中国高校是非营利组织

中国高校具有“传授知识、培养人才,开展科学研究、实施科技创新,应用知识、服务社会”三大功能,这些功能具有显著的公益性、非营利性和志愿者参与性特征。中国高校无论是在组织目标、组织管理(包括学术性管理、行政性管理和校董会),还是在经济管理诸方面都充分显示了其组织性、民间自治性和非营利性特征。《中华人民共和国教育法》和《中华人民共和国高等教育法》从高等学校的设立条件、任务、职能、办学自主权和经费分担体制等方面,进一步明确规定了我国高校的非营利性、公益性、组织性和民间自治性。由此得出结论,中国高等学校是非营利组织。     

我国社会组织治理存在的突出矛盾与化解之策

随着我国政府改革的不断深入,社会组织承接了更多政府转移的职能从而获得了更多的发展空间,在公共服务领域发挥着越来越重要的作用并日益成为人们社会生活中不可或缺的重要组织形式.但是社会组织自身的发展仍处在初级阶段,我国社会组织的治理仍存在许多突出矛盾和问题,培育发展社会组织必须要首先解决其有效治理的问题.完善我国社会组织治理的途径主要包括:完善相关法律法规;完善社会组织的治理机制,返还部分社会管理职能;创建高素质的工作人员队伍,完善其内部管理机制;建立社会组织强制性信息公开制度.     

Examining the role of cognitive dissonance in crisis fundraising

Fundraising scholarship has focused on the application of public relations theory to the process particularly in exploring the predictive power in applying relationship management theory to the non-profit organization–donor relationship. However, people often are impacted by catastrophic events and want to donate to relief efforts even though they may not be connected to the region. A survey of two American Red Cross chapters’ donors revealed that individuals who contributed to the December 2004 tsunami relief efforts were more likely to experience feelings of cognitive dissonance than non-donors, and their donations resulted in a consonance restoration. These results support an argument for non-profits, particularly those in crisis response, to have an active crisis communication plan in place that deals not only with responding to the event but also having a proactive plan established to publicize how to donate to relief efforts. Highlighting the consonance restoration, non-profits should also discuss the positive aspects of donating to their efforts, such as the work being done for the disaster victims.     

NGOs, Global Governance and the UN: NGOs as “Guardians of the Reform of the International System”

The role of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the United Nations (UN), as well as in world politics in general, is increasingly gaining the attention of scholars of international law, political science and social anthropology. Using extensive earlier research on NGO-UN relations and on the concept of global governance, it is concluded that although NGOs are becoming increasingly influential actors on the international arena, several problems impede their influence from growing within the UN. Once the inefficiencies of NGOs participation in United Nations’ bodies and institutions have been described, we propose some modalities of reform of this Organization, with the purpose of improving the involvement of world civil society in UN decision-making processes, and increasing its democratic profile. Finally, the study suggests several areas that require future research and more in-depth study in order to make predictions about how NGO-UN relations will evolve in the coming decades.

Exploring the Ebbs and Flows of Community Engagement: The Pyramid of Engagement and Water Activism in Two Canadian Communities

In this article, we share results from a comparative study exploring the dynamics of community engagement surrounding local water advocacy organizations in two Canadian communities. Although emergent local issues and the perception of crisis triggered some short-term community engagement, social factors such as collective identity, a sense of community, and sense of efficacy appear to be more important for sustaining and deepening engagement. Drawing on the results, we show how the pyramid of engagement, by depicting activist engagement as a multilevel, developmental process, can serve as a useful tool for community engagement scholars and practitioners alike.     

Capital Structure of Nongovernmental Development Organizations

In the first international study of this kind, we analyze the capital structure of 364 nongovernmental development organizations (NGDOs) from three different countries: Belgium, Spain, and the United Kingdom. We observe lower debt ratio values in the United Kingdom, and significant differences between countries were found by testing an econometric model with the five classical determinants of leverage, considering total debt and both long‐ and short‐term debt. We find support for the pecking order theory, and we broadly discuss some possible reasons for the obtained differences.     

Differences between paid and unpaid social services for beneficiaries

In many Western welfare states, social work services that have traditionally been provided by paid employees are being replaced by family support, community support, informal networks, and volunteering. For the field of social work, it is relevant to know what it matters to beneficiaries whether services are provided by volunteers or by paid employees. The central question of this article is therefore as follows: What are the differences between unpaid and paid social services for beneficiaries? The article is based on literature review and focus groups. Our results suggest that beneficiaries do experience some differences regarding the advantages of volunteer services for beneficiaries that can be summarized in three propositions: (1) services provided by volunteers are more relational than are services provided by paid employees, and they are therefore perceived as more equal, flexible and sincere. (2) The effects of volunteer services for beneficiaries are not exclusively positive. (3) Although particular tasks may appear to be interchangeable to some extent, the relative advantages of a given task depend upon whether it is performed by a paid worker or by a volunteer. Additional research is needed in order to provide further validation.     

Towards a sociology of risk work: A narrative review and synthesis

In this article, we define the concept of “risk work,” which aims to make visible working practices to assess or manage risk, in order to subject these practices to sociological critique. This article reviews and synthesizes existing published literature to identify components of risk work: (a) translating risk into different contexts, (b) minimizing risks in practice, and (c) caring in the context of risk. We argue that these three components of risk work raise important tensions for workers that have been inadequately explored in the literature to date. We propose that future research should additionally focus on practitioner subjectivity and identity in risk work. In addition, we argue that comparative research—across type of risk and different contexts—and methodological and theoretical diversity would enhance this emerging field of research.