L. David Brown

We examine the design of governance in international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) engaged in global advocacy. A central governance challenge facing INGOs is how to integrate their global advocacy efforts across diverse country units and memberships, in the face of limited authority and weak ownership over those units. Through a qualitative...

An enduring challenge facing multinational organizations is how to coordinate among globally dispersed units and member organizations. Despite a substantial body of work on global integration, there has been little research on the mechanisms of integration under conditions of weak ownership—where the center has little formal authority over its unit...

The papers in this Special Issue are drawn from a larger set of cases of citizen activism and civil society evolution developed by the “Civil Society at Crossroads?” initiative. What can be learnt from comparative analysis across these stories? In this concluding paper we seek to identify lessons that emerged from comparative analysis across cases...

This Special Issue has grown from the sense that important changes in the last two decades pose dilemmas and challenges for civil societies in many countries. The Issue reports on a series of studies of the evolving roles of civil society sectors and citizen initiatives in several regions of the world. This introduction identifies a series of event...

This article examines how international resources can be used to strengthen local support for civil society initiatives in China to improve the circumstances of poor and vulnerable populations. It identifies ways in which international resources have strengthened civil society in other countries, such as enhancing access to financial resources, bui...

International advocacy NGOs (IANGOs) are increasingly important actors in the international arena. This paper provides a comparative analysis of the cases of ten IANGOs that operate in diverse advocacy contexts, including development, environment, governance, human rights, and constituent support. It examines the patterns of governance, organizatio...

This study provides a comparative analysis of seven cases of social entrepreneurship that have been widely recognized as successful. The paper suggests factors associated with successful social entrepreneurship, particularly with social entrepreneurship that leads to significant changes in the social, political and economic contexts for poor and ma...

This article examines the construction of transnational action research networks that bridge local and global, practice and research, North and South, and many disciplines. Using an ‘insider—outsider’ approach the article examines the emergence of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability as a network of partn...

Accountability in multiparty initiatives is an issue for many actors, from governments to businesses to civil society organizations. This chapter focuses on multiparty social action initiatives that seek solutions for complex, uncertain, and changing social problems. The accountability problem is particularly acute for cause-oriented civil society...

This paper explores the roles of transnational civil society organizations and networks in transnational social learning. It begins with an investigation into social learning within problem domains and into the ways in which such domain learning builds perspectives and capacities for effective action among domain organizations and institutions. It...

Civil society actors are increasingly important players in transnational governance focused on a variety of problem-solving issues. This article explores the roles of transnational civil society organizations and networks in transnational social learning, and the nature of problem domains in which they can be expected to make special contributions....

This study provides a comparative analysis of 7 cases of social entrepreneurship that have been widely recognized as successful. The article suggests factors associated with successful social entrepreneurship, particularly with social entrepreneurship that leads to significant changes in the social, political, and economic contexts for poor and mar...

The field of organization development (OD) has emerged from efforts to improve the performance of organizations, largely in the for-profit sector but more recently in the public and not-for-profit sectors as well. This paper examines how OD concepts and tools can be used to solve problems and foster constructive change at the societal level as well...

Practice research engagement (PRE) is increasingly important for producing knowledge and innovations in practice for complex social problem-solving. We pose several questions: Why do PRE? What is required to organize effective PRE? And what is needed for PRE to contribute to democratizing knowledge? We present a framework to encourage researchers t...

Contributions on issues of representation in citizen juries and similar participatory approaches

This study provides a comparative analysis of seven cases of social entrepreneurship that have been widely recognized as successful. The paper suggests factors associated with successful social entrepreneurship, particularly with social entrepreneurship that leads to significant changes in the social, political and economic contexts for poor and ma...

This article focuses on the emergence of support organizations that play strategic roles in the evolution of development nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) as a sector of civil society. We begin with a discussion of sector challenges from outside (such as public legitimacy, relations with governments, relations with businesses, and relations with...

Increased prominence and greater influence expose international nongovernmental development and environment organizations (INGOs) to increased demands for accountability from a wide variety of stakeholders, including donors, beneficiaries, staffs, and partners. This article focuses on developing the concept of INGO accountability, first as an abstr...

Increased prominence and greater influence expose international non-governmental development and environmental organizations (INGOs) to increased demands for accountability from a wide variety of stakeholders-donors, beneficiaries, staffs, and partners among others. This paper focuses on developing the concept of INGO accountability, first as an ab...

This paper seeks to make sense of the impact of globalization on nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations. We argue that globalization processes have contributed to the rising numbers and influence of NGOs in many countries, and particularly in the international arena. International NGOs and NGO alliances are emerging as increasingly influential pl...

Scaling up is about “expanding impact” and not about “becoming large,” the latter being only one possible way to achieve the former. The experiences of five Indian nongovernment organizations (NGOs) suggest the emergence of a new paradigm of scaling up, in which NGOs become catalysts of policy innovations and social capital, creators of programmati...

Abstract Scaling up is about ‘expanding impact’ and not about ‘becoming large’, the latter being only one possible way,to achieve ,the former. The first half of this report presents a politically-focused analysis of the experiences of five Indian NGOs. It suggests the emergence of a new paradigm of scaling up, in which

This paper draws on case studies of efforts by transnational civil society coalitions to influence projects and policies of the World Bank to develop lessons about policy influence campaigns. The paper argues that transnational coalitions that succeed in influencing multilateral institutions (1) fit campaigns to their targets, (2) open up the "crac...

Strong civil societies, composed of diverse community groups and nongovernmental organizations, are increasingly seen as neccessary for robust economic growth and effective democratic governance. Yet financial and other resources for civil society organizations typically are scarce.

ABSTRACT Addressing issues such as health care, low-income housing, and economic development often involves building intersectoral partnerships (ISPs) -- relationshipsbetween organizations based in the state, market and civil society sectors. But because of the substantial differences between these sectors, building these relationships is a difficu...

Cooperation in policy/program implementation between state and nongovernmental actors can sometimes solve intractable development problems, but such cooperation must span gaps in culture, power, resources, and perspective. This article provides a comparative analysis of 13 cases of intersectoral cooperation among public agencies, nongovernmental or...

"Participatory action research" has been acclaimed for producing new knowledge as well as solutions to organizational and social problems. But the term has quite different meanings to different audiences: The "Southern" tradition is committed to community transformation through empowering disenfranchised groups; the "Northern" tradition is concerne...

In many developing countries, sustainable social and economic development depends on creating effective local organizations, horizontal linkages across sectors, and vertical linkages that enable grassroots influence on national policy-making. This paper examines the role of "bridging organizations" in creating such institutional arrangements. Examp...

Permanent White Water. The Theory of Managing in the Managerial Competency Movement. Winning Is Only the Thing You Think Winning Is. The Peak Performance Cult. The Grand Paradox of Management. Reflection and the Technoholic. Satchmo's Paradox. Managing as a Performing Art. It's All People. The End of Culture and the Dialexic Society. What Should th...

This autobiographical account describes the evolution of the author's research interests and methods of inquiry. Early life experiences at home, in school, and the Peace Corps are discussed in terms of their impact on his professional life. Initial research and consulting work as a graduate student raised issues that reappeared in the author's expe...

Voluntary development organizations have demonstrated substantial comparatiave advantage in developing countries - especially in their ability to innovate, adapt to local conditions, and reach and work with poor and difficult to reach populations. These capabilities are a function of their values, special skills, small size, limited resources, flex...

This article reports a longitudinal study of the Urban Leadership Program, which sought to reshape community leadership networks in a large metropolitan area Program classes of approximately50 persons each replicated in microcosm the ethnic, gender, and occupational diversity of the area's leaders. Data were collected when the program began and end...

Extract from: Walter Dikes; Allan B. Drexler; Jack Gant. The emerging practice of organization development

Traditional approaches to helping developing countries have often played down human development in favor of production of physical and economic resources. It is on this premise that L. David Brown presents a case for the combined use of people-centered development and participatory research as a tool for maximizing local human resources to deal wit...

The paper describes two alternative organizational change paradigms which have gained currency in the West, namely, strategic management and organization development. It highlights the distinctive characteristics of public enterprises, especially those operating in developing countries. It examines and analyses several turnaround cases of public en...

Provides a framework for analyzing and intervening to manage conflict at different organizations interfaces, including between departments, across levels, among cultural groups, and with other organizations. The author draws on an analysis of over- and under-organized systems to build theory for managing both too much and too little conflict.

This paper analyzes a case study of conflict among groups of differing power in a community, drawing upon two distinct traditions of conflict theory: integrative and adversarial. The paper examines the evolution of organization within and among groups over a two-year period and the impacts of that evolution on conflict among them. Essentially, a ne...

This paper argues that local organizations able to act on behalf of the rural poor are critical to constructive social change in developing societies. An intervention for building such local organizations is described conceptually and its implementation illustrated in work with small farmers in rural India. Time-series data collected over 30 months...

Examined the effects of interviews about community experience on subsequent attitudes and behavior of adult residents in 2 new condominium communities. Volunteer (23 households) and randomly selected experimental (17 households) groups of respondents were interviewed in their homes. Questionnaires about community experience were administered shortl...

This paper examines two workshops that brought together chief executive officers of large organizations and activists from community groups to promote better intergroup communications and long-term cooperation for social projects. The workshops are described as attempts to create cooperation between noninterdependent and unequally powerful groups....

Suggests that the key to organizational change may not always rest in the hands of the holders of formal organizational power, giving an alternative to the usual strategies of re-education or replacement to the top of the organizational hierarchy in systems of rapid movement from entry to high positions. (Author/AM)

Behavioral science intervention at the interfaces of organizations is likely to become increasingly important in the near future. This paper examines an interorganizational intervention for evidence of intervention effects and for clues to the complexities of the thirdparty role. Although the data supported the hypothesis that the intervention woul...

Action research, in the ideal, results in insights of relevance to both specific problems and general theories. [9] Ordinarily, action-oriented "hardhats" are likely to be most interested in solutions to specific problems, and research-oriented "eggheads" will be concerned with findings of theoretical relevance. This paper begins with the assumptio...

This article focuses on the relationship between "research" and "action" as contradictory and complementary activities. Recent research and theory indicate the two may be synergistic and difficult to separate. It is suggested that mutual exchange of information between investigator and respondents is critical to both increased understanding ("resea...

This study provides a comparative analysis of seven cases of social entrepre- neurship that have been widely recognized as successful. The paper suggests factors associated with successful social entrepreneurship, particularly with social entrepreneurship that leads to significant changes in the social, political and economic contexts for poor and...

Thesis--Yale University. Abstract: leaf [3] (1st group) Bibliography: leaves 241-249. Microfilm of typescript. s