Suchergebnisse

Market-based solutions to social and environmental problems in the form of for-profit social enterprise ventures have attracted considerable attention in recent years. According to popular discourse, the reason for their appeal is that they are not dependent on government grants or charitable support and are therefore more efficient and sustainable than existing alternatives. Using data collected from two social enterprise industries, this article challenges that discourse. It concludes that even though the recent focus on market-based ventures crowds out the importance of philanthropic ones, social enterprises rely substantially on civil society to accomplish their prosocial missions. By shifting attention away from the nonprofit–government relationship and toward the nonprofit–business one, these findings have implications for theorizing in nonprofit studies.

How do nonspecialists of nonprofit practice, law, and scholarship conceptualize the third sector? This article explores the everyday meanings of nonprofit organization and action empirically by reporting on a survey-based exercise in which research participants coded statements describing qualitatively different interactions between various types of entities. The survey, drawing on Crawford and Ostrom's grammar of institutions, allows for an examination of how lay observers make sense of the sectoral boundaries that occupy specialists' attention. We find that research participants are less prone to code interactions consistently with the nominal sectors of the organizations presented to them and more inclined to code the interactions based on the types of actions organizations take and their rationale for those actions. We argue that understanding the everyday meaning of nonprofit has important implications for theory and practice.

ObjectiveThis study examines how people evaluate prosocial initiatives—in particular, whether they exhibit optimism bias when asked to consider the outcomes of a hypothetical initiative that is described to take place in the nonprofit, business, or government sector. It also assesses the conditions under which optimism bias is malleable.MethodsWe use a survey with an experimental component to compare subjects' evaluations of a hypothetical initiative across a set of priming (positive prime, negative prime, no prime) and sector (nonprofit, government, business, social business) conditions.ResultsWe find evidence that optimism bias is widespread, regardless of the sector in question. Subjects are only inclined to alter their assessments when provided with new information that is positive (in contrast to new information that is negative).ConclusionThe findings offer qualified support for the blurring hypothesis, suggesting that sector may be losing its status as a defining characteristic of the organizational landscape.

Objectives. In this article we examine political advocacy by nonprofit organizations. Relatively little is known about the types of organizations that participate in advocacy, their characteristics, the issues for which they advocate, and the resources they devote to it. This is especially the case for nonprofits that operate at the state or local level.Methods. Using data from a large survey of Indiana nonprofit organizations, we use logistic and multinomial regression to determine which organizational characteristics relate to participation in varying levels of advocacy.Results. We find that the size of the organization, its access to information and communication technology, its charitable status, and, in some cases, the field of activity in which it operates all help predict nonprofit advocacy. The age of the organization, its reliance on government funding (except when substantial), and its proximity to the state's major economic and political center do not generally help differentiate nonprofits that advocate from those that do not.Conclusions. Our findings suggest that most nonprofits are ambivalent about advocacy. Some do no advocacy at all; many participate in some form of it although it does not constitute their primary purpose or mission; and only a small minority devotes considerable resources to it. However, these patterns differ systematically by type of nonprofit.

In his theory about the role of nonprofit enterprise, Henry Hansmann suggested that nonprofit status provides important information to consumers in low-information environments. In this article, we assess whether consumers use nonprofit status to form purchasing preferences as Hansmann predicted. Using choice-based conjoint analysis, we find that under different types of low-information circumstances, study participants prefer goods and services provided by nonprofits to those offered by businesses. In the absence of additional information (such as customer ratings and third-party certifications), nonprofit status serves as an important value signal to consumers. In the presence of additional information, nonprofit status is still relevant in some cases, although it becomes less so. The findings suggest that additional forms of information do not necessarily displace the value to consumers of information about organization type. We reflect on these findings in light of Hansmann's thesis.

Abstract
What role does sector play in citizens' perceptions of products or services in mixed-market settings where governments compete with for-profit and nonprofit vendors or when governments partner or contract with private-sector providers? Do the public and nonprofit sectors have an advantage over for-profit providers? Using choice-based conjoint analysis with a nationally representative paid consumer panel, we examine the relevance of sector to consumers and compare it other signals of quality; namely, price, third-party certifications, and consumer ratings. Of these, subjects are most sensitive to information from consumer ratings. Regarding sector, we find that subjects generally prefer nonprofit to government providers and government to for-profit providers. Sector is most relevant to consumers in low-information environments when the quality of a product or service is otherwise unclear. We extend theory by proposing four possible mechanisms for the differential value of sector to consumers (process quality, product quality, expertise quality, and moral quality).

Although sector choice theory is improving, we have less understanding of how social entrepreneurs view their sector choices in hindsight, particularly given the various barriers to changing organizational form once a legal entity has been established. This article finds that one in six organizational founders in the fair trade industry regrets their initial sector choice. In addition to defining and examining the prevalence of sector regret, this article also identifies three factors that correlate with the sector preferences of fair trade entrepreneurs postestablishment: general funding and support, the availability of grants, and salary. In other words, money, money, and money. As presaged by Dennis Young in 1983, financial flexibility appears to be a key factor in sector fit. Using semistructured interviews ( n = 46) and a survey ( n = 117), this article examines sector regret and what it tells us about the real differences between the sectors.

This article advances scholarship on the institutional choice literature by examining how, when both options are available, entrepreneurs choose between establishing for-profit and nonprofit organizations. The article accounts for a fuller range of motivations that shape entrepreneurial decisions than is typically recognized in the scholarship. Data come from semi-structured interviews with founders of businesses and nonprofits in the fair trade industry, where both organizational forms are common. We find support for some, but not all, of the assumptions that are built into prevailing theories of the nonprofit sector and find that founders are motivated by factors not often addressed in the relevant scholarship—especially the normative and symbolic meanings they attach to organizational form. Based on these findings, we propose a new supply theory that focuses on four motivations for sector choice.