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.     

Participation and Local Governance Outcomes: Evidence from Ukraine

As participatory governance approaches to local development get adopted also in transition countries, one of the key questions is how participation actually impacts local governance outcomes. This study examines the link between non-electoral participation and different public goods outcomes in rural Ukraine along with identifying the role of community-based organizations (CBOs). Using a unique survey data from Ukraine, I approach these questions empirically explicitly distinguishing between different public goods outcomes. I find that participation appears to be positively associated with local school and water supply outcomes. In addition, CBOs are found to be associated with better quality of water supply systems motivating a discussion about establishment of service cooperatives for water supply as a functional local governance arrangement.     

Red Cross Society in Imperial China, 1904–1912: A Historical Analysis

The Red Cross Society was introduced to China in the 1900s, when the nation was under the authoritarian reign of Qing dynasty. Famines and rebellions, along with the invasion of foreign military forces, created tremendous humanitarian crises that the corrupted imperial government was incapable to address. The Red Cross model was found to be a pragmatic solution by Chinese philanthropists. Using archived press releases, correspondences, and government statements, the study reconstructs the founding process of the first Chinese Red Cross organization from 1904 to 1912. The analysis reveals that the organization reflected the congruent interest of the imperial court and social elites in preserving the sovereignty and was therefore promoted by key players from both political and civil spheres. The trajectory of Red Cross movement in imperial China supports the synergism perspective of institutional theories. It demonstrates how micro-level factors such as leadership ties and alliances contribute to the interdependence of public and private sectors and facilitate the transformation of traditional charity to modern philanthropy.     

Trust,Social Capital,and the Coordination of Relationships Between the Members of Cooperatives: A Comparison Between Member-Focused Cooperatives and Third-Party-Focused Cooperatives

In recent years, nonprofit scholars have increasingly studied the phenomenon of social enterprises which has become a generic term describing a wider reorientation among third sector organizations. The emergence of social enterprises has also led to a dynamic of hybridization and broadening in the cooperative sector, similar to an earlier dynamic of “economization”, but this time on the other end of the organizational spectrum. This paper aims at developing a fine-grained conceptual understanding of how this organizational dynamic is shaped in terms of member coordination, thus contributing to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of different organizational forms of cooperatives. Specifically, to highlight the difference to traditional member-focused cooperatives, the paper introduces the term third-party-focused cooperatives for those social enterprises which emphasize economic goals as well as control and ownership by a particular community (typically place-based). The key result of the paper is that with the shift from member- to community-focus in cooperatives, the main coordination mechanism becomes one of norm-based trust on the basis of generalized reciprocity. In contrast to traditional maxim-based trust member coordination on the basis of relation-specific reciprocity, this enables third-party-focused cooperatives to mobilize bridging and linking social capital, facilitating collective action aimed towards the community interest. The findings suggest that this identity shift requires a mutual re-positioning between the cooperative and the nonprofit sector, in terms of umbrellas as well as regulatory and legislative bodies.     

NGO Hybridisation as an Outcome of HIV Services Delivery in Global Fund-Supported Programmes in Ukraine

Ukraine has one of the world’s fastest growing HIV rates and was one of the largest recipients of funding from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GF). Doctoral research recently completed by the author investigates the conduct and practice of international and national nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) as Principal Recipients of GF grants in Ukraine from 2004 to 2012. The study aimed to understand how NGO-based services were implemented in the context of a state-owned health care system. An ethnographic enquiry including 50 participant interviews was conducted in three oblasts in Ukraine, and in its capital, Kyiv, between 2011 and 2013. The paper is based on a doctoral research and presents some of the findings that emerged from the analysis. The author argues that the accent on NGO-run services promoted by GF has rendered the original grass roots, community-based NGOs, to be undermined or replaced by ‘quasi’, hybrid NGOs created by health officials and AIDS centres head doctors. The outcome of such hybridization is a weakened civil society that is dependent on external funding and is unable to genuinely represent their communities.     

NPO Financial Statement Quality: An Empirical Analysis Based on Benford’s Law

In order to assess the accuracy of the figures reported in NPOs’ financial statements, I perform a digital analysis on Belgian non-profit organizations’ financial statements for accounting years 2007 up to 2012. Specifically, I compare observed frequencies for digits in the second-from-the-left position with expected frequencies based on Benford’s Law. Results based on the full sample indicate that observed frequencies strongly conform to Benford’s Law (and thus suggest a high degree of accuracy of the figures reported in NPOs’ financial statements). Nevertheless, I note statistically significant deviations from Benford’s Law (both for the entire distribution and at the individual digit level). The largest deviation is noted for zeroes in the second position (i.e., a significantly positive deviation), which can be explained based on humans’ reliance upon so-called cognitive reference points. Considering different sub-samples, I note that observed deviations from Benford’s Law are largest for the smallest non-profits and those non-profits that rely most heavily on grants and/or donations.     

Neighborhood Association Participation and Formal Volunteering in Japan

We examine the effect of participation in neighborhood association (NHA) activities on volunteering using the 2010 Japanese General Social Survey data. We find that controlling for established predictors of formal volunteering such as demographic and socioeconomic variables, NHA association participation, either operationalized as a dichotomous or interval variable, positively predicts volunteering. Moreover, some of the established predictors of volunteering (e.g., marital status and associational membership) are useful in predicting NHA participation. Our results indicate a complementary relationship between volunteering and NHA participation. We discuss implications of our study for future research on community volunteering in Japan and elsewhere.     

Betting Decision Under Break-Streak Pattern: Evidence from Casino Gaming

Cognitive bias is prevalent among gamblers, especially those with gambling problems. Grounded in the heuristics theories, this study contributes to the literature by examining a cognitive bias triggered by the break streak pattern in the casino setting. We postulate that gamblers tend to bet on the latest outcome when there is a break-streak pattern. Moreover, three determinants of the betting decision under break-streak pattern, including the streak length of the alternative outcome, the frequency of the latest outcome, and gender, were identified and examined in this study. A non-participatory observational study was conducted among the Cussec gamblers in a casino in Macao. An analysis of 1229 bets confirms our postulation, particularly when the streak of the alternative outcome is long, the latest outcome is frequent, and the gamblers are females. The findings provide meaningful implications for casino management and public policymakers regarding the minimization of gambling harm.     

Gambling Patterns and Problems of Gamblers on Licensed and Unlicensed Sites in France

In 2010 France enacted a law to regulate supply and consumption of online gambling. Its primary aim was to protect citizens from gambling-related harm. This study aims to assess differences in gambling patterns and related harm between online gamblers who use licensed versus unlicensed sites. Participants (N = 3860) completed a self-administered online survey on gambling practices. Pairwise logistic regressions examined the association between the legal statuses of gambling sites people patronized and demographic variables and gambling types. Multivariate logistic regression models explored associations between gambling patterns and related problems according to the legal status of sites people have gambled on. Overall, 53.7 % of online gamblers report gambling exclusively on licensed sites. Those who bet on regulated activities on unlicensed sites, versus licensed sites, are more likely to be female, younger, less educated, inactive in the labor market and are more likely to perceive their financial situation to be difficult. Gambling on unlicensed sites is associated with more intense gambling patterns and more gambling-related problems compared to licensed sites. Findings demonstrate that gambling activities carried out on state licensed sites are associated with less overall harm to gamblers. Implications of these findings on future policy are discussed and prospective research directions are outlined.     

Co-morbidity Between Gambling Problems and Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal Perspective of Risk and Protective Factors

In both adolescents and adults, gambling problems and depressive symptoms co-occur and share some common risk factors (e.g., impulsivity and socio-family risk). However, little is known about (1) the developmental course of the co-morbidity of these problems; (2) variables that may moderate the effect of these common risk factors on gambling problems and depressive symptoms. Of specific interest could be individuals’ social relationships with significant others such as parents and friends, because research shows that they moderate the effect of other risk factors on gambling problems and depressive symptoms. The goals of this study were to: (a) identify developmental pathways for gambling problems and depressive symptoms, with a focus on co-morbidity; (b) assess the moderating effect of relationship quality with parents and friends on the link between common risk factors and the trajectories of gambling problems and depressive symptoms. Study participants were 878 males. Predictors were assessed during childhood and adolescence and gambling problems and depressive symptoms were assessed in late adolescence and young adulthood. Latent class analysis revealed four distinct joint trajectories of gambling problems and depressive symptoms. Subsequent logistic regression revealed that impulsivity predicted membership in all pathogenic trajectories, and quality of the relationship with parents predicted membership in depressogenic trajectories. In addition, we found that the membership in the comorbid trajectory can be predicted by an interaction between friendship quality and socio-family risk.