsidies from the state to the regional level, (b) the strategies of non-governmental organizations to face the context of instability and financial uncertainty, and (c) the impact of the regulatory bases of grant calls on programs implementation. First, the database with all the applications submitted in the calls of 2017 and 2018 is analyzed (n = 11,610 applications). Second, we describe the perception of the change in the management system, from the point of view of the third-sector social services entities. The combination of both strategies allows us to examine in detail the response of social service organizations to ensure the continuity of the budget and the continuity of services. The results show that the change in the management system gave rise to a wide debate among non-governmental social services organizations about the calls for grants managed by the regional government. However, the qualitative case study showed that the reaction of the entities has more to do with the needs of adaptation to an unstable, uncertain, and highly competitive financial environment, than with specific characteristics of grant calls.

This study explores challenges among inter-organizational managers in community-based enterprises. According to transaction cost theory (TCT), associated transactions and mechanisms control and limit market failures within supply chain relationships. Using semi-structured interviews and an embedded case study, community-based supply chain managers participated in this study. Four salient themes capture the transactional issues that influence transaction costs in the community-based inter-organizational supply chain. This paper marks the first attempt to conceptualize the role of transactional issues in the community-based supply chain design. The study uses TCT to evaluate the applicability of supply chain challenges and the need for shared value creation in community-based contexts. The research acknowledges that limitations exist due to the scope and extent of research.

Government–nonprofit relations in China have transformed over the past three decades. Building on policy instrument theory, this article explores which policy instruments have been used to steer nonprofits at the central level and how the use of policy instruments has changed over time. This article is based on a content analysis of 300 central-level policy documents for nonprofits using NVivo. The results show that 22 kinds of policy instruments have been used to steer nonprofits. A steep upward trend is evident in the use of four categories of policy instruments for nonprofits: authority, incentive, information, and organization. Policy instruments for nonprofits have advanced in diversity, emphasizing indirect control. The central government continues to show a significant predisposition toward regulatory instruments, which have evolved from ex ante regulation to process and ex post regulation. This article contributes to the public management literature by identifying which policy instruments governments use to shape government–nonprofit relations.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the moderating effect that the level of development of countries exerts on the factors that define the behavior of social entrepreneurs, distinguishing the effect produced in innovation-driven economies from that in factor/efficiency-driven economies. Our study contributes to the advancement of one of the most relevant problems detected in social entrepreneurship research: the lack of empirical quantitative studies, mainly due to the lack of harmonized and comparable international data. We perform an empirical multivariable analysis using 2015 Global Entrepreneurship Monitor data related to social entrepreneurship. The results show that both the variables that measure the values and skills to start a business and those related to the environment differentiate social from commercial entrepreneurs. In addition, our findings show how the development of the country plays a decisive moderating role, modifying the effect of the values and skills to be a social entrepreneur, the influence of gender, and even the relevance of entrepreneurs’ perception of their environment.

This study seeks to evaluate whether interorganizational trust and interpersonal trust influence the nature of state control in Brazilian public/non-profit partnerships (PNPs) by considering the social organization model with a non-profit partner that did not evolve organically from civil society as an equal and interdependent partner but instead was engineered by the state. We conducted qualitative research on two PNPs and analysed their historical trajectories through participant observation, documentary analysis and semi-structured interviews with the state and non-profit partners as well as other actors involved indirectly in the PNPs. Our findings call into question the assumption of current studies that trust tends to be built over time and reveal that PNPs embedded in state-dominant and low-social-capital contexts are more vulnerable to the effects of interpersonal trust. This vulnerability influences the volatile patterns of the PNPs’ trajectories and leads to strong informal state-partner control as reflected by PNP disruptions and lower levels of interorganizational trust.

Social movement studies and studies on civil society and, related to them, studies on voluntarism and the third sector, are burgeoning fields of knowledge, which have, however, only rarely interacted with each other. In fact, social movement scholars have devoted little attention to the concept of civil society, not even when addressing issues of “social capital”. Vice versa, civil society scholars have, with few exceptions, not considered social movements as cognate phenomena. This is all the more puzzling as there is instead ample theoretical and empirical overlapping, which calls for the building of bridges between these fields of study. In political and media discourse some organizations, individuals or events are defined interchangeably as linked to either social movements or civil society. In the social sciences, however, the core conceptualizations have pointed towards different elements as characterizing these phenomena. In particular, social movement studies can contribute to the literature on voluntarism a toolkit of concepts and theory oriented to understand social and political conflicts, learning from the literature on voluntarism about conceptions and practices of solidarity. In this article, I will address some (potential) interactions between the two fields, looking at differences and similarities in the conceptualizations of the two phenomena as well as in their empirical analysis as they have developed in time. I will first of all address conceptualizations in these cognate fields with attention to their theoretical developments. Then, I will point towards some recent trends that have blurred the distinction between social movements and civil society, voluntarism and third sector policies, looking in particular not only at more established analyses of NGOization of social movements, but also, and especially, of what can be defined as an SMOization of civil society—that is, the hybridization of more established civil society organizations into social movement organizations, especially when facing politicization in times of crises and increasing criminalization of solidarity activities.

The aim of this research was to explore whether several types of innovations were related to relevant measures of nonprofit organizations’ financial performance. Data on innovations were collected via a survey of nonprofit human service organizations. Financial performance indicators were obtained from IRS 990 forms. The results showed that technological innovation was not a significant predictor of financial performance. Organizational innovation was a significant predictor of total assets, total revenues, and ER. Based on the results of this study, practice implications are discussed along with suggestions for future research.

While many scholars have postulated the decline of membership influence as an important consequence of the professionalisation of civil society organisations (CSOs), other analysts have argued that traditional membership-driven CSOs are resilient and that hiring professionals does not necessarily diminish membership influence. This study sheds light on this issue by analysing membership influence in a representative sample of approximately 2000 CSOs from five European countries and the European level. As members generally have a strong influence on CSOs’ policy positions, our analysis demonstrates that the pessimistic tone in much contemporary scholarly work is largely unwarranted. On the contrary, hiring professionals does not invariably decrease membership influence and can, when members are closely engaged in advocacy work, even facilitate it.

Research on differences between public, for-profit, and nonprofit providers of welfare services has provided mixed findings, depending on welfare state arrangement, regulation, and service area. This paper’s objective is to study the differences between public, nonprofit (cooperatives and other nonprofits), and for-profit welfare providers from the perspective of the users in the tightly regulated Scandinavian context. We ask how the users perceive the providers from different sectors differently and how this variation can be explained. The study relies on a large-scale survey carried out in 2015 in the city of Oslo, Norway. From the survey, we identify the two main results. First, despite limited differences, users of nonprofit kindergartens are generally more satisfied than users of for-profit and public kindergartens. Second, an important explanation for variations in user satisfaction among kindergartens is identified in a pocket of regulatory leniency: the quality of food service. This is the only expense that varies among kindergartens in Norway. These results indicate that more lenient regulations could potentially increase provider distinctiveness. Based on the existing literature, we discuss why nonprofit providers seem to fare better in the minds of users than public and for-profit providers.

This paper tries to explain why similar International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) have different scopes under the new regulatory law in China. While previous studies have often associated fragmented authoritarianism with more room for civil sectors, the unintended consequence has been largely ignored. The paper argues that while civil sectors benefit from decentralized bureaucratic politics, the conflict between bureaucracies may also become an obstacle. This argument is based on a comparative case study of two similar INGOs whose missions are to solve poverty issues. While World Vision International had difficulties becoming a national organization after establishing several provincial offices with the help of local authorities, Oxfam succeeded and received permission from CPAFFC because it terminated collaboration with other local authorities, which put CPAFFC at ease. The interviews illustrate that competition among different departments and concerns about political risk lead to different outcomes for civil society. Government agencies will doubt an INGO’s willingness to commit to a new relationship if it has too many partners. This implication reveals the complex effects of fragmented bureaucracy on INGOs. The decentralized political structure may lead to different outcomes for INGOs. It is necessary for INGOs to understand the political logic of the new INGO law so that they can choose the proper strategy to maximize their benefits.

In this study, we examine the key management and scientific traditions that inform the logical framework, a project planning and evaluation tool that is central to how many non-governmental organizations (NGOs) manage their projects and provide accounts to funders. Through an analysis of USAID reports from the 1960s and 1970s, interviews with the logical framework’s developers, and a close reading of seminal texts, we identify how systems theory, management by objectives, and scientific theory informed how USAID problematized its project planning and evaluation practices and how they came to be inscribed into the logical framework as a way to address such perceived problems. We argue that these traditions are important for understanding a particular strand of managerialization that informs international development NGOs, and, more generally, for understanding how funding agencies “see” through the logical framework.

Growth in businesses affects economic development. Over the last decade, the people looking for business opportunities, either establishing an enterprise or contracting franchise business, are also found impressed by corporate social responsibility (CSR) and voluntarism. This paper is aimed to critically analyze the literature on international entrepreneurship and franchising. Based on the analysis, this paper develops propositions related to differences and similarities between the two concepts. It uses the exploratory method to compare the entrepreneurship and franchising, across the national borders. Taking the international view, an association in the approaches can be benefited from this paper which highlights the key areas that can be useful for investment decisions of prospective investors. Theoretically, this paper contributes to strengthening the need to consider the tradeoff between inputs and outputs of both ways of investments and conceptualize innovative entrepreneurship with a CSR perspective.

News reporting typically has a dual function: it mirrors what is going on in real life, but it also shapes how actors behave. Previous studies suggest that media presence, by way of shaping public and policy perceptions, influence how well nonprofits are able to raise funds and mobilize human resources. Yet, we are lacking insights into how the third sector is actually framed in the media, in particular with regard to innovation, which increasingly complements the more traditional functions of advocacy and service provision. To find out, we performed a longitudinal content analysis and an in-depth framing analysis on national and regional newspapers from nine European countries. The analyses demonstrate that third sector activities, especially those related to social innovation, are largely ignored. We find no systematic evidence that crises increase news attention to nonprofit activities. The third sector is becoming more newsworthy when it co-engages with government and business actors, but can benefit only little from this “positive glow”. We suggest how research on these matters can be taken forward, with a specific focus on the agenda-setting theory of mass media, the strategic management of nonprofit organizations, and collaboration in the context of social innovation.

Philanthropic participation is a stepping stone to integration for immigrants. However, the philanthropic participation behavior of Chinese internal immigrants, the largest immigrant group in the world, is not well understood. Data from the Special Survey on Social Integration and Mental Health of the Chinese Immigrant Population are employed to examine philanthropic participation among Chinese internal immigrants based on the perspective of integration. The study demonstrates that Chinese internal immigrants are less likely to engage in philanthropic activities than non-immigrants in China. The regression results suggest that, with the exception of social security, integration factors at the economic level are not important drivers to participate in philanthropic activities, while integration factors at the social, psychological and cultural levels, including social networks, social identity and acculturation, are positively related to philanthropic participation. In addition, social integration circumstances, including perceived inclusion and community services, are significant drivers of immigrants’ philanthropic participation. These findings improve our understanding of the philanthropic behaviors of Chinese internal immigrants and have important policy implications for government and NPO to promote immigrants’ philanthropic engagement.