The Meta Co-production of Community Outcomes: Towards a Citizens’ Capabilities Approach

This article contributes to the growing amount of literature on co-production, focusing on co-production of public outcomes and taking the perspective of local government and public managers. A model for explaining the dynamics of outcomes’ creation at the community level is provided. The core argument of the article is that community outcomes result from a sum of peer production, co-production and inter-organizational collaboration processes promoted and activated at individual, organizational and network level across the public, third and private sectors. Institutional, managerial and organizational implications are discussed. The article argues that local government and public managers are asked to play new roles and to employ a new ethos grounded in a citizens capabilities’ approach.     

Interprofessional collaboration in Swedish health and social care from a care manager's perspective

The aim of this study was to study interprofessional collaboration in health and social care for older people and persons with disabilities from a care manager's perspective. The empirical data was collected at a workshop held during a national conference for care managers and through focus group interviews in two Swedish municipalities. The results showed that the care managers collaborated in different ways with many different professionals from different organisations. The care and discharge planning meetings emerged as the most typical situation where care managers collaborated with different health care professionals. Interprofessional collaboration was seen as a means for care managers to fulfil their assignment and carry out their work. The care manager role encompassed role strain, a relatively weak professional identity, and differences in professional status among those involved in interprofessional collaboration.     

Becoming a Good Welfare Manager: Paternalistic Oppressive Othering and Neoliberal Boundary Maintenance

Using data from telephone interviews with 69 county welfare-to-work program managers in Ohio, we examine how individuals rely on paternalism and neoliberal ideology to construct themselves as “good workers” through two processes of identity work: oppressive othering and boundary maintenance. Program managers construct themselves as good workers through a process we call “paternalistic oppressive othering” in which managers draw on the dominant oppressive ideology of paternalism to present themselves as helpful. We also find managers draw on neoliberal ideology to legitimate the program and their work through a process we call “neoliberal boundary maintenance.”     

How does a board of directors influence within‐ and cross‐sector nonprofit collaboration?

Board members play a significant, yet largely unexamined, role in nonprofit collaboration. Processes, such as finding prospective partners, creating common ground with a partner, and establishing appropriate collaborative governance implicate nonprofit board members. In contrast to the scholarship of the role of interlocking directorates as potential networks for nonprofit collaboration, this paper examines the role of board members' social and human capital on nonprofit collaboration with other nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies. Drawing on online survey data from 636 nonprofit organizations, this paper finds that board social capital—but not board human capital—is positively related to the presence and number of within‐sector and cross‐sector nonprofit collaboration. However, board human capital enhances nonprofit‐government collaboration, when board social capital is also high. The results provide a novel perspective in nonprofit collaboration and board management research.     

Are partnership boards really valuing people?

Observations were conducted in three county councils to find out whether the government’s ambition to develop Learning Disability Partnership Boards (as expressed in the White Paper Valuing people) are being realized. All the partnerships practiced various inclusive activities in order to involve people with learning disabilities in public service strategies. However, there appeared to be limited opportunities for citizens to be involved in recommendations or decision‐making for their area. This concurs with other research elsewhere on the involvement of citizens in state provision, i.e. public participation in civic affairs remains in the control of public sector managers. The lack of opportunities for citizens to direct the allocation of resources and strategies at a local level, regardless of their ability to process information, emphasises the limits of New Labour’s citizen–public sector partnerships.     

NGOs’ Resource Capacity Antecedents for Partnerships

Nonprofit organizations strive for continuous improvement in their programs’ effectiveness and sustainability, service efficiency, and accountability. Typically, managers face the need to attain these objectives despite limited or declining resources. For that reason, collaboration with other organizations has become an increasingly favored tactical strategy. However, even with the extensive literature on collaboration, there is a lack of empirical testing of elements or characteristics essential to collaboration. Using survey data from environmental organizations, we find that organizations that have sufficient human resource capacity, more technological resources, and employ females at the leadership level would more likely seek collaboration than would other organizations. Organizations that generate higher internal revenues are less likely to seek collaboration.     

Government-NGO collaboration and sustainability of orphans and vulnerable children projects in southern Africa

Given current donor attention to orphans and children made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS, and the need for a new framework that recognizes the complementary roles of nations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), this analysis reviews NGO-operated community-based orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) projects in Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa, and Swaziland. There has been a lack of attention within the field of evaluation to inter-organizational relationships, specifically those with government agencies, as a factor in sustainability. We analyzed evaluations of nine OVC projects funded by the Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation for the influence of government-NGO collaboration on project sustainability. For eight of the nine projects, evaluations provided evidence of the importance of the government partnership for sustainability. Government collaboration was important in projects designed to help families access government grants, initiate community-based solutions, and advocate for OVC rights through legislation. Government partnerships were also critical to the sustainability of two projects involved in placing children in foster care, but these showed signs of tension with government partners. In addition to the more common factors associated with sustainability, such as organizational characteristics, donors and NGOs should concentrate on developing strong partnerships with local and national government agencies for the sustainability of their projects.     

Nonprofit cash holdings and spending: The missing role of government funding

Charitable nonprofit organizations have long been under scrutiny with regard to how they manage excess funds, particularly cash holdings. Given previous empirical evidence, agency problems have been treated as an effective lens to explain the consequences of cash holdings among nonprofits. That is, nonprofit managers spend cash holdings for their own interests as opposed to the social interests of the organization. This study revisits the question of how charities manage extra cash and further examines the role of government funding in nonprofits' spending decisions. The results suggest that nonprofit managers make decisions on how to manage extra cash in accordance with the level of cash holdings; therefore, agency problems do not effectively explain how nonprofits manage extra cash. Furthermore, the results illustrate two contrasting roles of government funding in nonprofits' financial behavior: government funding may be used to monitor unscrupulous behaviors among managers, but it may also restrain nonprofits from investing in human capital.     

The Strategic Management of Government Affairs in China: How Multinational Corporations in China Interact With the Chinese Government

This study addresses how multinational corporations (MNCs) interact with government by examining the strategic management of government affairs in 25 MNCs in China from the perspectives of public relations and corporate political activity. Twenty-seven qualitative interviews were conducted. Results show that 16 of the 25 MNC include their government affairs managers in strategic management. Government affairs contributes to the process by aligning their business goals with the development of policies and regulations. Government affairs managers play 4 roles in the process according to the level of regulation and the frequency of external environmental changes of the MNCs: the business developer, expert prescriber, senior advisor, and internal consultant. Government affairs specialists use direct and indirect sources to gather information relevant to environmental scanning. Results also suggest a positive relationship between the participation of government affairs in strategic management and excellence in government affairs. However, in addition to excellence in government affairs, organizational mechanisms of management, organizational expectation and culture, and the nature of the MNC's industry also affect the integration of government affairs with the overall strategic management.     

The embeddedness of social relations in inter-firm competitive structures

Collaboration with direct competitors is a valuable, yet risky, strategy that might pave the way for competitive advantages. Thus far, we have lacked a detailed understanding of how competitive relations between firms shape collaborative relations between their managers, and consequently the structural interdependencies at both levels. The primary objective of this study is to understand the multi-level structure underlying the ambiguous relationship of coopetition, a state of simultaneous collaboration and competition. Hence, we investigate the influence of perceived inter-firm competition on interpersonal knowledge flows among managers within three high-tech clusters by applying multi-level exponential random graph models to network data. Our results reveal that the interpersonal exchange of advice and information depends strongly on the inter-firm competitive structure and that competitive structures shape these interpersonal exchanges in different ways. Thereby, our research demonstrates that managers utilize asymmetries by means of perceived competitive relations to seek work-related advice and information from their competitors and that stronger forms of competition are significant, but not insuperable, obstacles to the exchange of knowledge.     

Inter-organisational collaboration in family-centred practice: A framework for analysis and action

Inter-organisational collaboration in the human services is challenging because of the multiple and complex nature of the inherent potential sources of conflict. In this paper, a conceptual framework is advanced for assessing the sources of conflict at five levels of analysis: (i) inter-organisational; (ii) intra-organisational; (iii) inter-professional; (iv) inter-personal; and (v) intra-personal. While yet to be systematically tested, this conceptual framework may assist practitioners, managers and policy makers in the human services to enhance collaboration across organisational and sectoral boundaries.     

POWER IN A RURAL COUNTY

To more fully understand power structures in rural settings, this article investigates the power structure of an economically depressed rural county in southwestern Pennsylvania. The power structure must be viewed in the context of the economic hard times that the county has confronted. In this regard, there has been a decline in the number of local economic notables over the years making the formation of growth machines unlikely. The most powerful individual in the county, a wealthy philanthropist, has enhanced his stature and influence in the community by forming an economic development organization in an attempt to improve the economic situation in the county. The other powerful individuals in the county are political or state actors, who have benefited from the increases in government funding for various social programs.     

Corporate funding of the arts in a turbulent environment

Focusing on funding in culture and the arts, the author identifies a distinctive logic of company support for nonprofit organizations. Business giving is increasingly disciplined around company objectives, giving levels are driven by pretax earnings, and giving decisions are the province of managers who draw advice less from the arts community or public agencies than from other companies. At best, turbulence in government funding has modest effect on corporate support. In turn, change in corporate support has little impact on public backing. The separate logics of corporate and government support imply separate and distinctive long-term development strategies for nonprofit organizations.     

Die Dynamik von Führung, Vertrauen und Konflikt in virtuellen Teams

The importance of virtual teams for collaboration of globally networked organizations has long been debated. But although this new form of division of labor appears in nearly all companies, which poses special challenges to managers and team members, scientific findings and recommendations have not sufficiently been integrated into practice so far. This article discusses on the one hand the challenges and opportunities of virtual teams, on the other hand wants by the presenting of scientific findings both provide food for thought, as well as concrete recommendations for implementation in practice.     

A University-Community Partnership to Change Public Policy

Abstract

This paper describes a project aimed at promoting major change in government policy toward the growing problem of food insecurity in Israel. The project was initiated by Ben-Gurion University in collaboration with community service and social advocacy organizations. This joint action led to a dramatic change in government activity. The problem of food insecurity moved from a state of obfuscation to the establishment of a special ministerial committee mandated to develop policy guidelines for a national school lunch program. For higher education to contribute to the community, necessary preconditions must exist: Is the faculty committed to promotion of social change? Do the organizational and community environments legitimize university-sponsored activity for such purposes? Is the faculty competent to act effectively in the community and adopt strategies for political influence? Are there organizational mechanisms, action frameworks, and community contacts that enable collaboration for the purposes of social change? This case discussion uses the analytical framework developed by Taylor (1985) to evaluate the preconditions for action and the processes involved in facilitating university-community collaboration for promoting policy change.     

The Blog-Mediated Crisis Communication Model: Recommendations for Responding to Influential External Blogs

Practitioners and academics are buzzing about the impact of the blogosphere on public relations practices. Emerging evidence indicates that strategically managing blog-mediated public relations may be especially critical for crisis managers. Yet, no known research provides a comprehensive, theoretically sound approach indicating how crisis managers should engage with the blogosphere. Therefore, this study proposes a new conceptual model to help public relations professionals navigate the evolving blogosphere: the blog-mediated crisis communication model. This model helps crisis managers monitor the blogosphere and respond, when appropriate, to influential bloggers. Future research will test the model in applied contexts, working with corporate, government, and nonprofit organizations.     

Legitimacy and the Role of UK Third Sector Organizations in the Policy Process

This paper explores the legitimacy of third sector organizations in the policy process in the United Kingdom. It draws on empirical research to examine how legitimacy is defined, both by third sector organizations and by those they target within government. The paper argues that while many third sector organizations give high priority to political forms of legitimacy—in the sense of participatory structures and accountability to members and beneficiaries—government is generally more likely to give priority to technical forms of legitimacy, e.g., the quality of research and the ability to implement policy. Nonetheless, political legitimacy is still important, first because this is the form of legitimacy that third sector organizations claim for themselves and second because, as government gives way to governance with an increase in partnerships and collaboration, the dilemmas faced by third sector organizations in achieving political legitimacy are being faced on a broader canvas.     

Government/Foundation Relations: A Conceptual Framework and Evidence from the U.S. Federal Government’s Partnership Efforts

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Interest in collaboration between government and private, grantmaking foundations has grown considerably in recent years...     

Net impact of government funding on nonprofit fiscal health: burden or benefit?

This study examines the impact of federal grant awards on the financial health of recipient nonprofits. Although a modest body of research finds that government grants are beneficial to nonprofit fiscal health, a large Urban Institute study (2010, 2013, 2015) found that nonprofit managers receiving government grants consistently report fiscal harm due to awards that do not cover all program costs, late payments, and significant administrative burden. Those findings raise the question of whether government funding leads to net benefits or net harm for organizations given the administrative and fiscal burdens identified. This study tests that question using a large panel of federal grants to estimate the impact of government awards on three measures of nonprofit financial health. We find that government grants promote an increase in nonprofit size, improve operating margins, and increase financial reserves for recipient organizations. These benefits endure after the receipt of the award.