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.     

Building the Capacity to Play on Multilevel Policy Processes: French Environmental Movement Organisations and the European Union

The European Union (EU) is a relevant case to address the dynamics of transnational politics, given the significance of the EU environmental legislation in member states. Infranational, national and supranational/EU decision-making arenas still co-exist, without completely overlapping. This study explores how the multilevel nature of the EU policy-making process is exploited by national environmental movement organisations (EMOs). Diverging from the explanation in terms of political opportunity structure or their resource basis, we examine EMOs that do not automatically adapt to the EU multilevel policy process. The discussion takes up the classic debate between grievances (intentionality) and resources (capacity) hypothesising that both are constructed in EMOs' actions and through their interactions with public authorities, allies and members. Within the analytical framework developed in this study, the organisation is viewed as a factor explaining EU activism by combining an endogenous action approach with classical resource mobilisation concepts. The ensuing longitudinal analysis compares the case of three French EMOs: France-Nature-Environnement, Friends of the Earth-France and Greenpeace-France.     

The Nonprofit Sector at a Crossroads: The Case of America

Despite some encouraging trends, America's nonprofit sector stands at a crossroads because of an interrelated series of challenges. Government budget cuts beginning in the early 1980s have eliminated a significant source of nonprofit revenues and created a serious fiscal squeeze for many organizations. Although the sector as a whole managed to replace this lost revenue, it has done so largely through fees and charges that have attracted for-profit businesses into traditional fields of nonprofit action, creating a serious economic challenge to the sector. Simultaneously, important questions have been raised about the effectiveness and accountability of nonprofit organizations, and about what some see as the overprofessionalization and bureaucratization of the sector. All of this has undermined public confidence in the sector and prompted questions about the basic legitimacy of the special tax and legal benefits it enjoys. To cope with these challenges, American nonprofits could usefully undergo a process of renewal that revives the sector's basic values, reconnects it to its citizen base, and creates a better public understanding of its functions and role.     

Identity and integration: The roles of relationship and retention in nonprofit mergers

Prior research suggests that nonprofits are flexible and possess multiple identities, although we know less about how transformative changes, such as mergers, shape nonprofit identity. This qualitative study draws upon in‐depth interviews from 13 nonprofit merger cases to explore factors that influence postmerger identity and integration. In particular, we focus on the roles of organizational similarity and relationships, program and personnel retention, and rebranding. Ultimately, we derive a typology of postmerger integration in nonprofits and suggest that postmerger identity may be classified in terms of absorption, preservation, or creation. Implications for nonprofit leaders are discussed.     

Embedded Systems: The Case of HIV/AIDS Nonprofit Organizations in New York City

In this paper the notion of an embedded system is developed as an analytic model to examine how state–nonprofit relations develop and become differentiated, using the case of HIV/AIDS nonprofit organizations. Drawing on extensive fieldwork among three prominent HIV/AIDS nonprofit organizations in New York City, this paper shows how the kinds of relationships these nonprofit organizations are likely to form with state agencies are based on their embeddedness in the state–nonprofit system of relations. Three forms of embeddedness are distinguished according to the type and regularity of state–nonprofit contact—direct, outsider, and mediating. Importantly, it is shown how the configuration of relations within which an organization is embedded determines many of the organization's constraints and opportunities.     

Strategic Management and Change in High Dependency Environments: The Case of a Philanthropic Organization

On the basis of a detailed, in-depth study of the operations and strategic decision-making of Centraide, a charitable organization in Greater Montreal, this paper suggests that dependency on the environment can be a stimulus to organizational adaptation. Two major changes over a 10-year period are studied to show that strategic management in high dependency situations requires a continual attention to the organization's relationships and interactions with the forces in its environment, and a continuous management of the process by which change takes place. The basic position advanced is that: strategy in philanthropic organizations is more effective in ensuring survival and growth when the search for autonomy is seen as irrelevant and when dependence is seen as an unavoidable fact that should shape behavior. A set of propositions helps conceptualize the findings and is offered as a guide for further research.     

Sociétés Coopératives d'Intérêt Collectif: The Arrival of Social Enterprise Within the French Social Economy

The French nonprofit sector has been in existence since July 1, 1901 when the legal form of associations was created. Since then, as a consequence of legal, fiscal, and cultural restrictions, it has developed characteristics that are markedly different to those of other nonprofit sectors. This paper focuses on one such characteristic that makes the French nonprofit sector virtually unique, that is the restrictions imposed on social entrepreneurism. It was not until July 17, 2001 that a new organizational form called Sociétés Coopératives d'Intérêt Collectif (SCIC) was created specifically to address this anomaly. This paper discusses the context within which this organizational form was created, and the potential advantages that it offers in respect to facilitating the development of social enterprises. The paper also explains why a specific organizational form was required and why it was placed outside the nonprofit sector. It concludes by identifying potential problems concerning organizational effectiveness in delivering socially beneficial services and the difficulties that may arise as a consequence of SCIC's unique governance structure.     

Integrated Social Accounting for Nonprofits: A Case from Canada

Whereas social accounting has been strong in its critique of conventional accounting, to date it has not been as effective in developing accounting frameworks consistent with its principles. This is particularly true for nonprofit organizations. The costs of nonprofits can be easily measured; however, not captured by conventional accounting is the value of their nonmonetized resources such as volunteers. This paper argues that social accounting for nonprofits would benefit by creating accounting statements that combine the economic and social impact of an organization (referred to as an integrated approach). After discussing some historic examples of integrated social accounting, the paper presents a Canadian case study in which the value added by volunteers of a nonprofit organization is combined with its financial statements in an Expanded Value Added Statement. By combining social and economic information, a very different performance story of the organization emerges.     

The Mobilization Against the 2005 Treaty Establishing a Constitution for Europe: A French Mobilization for Another Europe

ABSTRACT

Offering a contribution to cultural approaches to studying social movements, this paper explores how people incorporate social change efforts into broader self-projects. I use the contemporary abstinence pledge movement as an archetypal example of a lifestyle movement, a movement that advocates for lifestyle change as its primary challenge to perceived cultural problems. To capture the public face crafted by this movement, I coded complete website content for ten pledge organizations, as well as their print and social media presence. The data demonstrate: how pledge organizations explicitly target culture, rather than pressuring the state to enact policy change; how participants employ individualized tactics while still believing in their collective power to engender change; and that pledgers craft a moral self, engaging in ‘personal’ identity work. Expanding the lifestyle movement literature to think about outcomes and influence, I then show how pledgers contest perceptions of movement success, redefining effectiveness towards abstract, long-term, and subjective measures. I conclude by locating lifestyle movements in the context of late modernity and suggesting how theorists might use and further develop the concept in the future.     

Running on Empty: The Operating Reserves of U.S. Nonprofit Organizations

Operating reserves allow nonprofit organizations to smooth out imbalances between revenues and expenses, helping to maintain program output in the presence of fiscal shocks. We know surprisingly little about why nonprofits might save operating reserves and what factors explain variation between organizations' savings behavior. Findings suggest that operating reserves are reduced in the presence of concentrated public funds, access to debt, fixed assets, and endowment. However, size is not an important predictor, indicating that the lack of reserves is not limited to small nonprofit organizations but is instead a sectorwide issue. Significant numbers of nonprofits maintain no operating reserves at all. One potential explanation is that organizations discount the benefits of reserves because they are evaluated on spending, focusing instead on the “benefits of costs.” This preference for spending over reserving may also help explain the general lack of liquidity in the sector beyond operating reserves alone.     

The Profile of Board Membership in Israeli Voluntary Organizations

This study of 161 nonprofit organizations in Israel was aimed at exploring the composition of boards, the methods employed to recruit new board members, and the selection criteria of board members. The results suggest that boards tend to be closed, elitist circles. Most organizations use mainly informal means to recruit new board members. The most important selection criteria were those related to interpersonal relationships, willingness to contribute time, and expressing an interest in working for the organization.     

The Discreet Charm of the Nonprofit Form: Service Professionals and Nonprofit Organizations (Poland 1989-1993)

This paper examines the role of social proximity (nonprofit) organizations in the process of professional innovation that involved a transfer of human service technologies from Western Europe and the United States to Poland during the 1989 political–economic reform. To explain that role, the paper introduces a theoretical model that posits the existence of elective affinity between the social proximity form and occupational interests of service providers. As the existing system of professions is no longer sufficient to legitimate expert services and curb competition among different types of providers, the social proximity form bestows social legitimacy on novel or controversial types of services, and is thus instrumental in marketing those services. The proposed model is supported by quantitative data and in-depth interviews. Theoretical implications are discussed.     

The effects of scaling strategies on the scaling of social impact: Evidence from Chinese social enterprises

Conventional nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and social enterprises (SEs) face constant challenges when scaling their social impacts, especially in societies undergoing transformation, such as China, where NPO and SE ecosystems are still nascent. Whereas previous studies have identified various scaling approaches for SEs, empirical investigations of the linkages between scaling strategies and scaling performance are lacking. To address this gap, we conducted a quantitative study of 293 Chinese SEs to examine how the four types of scaling strategies brought about different scaling performances and how the results varied upon organizational form. Our results revealed that three of these scaling strategies, namely knowledge dissemination, organizational growth, and contractual partnerships, contributed positively and significantly to scaling performance, whereas capacity building had a positive but not statistically significant effect. Our results also indicated that the positive contributions of organizational growth and knowledge dissemination to scaling performance were reinforced in SEs organized as nonprofits. Moreover, the results indicated that SEs that deployed combined and diversified scaling strategies demonstrated better scaling performance than those that deployed just one strategy. Our findings have important managerial implications for practitioners within the SE community, and especially providing a scientific basis for the managers of nonprofit SEs to select appropriate scaling strategies.     

The epistemic dimension of European integration

This paper departs from the assumption that European integration – in addition to the dimensions of political institutions, markets, and European Union (EU) law – also comprises an epistemic dimension. This dimension contains the concepts and meanings that tell us what an integrated Europe “is,” how it works, and how we could evaluate it. Against this background, the paper develops an account to discuss the role of EU studies in the broader process of European integration. Its particular focus is on how EU studies co-produce conceptual discourses and representations of the EU together with EU politics. Moreover, these concepts and representations inform institutions that link those academic communities to the EU and make the development of EU studies a partial dimension of European integration.     

Everyone deserves quiche: French school lunch programmes and national culture in a globalized world

Globalization poses many challenges for national cultural unity, especially in Europe. Some doubt whether national cultures will be able to survive, but there are many counter‐trends pushing to maintain national cultural unity. I analyse the dual trends of global diversity and maintaining unity through an everyday manifestation of French culture: elementary school lunches. French school lunch programmes are part of the nation‐building process because they are designed to teach students how to eat, which is especially important in France where the art of gastronomy is a key source of identity and pride. I analyse cultural influences on over 11,000 school lunch menu items from eight municipalities across two French regions. I also conduct in‐depth face‐to‐face interviews with the people who design and approve school lunch menus. My inquiry is guided by three key questions. First, to what extent are foreign influences included? Second, does openness to foreign influences vary across different parts of France? Finally, how are foreign cultures represented? My results suggest that foreign cultures are deployed to nationalize difference. The limited foreign influences that appear in school lunches are strategically chosen to appeal to and to educate students, but in a way that reinforces the centrality of traditional French cultural norms. This article contributes to our understanding of the tension between national culture and a globalizing world.     

Contextual moderators of the link between national and European identity among European youth

Identification with Europe can constitute an important part of psychological citizenship for European citizens. From a self-categorization perspective, higher-order (e.g. with Europe) and lower order subgroup identities (e.g. with the nation) may interfere with each other if they are seen as incompatible. We were interested in contextual moderators at school and country level of youth’ national identity on identification with Europe. We used multi-level regression analyses based on data from the International Civic and Citizenship Education Study, collected from 14-year old students (n?=?71,282) from 22 European countries. Results showed strong positive effects of national identity at the individual, and classroom-level on European identity. However, main effects of national identity at the individual level were qualified by a number of interactions with contextual-level moderators. The relationship between national and European identity was weaker for adolescents attending classrooms or living in countries with lower average levels of trust in EU institutions. Living in countries with higher gender and income inequalities, less friendly immigration policies, and a communist past lessened the association between national and European identity. Results point to the powerful effects of context in shaping the relationship between national and European identity.     

Interorganizational relations of nonprofit organizations: An exploratory study

In their several roles as appropriators, redistributors, and providers, nonprofit organizations are involved in complex transactions with organizations in the nonprofit, for-profit, and public sectors. The purpose of this exploratory investigation, based on a sample of New York State nonprofits, is to explain variation in the extent of intrasector and intersector transactions. Various kinds of prevailing environmental complexities, coupled with the ways in which organizations are structured to deal with these complexities, help explain variation in the extent of organizational transactions. Another important predictor is directors' perceptions of main problems affecting the activities of their agencies. These findings are consistent with the conclusion that environmental uncertainties and perceptions about them affect the nature and extent of interorganizational contact.     

Measuring quality for human service improvement: How nonprofits meet the quality requirements of public authorities

The growing pressure for service quality has led to an increase in the dissemination of quality models in nonprofit human service organizations. In spite of this, little is known about their implementation. The present study therefore examines how quality management directives imposed by public authorities affect the adoption and use of quality measurement systems under different sets of conditions. Key findings, based on survey data from 536 human service nonprofits in Switzerland, suggest that external quality requirements foster the adoption of measurement systems to the greatest degree, but simultaneously reduce their actual utilization for service improvement. The strength of these effects is contingent on the organizations' resources and the quality of indicators. Managers' commitment to quality measurement shows the strongest effect on the use of quality measurement systems. These findings and the implications for future research and practice will be discussed.     

The making of European society: contesting methodological nationalism

The paper is concerned with the problem of “society” and in particular with the notion of “European society”. Rather than reject the possibility of society, it draws on theories of the social as networks. The thesis proposed is that the concept of society should rather be understood as a relational field of interconnections. It is argued that this is highly relevant to the analysis of Europe conceived of in terms of a society. This approach can be seen as an alternative to methodological nationalism. The paper applies a network conception of society to Europe with the emphasis on the nineteenth century. In this account, European society is not something that was produced by European integration. Rather than see European society as a recent development, it is argued that the field of tensions between capitalism and democracy constituted the major elements that shaped a European model of society.