Institutional Pressures and Organizational Capacity: The Case of Outcome Measurement1

A central claim of new institutional theory is that organizations in a field come to exhibit shared characteristics over time. Recent literature emphasizes variation across field members, but has yet to concur on why differences occur. This study tests institutional explanations for the uneven implementation of one organizational practice—outcome measurement, an evaluative technique used to assess the impact of an organization’s programs. We analyze data from a new survey investigating the practices of nonprofit organizations (N = 379) and argue for the inclusion of the concept of organizational capacity to account for the uneven implementation of outcome measurement. As predicted by new institutional theory, organizations are more likely to adopt outcome measurement if key actors promulgate its use. However, the implementation of outcome measurement is best explained by the addition of the concept of organizational capacity alongside variables drawn from new institutionalism. Nonprofits with adequate organizational capacity, operationalized—following Weber’s concept of bureaucracy—as the presence of written rules and members with specialized knowledge, are better able to respond to isomorphic pressures to implement a new organizational practice. Our findings expand scholarship that examines the intersection of institutional dynamics and organizational traits in accounting for patterns of implementation of practices across an organizational field.     

On the same page: The value of paid and volunteer leaders sharing mental models in churches

We examine the idea that mental models shared among paid and volunteer leaders are associated with improved financial performance in nonprofit organizations. Our empirical analysis of thirty‐seven churches yields evidence that organizations are more effective if paid and volunteer leaders have a shared task mental model—that is, if they report similar conceptualizations of organizational goals and decision‐making processes. These findings suggest that the extent of leaders' agreement on organizational goals and the processes of how decisions are made matter for organizational performance. We argue that it is as important to ensure that everyone is on the same page with regard to goals and how decisions are made as it is to have the “right” goals or right decision processes in place. Implications for practice and future research on shared mental models are discussed.     

Structure and accountability a study of national nonprofit associations

In the 1990s, the integrity and performance of nonprofit organizations in the United States have come increasingly under attack, and there are new calls to hold nonprofit organizations more accountable for their behavior and performance. This article reports on a study of the organizational structures of national nonprofit associations and asks how these umbrella organizations can help to self-regulate the sector through appropriate checks and balances between the national organization and local affiliates. The authors identify a number of differences in how associations with alternative structures hold local affiliates and national organizations responsible for their performances, and they conclude that structure is an avenue of self-regulation for nonprofit organizations deserving further attention.     

Measuring to Improve Versus Measuring to Prove: Understanding the Adoption of Social Performance Measurement Practices in Nascent Social Enterprises

Social enterprises are described as organizations with dual objectives—social and commercial. While the measurement of commercial performance is relatively straightforward and well understood, our understanding of the factors related to measuring social performance is more ambiguous. Is the adoption of social performance measurement (SPM) practices more related to external pressures, such as the need to demonstrate legitimacy to funders and peers, or is it more closely related to the growing rationalization within the social sector? We examine the relationship between external and internal factors and the adoption of SPM using a novel dataset of 1864 nascent social enterprises from around the world. Our findings suggest support for the argument that the adoption of SPM in social enterprise is related to the growing rationalization of the social sector, which challenges some of the past research on this topic, and provides a more nuanced perspective of SPM in social enterprise.     

Combined Effects: The Influence of Organizational Form and Structural Characteristics on Contract Performance in Mixed Sector Markets

Social service contracting to nongovernmental organizations is popular form of privatization across the world. Although nonprofits are preferable social service providers for legal and normative reasons, governments in the United States increasingly rely on for-profit organizations to deliver social services. This trend warrants further exploration about whether nonprofits or for-profits perform according to theoretical expectations when they exist in the same market. This study employs qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) to examine how sector-public, nonprofit, and for-profit-combines with structural variables to produce acceptable contract performance in juvenile justice programs. QCA is a discovery-oriented research tool that determines whether combinations of variables within cases produce a specific outcome and whether those combinations are consistent across cases. I find sector is not a necessary or sufficient predictor of acceptable performance on its own. Rather it combines with market factors to lead to acceptable contract performance. Combinations vary by sector, indicating that sectors behave differently in similar circumstances. The primary theoretical contribution of this paper is to provide a nuanced account of contract performance in mixed sector markets.     

Leadership succession and the performance of nonprofit organizations: A fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis

Leadership succession is critical to the performance of nonprofit organizations. Existing research has mostly treated leadership succession as an instantaneous event, and it has examined the independent effects of certain factors on organizational performance. However, little research has focused on the combinations of causally relevant factors. This article integrated organizational life cycle, resource dependence, and institutional theories, as well as the organizational fit literature, to explain how contextual and strategic factors combine to affect postsuccession performance. A fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to analyze 15 succession events in Chinese environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The study identified four pathways to good NGO performance after succession. It also highlighted that it is not succession per se but the succession context (i.e. founders' control, board governance, professionalization, and political environment) and the strategic orientations of the successor that affect postsuccession performance in nonprofit organizations.     

Role ambiguity and volunteer board member performance in nonprofit sport organizations

We explore the relationship between multidimensional role ambiguity and individual board member performance within nonprofit voluntary sport organizations. Role ambiguity accounted for 29 percent of the variance in perceived board member performance, and ambiguity about one's responsibilities was the strongest predictor. These findings extend our understanding of the drivers of individual board member performance within voluntary sport organizations and the multidimensional nature of role ambiguity. The study supports previous arguments that knowing what to do is fundamental to one's performance, and more critical than knowing how to do it, and what difference it makes.     

The devil is in the details: Implementing secular outcome measurement methods in faith‐based organizations

Faith‐based organizations (FBOs) are now being encouraged to seek federal funding for the purpose of supporting faith‐based delivery of social services in local communities (that is, the Compassionate Capital Fund). This shift in the federal perspective has resulted in increased attention to the effectiveness of the services provided by FBOs. Though rigorous demonstrations are needed to determine the relative effectiveness of FBO services, other available alternatives offer a viable avenue to aid FBOs in improving their programs and monitoring their success. One such alternative is the use of outcome measurement techniques, such as those that have been infusing the nonprofit sector in the United States since the mid‐1990s, particularly among United Way–funded programs. This chapter discusses how to adapt secular outcomes measurement approaches to faith‐based organizations and their programs and the likely pitfalls that FBOs will face.     

Pandemic and macho organizations: Wake‐up call or business as usual?

The COVID‐19 pandemic is one of the greatest challenges of our generation. The global spread of the virus is affecting societies’ gender dynamics in general and in organizations in particular. Based on ethnographic research being carried out in a police organization in Brazil, this piece discusses how COVID‐19 is impacting hegemonic masculinity in organizations. Police organizations are prototypical hegemonic masculinity organizations. I argue that the COVID‐19 pandemic at first encouraged the performance of the typical police macho masculinity, but as the disease progressed, it created a situation that challenged it. I explore that even though the pandemic threatens macho masculinity in organizations, it is still unclear if an alternative gender dynamic will emerge from this crisis in macho organizations.     

Information Technology,Adaptation and Innovation in Nonprofit Human Service Organizations

This report examines how two measures of performance—adaptation and innovation—can be predicted by the use of digital communication. It suggests that information technology in nonprofits offers strong leverage for adaptation but not for innovation. This suggests that (a) the two measures are dissimilar in both their nature and their relevance to organizational performance in nonprofit settings, (b) that service organizations are more likely to use information technology for adapting to change, and (c) it is probable that large and well-founded organizations will use IT for establishing innovations.     

Using performance standards to evaluate social programs with incomplete outcome data. General issues and application to a higher education block grant program

The idea of program evaluation is both simple and appealing. Program outcomes are measured and compared to some minimum performance standard or threshold. In practice, however, evaluation is difficult. Two fundamental problems of outcome measurement must be addressed. The first, which we call the problem of auxiliary outcomes, is that we do not observe outcome of interest. The second, which we call the problem of counterfactual outcomes, is that we do not observe the threshold standard. This article examines how performance standard should be set and applied in the face of these problems in measuring outcomes. The central message is that the proper way to implement standards varies with the prior information an evaluator can credibly bring to bear to compensate for incomplete outcome data. By combining available data with credible assumptions on treatments and outcomes, the performance of a program may be deemed acceptable, unacceptable, or indeterminate.     

The Logic of A Co‐Operative Economy and Democracy 2.0: Recovering the Possibilities for Autonomy,Creativity, Solidarity,and Common Purpose

Over the past 30 years, the collectivist‐democratic form of organization has presented a growing alternative to the bureaucratic form, and it has proliferated, here and around the world. This form is manifest, for example, within micro‐credit groups, workers’ co‐operatives, nongovernmental organizations, advocacy groups, self‐help groups, community and municipal initiatives, social movement organizations, and in many nonprofit groups in general. It is most visible in the civil society sector, but demands for deeper participation are also evident in communities and cities, and the search for more involving and less bureaucratic structures has spread into many for‐profit firms as well. Building on research on this form of organization, this article develops a model of the decisional processes utilized in such organizations and contrasts these “Democracy 2.0” standards for decision making from the Democracy 1.0 (representative and formal) standards that previously prevailed. Drawing on a new generation of research on these sorts of organizations, this article and this special section discuss: (a) how consensus decisional processes are being made more efficient; (b) how such organizations are now able to scale to fairly large size while still retaining their local and participatory basis; (c) how such organizations are cultivating a more diverse membership and using such diversity to build more democratic forms of governance; (d) how such organizations are combatting ethnoracial and gender inequalities that prevail in the surrounding society; and (e) how emotions are getting infused into the public conversations within these organizations and communities.     

Administrators as information brokers: A managerial perspective on naturalistic evaluation

The managerial perspective on justifying conclusions from naturalistic evaluation is based on how administrators function as brokers who exchange, highlight, and interpret information for others. Information brokering is particularly important within a cognitive perspective on organizations, and consists of process and outcome dimensions. Brokering processes include using evaluative information for conceptualizing, motivating action, and monitoring performance. Brokering outcomes refer to conceptual, instrumental, and symbolic results of information use. The combination of these dimensions results in a variety of substantive and methodological criteria that administrators might use to justify knowledge claims from program evaluation.     

The Who,Why, and How of Reinvention in Nonprofit Organizations

Although reinvention of government agencies is being extensively discussed, relatively little is known about the reinvention strategies of nonprofit organizations. This article reports survey results for a randomly selected group of nonprofit organizations from across the United States. We conclude that reinvention is being used as a management tool by nonprofit organizations and that it is affecting day‐to‐day operations. Regardless of how reinvention was implemented, these organizations generally view their reinvention activities as successful for increasing productivity, enhancing services, improving performance, and managing costs.     

Joint commission evaluation of behavioral health care organizations

The joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations has accredited behavioral health care organizations since 1957. Accredited behavioral health care organizations include organizations providing services to persons with psychiatric disorders, substance abuse disorders, or developmental disabilities/mental retardation; or, provide social services to other related populations. In the late 1980s, the Joint Commission initiated the redesign of accreditation to include performance measurement. Performance measurement initiatives include the IMSystem, Requests for Indicators, National Library of Healthcare Indicators, and a national Council on Performance Measurement. These initiatives are steps toward the integration of performance measurement data into the accreditation process.     

Mission Impossible?: Measuring Success in Nonprofit Organizations

The difficulty of measuring performance in the nonprofit sector has long been recognized. This article begins with a case study detailing how one organization, The Nature Conservancy, tackled the challenge of moving beyond measuring activity to measuring mission impact. After several false starts, the Conservancy developed a model for measuring success, divided into three broad areas: impact, activity, and capacity. The article then presents data from interviews with leaders of thirty other leading nonprofits, who reveal how their organizations measure performance in these three areas. It concludes with some lessons learned about performance measurement in the nonprofit sector.     

Can't Buy Me Love: Gift-Giving Among Members of Criminal Organizations

This paper problematizes gift relations in criminal organizations. It adopts a symbolic interaction perspective to focus scholarly attention on the way in which actants skillfully maneuver within the social expectations inherent in gift-giving relations. The study is based on insights from twenty interviews with ex-convicts and ten interviews with police officers or associates, and an in-depth analysis of memoirs, police reports, and newspaper articles. Our study expands the scope of symbolic interactionism by considering how the exchange of gifts and favors is emotionally stylized to achieve both social and operative goals. We aim to carefully deconstruct the performance of gift-giving and favor exchange in Israeli crime organizations, to understand how it is orchestrated to elicit genuine feelings among givers and recipients, as well as to control the use of violence. Finally, we identify gift-giving as a double-edged sword designed to lure recruits into a network of binding obligations, only to form a durable system of credit and debt wherein any transgressions are strictly punished.     

Faster,harder, longer,stronger – management at the threshold between work and private life: The case of work place health promotion

This paper studies Work Place Health Promotion at two international corporations as an example of an unobtrusive control that targets employees’ lifestyles. It uses Michel Foucault's concepts of neoliberal governmentality and post-disciplinary control to show how Work Place Health Promotion breaks with the disciplinary logic of control most commonly associated with studies of unobtrusive controls in organizations. While discipline is centripetal, correcting employees’ misconduct so that they freely keep within prescribed norms, Work Place Health Promotion is centrifugal, targeting employees’ lifestyles and promoting those existing faculties and inclinations that may increase their activity, performance and their health. It hereby emerges as less restrictive than organizational discipline, but also as more discriminating. For not only does it subject employees’ lifestyles to an economic logic of investment and disinvestment, it also contributes to an exclusion of employees that fail in this regard in the name of their lack of health.     

Give the Emperor a Mirror: Toward Developing a Stakeholder Measurement of Organizational Transparency

The concept of organizational transparency has vaulted to prominence in recent years. While the virtues of transparency have been tied to trust and credibility, there have been no efforts to measure this abstract concept. Guidelines exist to help organizations be more transparent, but the real test is how stakeholders perceive an organization's transparency. This paper focuses on developing a stakeholder measurement of organizational transparency. Factor analyses, structural equation models, and reliability alphas on the measurement items indicate the instrument measures three transparency reputation traits (integrity, respect for others, openness) and four transparency efforts (participation, substantial information, accountability, and secrecy).     

Make Poverty History: Political Communication in Action

The number of groups advocating on behalf of older people, their activities, and their influence suggest that a transnational advocacy network around aging is emerging, but there have been no attempts to study how dense this network is, nor how power is distributed within it. Through collective action frame analysis, this article explores whether organizations advocating on behalf of older people represent the variety of global aging experiences in both developed and less-developed contexts. The analysis relies on four types of evidence: documentary, survey, interview, and observation. Advocacy groups use a number of diagnostic, prognostic, and motivational frames. The findings support arguments in the literature that diverse collective action frames can be more of an asset than a liability because they increase the network's reach and resonance with multiple stakeholders. Although the aging advocacy network is not very dense, it is becoming denser because of the rise of the human rights master frame and the rally for a UN Convention on the Rights of Older People. The frame empowers the network to use its diversity to its advantage, since individual organizations can work for whatever piece of the human rights frame matches best with their organization's mandate. However, there are still major power imbalances within the network. While it is growing more inclusive of voices from less developed countries, global civil society remains a space for organizations with resources, which those organizations based in poorer countries simply do not have.