This article contributes to the understanding of actors and agency in the theorization of institutional work. We analyse institutional work as a specific kind of social action that involves ...exercising institutional agency (with an articulate awareness of institutions) as opposed to primary agency (taking institutions for granted). We propose a conceptual framework for combining a view of actors, who have agency and may engage in institutional work, with a view of actors as socially constructed, in line with critical-realist ontology. Applying this framework to the empirical case of the Spanish social movement 15M, we examine how actors moved from having primary agency to having institutional agency and how organization mattered for this process. We find that organizing by experienced organizers, the founding of new organizations and prefigurative organization were of crucial importance for the increase in institutional agency.
Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) becoming business-like is a contested issue. Some understand the adoption of business-like practices by NPOs as a case of adopting rational myths through institutional ...isomorphism and thus potentially dangerous for NPOs’ ability to fulfill their unique societal roles. Others are more optimistic, arguing that technical rationality is possible in the adoption of business-like practices, and that such practices can therefore support NPOs in fulfilling a wide range of societal roles. Drawing on survey data of NPOs in Flanders, we examine the relationship between the extent to which NPOs use business-like practices, and the extent to which they engage in various societal roles. We find that business-like practices are weakly related to NPOs’ societal roles. All roles are positively related to nonprofit managerialism and unrelated to NPOs’ reliance on commercial funding. Our results suggest that a certain optimism regarding the rational use of business-like approaches is justified.
There are various methods for classifying nonprofit organizations (NPOs) according to their field of activity. We report our experiences using two semi-automated methods based on textual data: ...rule-based classification and machine learning with curated keywords. We use those methods to classify Austrian nonprofit organizations based on the International Classification of Nonprofit Organizations. Those methods can provide a solution to the widespread research problem that quantitative data on the activities of NPOs are needed but not readily available from administrative data, long high-quality texts describing NPOs’activities are mostly unavailable, and human labor resources are limited. We find that in such a setting, rule-based classification performs about as well as manual human coding in terms of precision and sensitivity, while being much more labor-saving. Hence, we share our insights on how to efficiently implement such a rule-based approach. To address scholars with a background in data analytics as well as those without, we provide non-technical explanations and open-source sample code that is free to use and adapt.
Social origins theory explains variation between civil societies by power relations between socioeconomic classes and by path dependencies. There have been few systematic reflections on which ...dimensions of civil society depend on these factors and can thus be explained by the theory. With the help of a historical narrative of the eventful history of Vienna’s civil society, in which traditional, liberal, social democratic, statist, and corporatist patterns feature, we tentatively identify ten such dimensions: CSOs’ original founding dates; fields of activity; societal roles; reliance on volunteers and paid staff; political and religious affiliation; the relationship with government when engaging in advocacy; organizational governance structures; socioeconomic characteristics of CSOs’ workforce, board members, and service recipients; CSOs’ funding sources; and CSOs’ sizes. We suggest that civil society research would benefit from the anthropological approach of deriving etic categories for comparing civil societies and explaining the similarities and differences between them by consolidating single case studies that analyze the development of specific civil societies from an emic perspective.
By now, the becoming business-like of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) is a well-established global phenomenon that has received ever-growing attention from management and organization studies. ...However, the field remains hard to grasp in its entirety, as researchers use a multitude of similar, yet distinct, key concepts. The considerable range and complexity of these overlapping notions create major challenges: Scholars struggle to position their work in a larger context; it is not easy to build on previous findings and methodological developments; and research gaps are difficult to identify. The present article presents the first systematic literature review to confront those challenges by reviewing 599 relevant sources. In a first step, various key concepts are clarified. Second, the field is mapped according to three research foci: causes of NPOs becoming business-like, organizational structures and processes of becoming business-like, and effects of becoming business-like. From this, we draw conclusions and make suggestions for further research.
The rapid rise of alternative organisations such as social enterprises is largely due to the promotional activities of intermediary organisations. So far, little is known about the affective nature ...of such activities. The present article thus investigates how intermediary organisations make social entrepreneurship palatable for a broader audience by establishing it as an object of desire. Drawing on affect-oriented extensions of Laclau and Mouffe’s poststructuralist theory, hegemonisation is suggested as a way of understanding how social entrepreneurship is articulated through a complementary process of signification and affective investment. Specifically, by examining Austrian intermediaries, we show how social entrepreneurship is endowed with a sense of affective thrust that is based on three interlocking dynamics: the articulation of fantasies such as ‘inclusive exclusiveness’, ‘large-scale social change’ and ‘pragmatic solutions’; the repression of anxiety-provoking and contentious issues (constitutive quiescences); as well as the use of conceptually vague, floating signifiers (moments of indeterminacy). Demonstrating that the hegemonisation of social entrepreneurship involves articulating certain issues whilst, at the same time, omitting others, or rendering them elusive, the article invites a counter-hegemonic critique of social entrepreneurship, and, on a more general level, of alternative forms of organising, that embraces affect as a driving force of change, while simultaneously affirming the impossibility of harmony and wholeness.
Different disciplinary, theoretical, and empirical lenses have contributed to a kaleidoscopic picture of the governance of civil society organizations (CSOs). Most of the time, CSO governance is ...contrasted with corporate governance in business organizations; only rarely is the broad variety of CSOs taken into account. To widen this perspective, we develop an empirically grounded typology of five discourses of organization in CSOs: managerialist, domestic, professionalist, grassroots, and civic discourse. We argue that each of these discourses gives specific answers to the three core questions of governance: To whom is the CSO accountable, i.e., who are the key actors who need to be protected by governance mechanisms? For what kind of performance is the CSO accountable? And which structures and processes are appropriate to ensure accountability? The way in which different discourses answer these questions provides us with a deeper understanding of the reasons behind the manifold notions of governance in CSOs. Différentes approches disciplinaires, théoriques et empiriques ont contribué à la création d'une image kaléidoscopique de la gouvernance d'une OSC (Organisation de la société civile). On oppose habituellement la gouvernance d'OSC à la gouvernance d'entreprise au sein des organisations professionnelles. Ainsi, la grande variété des OSC n'est que rarement prise en compte. Afin d'élargir cette perspective, nous développons une typologie empiriquement fondée et comptant cinq discours d'organisation dans les OSC, à savoir directorial, domestique, professionnaliste, local et civique. Notre argument est que chacun de ces discours apporte des réponses spécifiques aux trois questions essentielles de la gouvernance : À qui l'OSC doit-elle rendre compte, c'est-à-dire quels sont les acteurs clés ayant besoin d'être protégés par les mécanismes de gouvernance ? De quel type de résultats l'OSC est-elle redevable ? Et quels sont les structures et processus adéquats afin de garantir une responsabilisation ? La manière dont ces différents discours répondent à ces questions nous dote d'une compréhension plus approfondie des motifs sous-jacents aux notions multiples de gouvernance au sein des OSC. Verschiedene disziplinäre, theoretische und empirische Betrachtungsweisen haben ein kaleidoskopisches Bild der Governance zivilgesellschaftlicher Organisationen geschaffen. In den meisten Fällen wird die Governance zivilgesellschaftlicher Organisationen als Gegenstück zur Corporate Governance in Unternehmen dargestellt; nur selten wird die große Vielfalt zivilgesellschaftlicher Organisationen berücksichtigt. Zur Erweiterung dieser Perspektive entwickeln wir eine emprisch begründete Typologie von fünf Organisationsdiskursen in zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen: einen betriebswirtschaftlichen, einen familiären, einen professionalistischen, einen basisdemokratischen und einen bürgerschaftlichen Diskurs. Wir argumentieren, dass jeder dieser Diskurse spezifische Antworten auf die drei wesentlichen Fragen zur Governance bereithält: Wem gegenüber ist die Organisation verantwortlich, d. h. wer sind die Hauptakteure, die durch Governancemechanismen geschützt werden müssen? Für welche Art von Leistungen ist die Organisation verantwortlich? Und welche Strukturen und Verfahren sind zur Gewährleistung der Verantwortlichkeit angemessen? Die Weise, in der die verschiedenen Diskurse diese Fragen beantworten, vermittelt uns ein besseres Verständnis, warum es so viele unterschiedliche Vorstellungen zur Governance von zivilgesellschaftlichen Organisationen gibt. Diversos puntos de vista en los ámbitos diseiplinario, teórico y empírico han contribuido con la variada gama de administratión de las Organizaciones de la Sociedad Civil (OSC). En la mayoria de los casos, la administracion de las OSC se compara con la gestión corporativa que se realiza en las compañias comerciales; no es común que se tenga en cuenta la gran variedad de OSC. Para ampliar esta perspectiva, hemos desarrollado una tipología con fundamento empírico de cinco discursos organizacionales en las OSC: administrativo, doméstico, profesional, de base y discurso cívico. Exponemos que cada uno de estos discursos brindan respuestas específicas a las tres preguntas principales sobre administración: Ante quién es responsable la OSC, por ejemplo: ¿Quiénes son los actores clave que deben protegerse a través de los mecanismos administrativos? ¿Por qué tipos de rendimiento es la responsable la OSC? Y, ¿qué estructuras y procesos son adecuados para asegurar la responsabilidad? La forma en que los diferentes discursos responden a estas preguntas nos proporciona un entendimiento mas claro sobre los argumentos que fomentan las nociones de administración en las OSC.
We investigate how nonprofit organizations (NPOs) construct imaginaries of their premises, their local environment, and beyond. Based on a qualitative analysis of the websites of 209 randomly sampled ...NPOs in a metropolitan region in Central Europe, we find four distinct spatial imaginaries: (1) The world polity imaginary constructs NPOs as a part of a spatial environment that is neatly divided into nation states, supranational structures, and subnational units. (2) In the world society imaginary, NPOs are active in blurred, fluid, and overlapping spaces such as networks, commercialized spaces, or natural habitats. (3) In a religious imaginary, the material world is complemented by a transcendental realm and categorized into spaces of the sacred and the evil. (4) Finally, in a lococentric imaginary, NPOs construct a dichotomy between "home" and the alien rest of the world. Each of these spatial imaginaries conveys distinctive ways of situating the organization in their spatial environment and implies specific organizational practices and emotional enchantments of space.
Paradoxes of Social Impact Bonds Maier, Florentine; Barbetta, Gian Paolo; Godina, Franka
Social policy & administration,
December 2018, 2018-12-00, 20181201, Letnik:
52, Številka:
7
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) have alternatively been portrayed as a promising tool to improve the functioning of welfare systems, or as an instrument of neo‐liberalism that threatens to undermine them. ...Recently, a more nuanced understanding of the promises as well as pitfalls of SIBs has developed, as both practical experiences and published empirical evidence about implemented SIBs have increased in number. We aim to contribute to the development of such an understanding by analyzing practitioner reports on SIBs. We identify two key paradoxes of SIBs. These paradoxes centre on statements that cannot both hold true for the very same SIB: (1) flexible but evidence‐based services; and (2) cost‐saving risk transfer to private investors. We conclude by discussing how those paradoxes have been resolved in existing SIBs, which strategies of de‐paradoxification may turn out to be paramount in future, and how positive aspects of SIBs can be preserved while defusing their more problematic ones.
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