Policy advocacy is widely regarded as an eminent feature of nonprofit organizations’ activities, allowing them to represent their constituencies. The article presents a literature review of research ...on nonprofit policy advocacy that has been published over the last decade, focusing on advocacy by nonprofit human service organizations (NPHSOs) and its unique characteristics and contributions. The review focuses on several key topics, including: the definitions and origins of the term advocacy and its current uses in studies related to NPHSOs; the current situation and prevalence of NPHSO advocacy activities; organizational and structural variables as they relate to policy advocacy; dependence on external funding sources and policy advocacy; strategies, tactics, modes of operation, and the effectiveness of NPHSO policy advocacy. The article presents and discusses the implications of this research and suggests directions for future research.
Leaders’ perceptions of the effectiveness of their organization’s collaborations are critical as they determine current and future collaboration. This article examines perceived collaboration ...effectiveness—the extent to which targeted goals are achieved—based on an organization’s role in that collaboration’s governance arrangements (initiation, funding, coordination, and decision-making). Findings suggest that governance arrangements have modest association with perceived effectiveness of collaborations between nonprofits and local governments in Lebanon. Perceived effectiveness increases when an organization is directly engaged in coordinating the collaboration’s work, activities, resources, and partners, but decreases when an organization has the responsibility for decision-making. Perceived effectiveness also appears to be related to trust, relationship effectiveness, service category, and the organization’s sector.
The public sector has increasingly adopted the methods and values of the market to guide policy creation and management. Several public administration scholars in the United States have pointed out ...the problems with this, especially in relation to the impact on democracy and citizenship. Similarly, nonprofit organizations are adopting the approaches and values of the private market, which may harm democracy and citizenship because of its impact on nonprofit organizations' ability to create and maintain a strong civil society. This article reviews the major marketization trends occurring within the nonprofit sector-commercial revenue generation, contract competition, the influence of new and emerging donors, and social entrepreneurship-and surveys research on their potential impact on nonprofit organizations' contributions to civil society. The article ends with a discussion of the significance of marketization in the nonprofit sector for public administration scholars and public managers.
We examine a phenomenon which includes people who have had transformative experiences while abroad and traveling, and who have returned home to the United States and become philanthropic ...entrepreneurs: they start their own international nonprofit organizations. We set out to examine the motivations for giving to international causes through these nonprofits, called grassroots, international non-governmental organizations (GINGOs), which allow individuals to actualize their calling to serve distant places and causes. As an exploratory, qualitative inquiry, we build on recent survey and experiment data about motivations to international giving and donor choice. In particular, GINGO leaders as philanthropic entrepreneurs challenge two main deterrents related to international giving: trust and its influence on willingness to donate to international causes and the adage that “charity begins at home.” Our findings support suggestions in the literature that personal networks and word of mouth are important in donor choice and incentivizing giving to international causes.
This study examines the relationship between institutional pressures to provide social benefits and the discretionary accrual behavior of nonprofit firms. I examine this issue within the context of ...U.S. nonprofit hospitals, an economically significant and politically rich setting where firms face considerable institutional pressure to provide an important social benefit: charity care. I argue that institutional pressures on nonprofits to provide higher levels of social benefits imply that lower profits should be reported. I develop theory and provide evidence which suggests that, due to competing private incentives to report higher profits, nonprofit managers strategically use discretionary accruals to increase accounting earnings when the social benefits their firms have provided in the current period exceed external stakeholders' normative expectations. The findings from this study inform the ongoing political debate regarding the appropriateness of tax exemptions for U.S. nonprofit hospitals and should therefore be of interest to both regulators and policymakers. In addition, this study provides timely insights for researchers regarding how institutional pressures can affect managers' reporting behaviors in other settings where similar competing reporting incentives exist between managers' private benefits and stakeholder expectations related to social benefits.
Pressions institutionnelles exercées sur l'offre de prestations sociales et comportement de gestion du résultat dans les OSBL : le cas du secteur hospitalier aux États‐Unis
L'auteur étudie la relation entre les pressions institutionnelles exercées sur l'offre de prestations sociales et le comportement des organismes sans but lucratif (OSBL) en matière d'ajustements discrétionnaires. Il s'intéresse plus particulièrement au cas des hôpitaux sans but lucratif aux États‐Unis, un contexte important sur le plan économique et riche sur le plan politique dans lequel les organismes sont soumis à des pressions institutionnelles considérables quant à l'offre de prestations sociales importantes : celles des soins de santé humanitaires. Selon l'auteur, les pressions institutionnelles exercées sur les OSBL afin qu'ils offrent des niveaux supérieurs de prestations sociales laissent supposer que ces derniers devraient faire état de profits moins élevés. L'auteur élabore à cet égard une théorie étayée par des faits selon laquelle les gestionnaires d’OSBL, soumis à des incitatifs privés contradictoires qui les poussent à faire état de profits plus élevés, font une utilisation stratégique des ajustements discrétionnaires en vue d'augmenter les résultats comptables lorsque les prestations sociales que leurs organismes ont livrées au cours de l'exercice excèdent les attentes normatives des parties prenantes externes. Les constatations découlant de cette étude éclairent le débat politique permanent relatif à la légitimité des exonérations fiscales dont bénéficient les hôpitaux sans but lucratif aux États‐Unis et présentent donc nécessairement un intérêt tant pour les autorités de réglementation que pour les décideurs. De plus, l’étude fournit des renseignements très utiles aux chercheurs en ce qui a trait à la façon dont les pressions institutionnelles peuvent influer sur le comportement des gestionnaires en matière de communication d'information dans d'autres contextes où existent des incitatifs contradictoires similaires entre les avantages personnels des gestionnaires et les attentes des parties prenantes quant aux prestations sociales.
Nonprofit organizations worldwide are confronted with an increasing demand for accountability and improved financial transparency. Financial reporting by nonprofit organizations is no longer an ...exception; it has become a rule.The usefulness of a financial report to an organization’s stakeholders depends on its quality. The latter is safeguarded by reporting standards as well as the commitment of the organization to fully implement these standards. Although resource dependence and coercive isomorphism have been used in earlier nonprofit organization research, no empirical research has linked these theories to compliance with financial reporting standards. Using a unique setting in which a large number of (very) large Belgian nonprofit organizations are confronted with far-reaching changes in financial reporting regulations, the effect of resource dependence and coercive isomorphism on accounting and financial reporting compliance is documented.
Ethical networks are an emerging form of social alliance based on collaboration between organizations that share a common ethical commitment. Grounded in a theoretical framework of virtue-based ...business ethics and focusing on nonprofit alliances, this study investigates the virtuousness of ethical networks; that is, how they trigger virtuous practices in their member nonprofit organizations. Adopting a qualitative grounded theory approach, the study focuses on one of the largest Italian ethical networks of nonprofit organizations operating in the social care sector. The findings show that shared ethical values and religious beliefs are positively associated with ethical network building. Based on these findings, a circular model of virtuousness is proposed in which ethical networks foster virtuous practices among their members at four levels: (1) the strategic orientation level, (2) the institutional level, (3) the organizational level, and (4) the relational level. At each of these levels, ethical networks foster a habituation to virtues and the propagation of virtuous behaviors among their members. Theoretical, practical, and social implications of the research findings are discussed.
The challenges facing the US nonprofit human services organizations (NHSOs) in securing philanthropic resources and the resulting pressure for increased commercialization are well‐known in the ...nonprofit literature. However, there is still limited research on how such financial challenges are likely to affect their location choices, particularly in a post‐recession context. Using organizational ecology theory, we conducted a nationwide longitudinal study covering the period of the US 2008 recession to examine whether resource availability is more likely to predict the density of NHSOs than human needs. We used secondary data on a variety of socioeconomic variables from the National Center for Charitable Statistics and the US census survey in a linear multivariate regression analysis. The findings supported a majority of hypotheses, suggesting that NHSOs pursuing earned income are less (versus more) likely to be established in regions where the socioeconomic factors indicate a high (versus low) level of human needs. These findings suggest a counterintuitive trend in the establishment of NHSOs and present cautionary information on pursuing commercial activities in the human services sector.
High-profile charity scandals have always represented a threat to the nonprofit sector, which relies on public trust and funding to operate. We systematically review 30 years of empirical research on ...scandals involving nonprofits and present both quantitative and qualitative syntheses of the 71 articles identified. Informed by this review, we generate a conceptual model theorizing the causes and consequences of scandals, as well as how nonprofits can best prevent and respond to organizational transgressions. We then put forward a research agenda that elaborates five key factors that are especially important for understanding nonprofit scandals but remain understudied: (a) integrity versus competence violations, (b) moral licensing, (c) the multilevel nature of organizational transgressions, (d) sectoral causes of scandal, and (e) effective responses. We close the article with recommendations for nonprofit managers about how to conceptualize, prevent, plan for, and respond to transgressions occurring within their organizations, and any resulting scandals.
Although recent academic studies on nonprofits have documented aggressive accounting behavior, these studies have primarily examined the sector in isolation and have not reached definitive ...conclusions regarding the relative aggressiveness of the nonprofit and for-profit sectors. Using actuarial assumptions for defined benefit (DB) pension plans as a proxy for discretionary accounting choices, we examine whether nonprofit managers respond through their actuarial choices to incentives to manage DB pension assumptions, and whether differences exist in the aggressiveness of these assumptions for nonprofits and for-profits. We find evidence consistent with nonprofits managing pension assumptions when incentives and less monitoring exist. Comparing our nonprofits to a sample of for-profits, we find evidence consistent with nonprofits utilizing more aggressive pension assumptions and making stronger responses to incentives to manage these assumptions. Our findings are consistent with the premise that nonprofits are more aggressive than for-profits when using actuarial estimates that deflate pension obligations and inflate performance.
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