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Capacity Building Through Partnership: Intermediary Nongovernmental Organizations as Local and Global Actors
Abstract
Partnership and capacity building have become popular strategies among intermediary nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Partnership is viewed as a cure for centrally managed bureaucratic NGOs and capacity building as a measure for strengthening local NGOs. This article examines the case of an intermediary NGO that followed a unique strategy combining capacity building through partnership. Through this, it reveals the trade-offs involved in the choice of an appropriate governance structure. It was found that although the decentralized network form of governance proved to be a powerful innovation, it presented a paradox. Especially in this case where the goal was transmission of specific values and perspectives about sustainable development, such a strategy posed a complex set of trade-offs. Drawing from the experience of this organization, the author suggests that a "plural form" organization may provide maximum governance efficiency for intermediary NGOs like the one examined here. These insights may also apply to social movement organizations.
... International non-governmental organizations' (INGOs) collaborative relations with local non-governmental organizations (LNGOs) in public service provision have often been studied in terms of their nature (Brown and Kalegaonkar 2002;Ashman 2001;Elliott 1987) or effects on capacity building Sanyal 2006;Suárez and Marshall 2014), communication (Yang 2013), and accountability (Banks, Hulme, and Edwards 2015;Brown and Moore 2001), among other topics. Although such collaboration is crucial for individual NGOs, for the NGO sector as a whole, as well as for the fulfilment of public services, limited data and theoretical insights are available to explain the presence of local-international NGO engagement in the first place. ...
... First, INGOs bring their technical expertise and managerial professionalism to share with their local counterparts . INGOs can also help build the capacity of local organizations, buffer demands, and render advice on implementation (Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff 2004;Sanyal 2006;Yang 2013). Additionally, INGOs can serve as bridging organizations that help connect LNGOs into international networks to access resources and bring local issues onto the international agenda (Brass et al. 2018;Sanyal 2006;Suárez and Gugerty 2016;Suárez and Marshall 2014;Yang 2013). ...
... INGOs can also help build the capacity of local organizations, buffer demands, and render advice on implementation (Brinkerhoff and Brinkerhoff 2004;Sanyal 2006;Yang 2013). Additionally, INGOs can serve as bridging organizations that help connect LNGOs into international networks to access resources and bring local issues onto the international agenda (Brass et al. 2018;Sanyal 2006;Suárez and Gugerty 2016;Suárez and Marshall 2014;Yang 2013). Hence, partnerships between LNGOs and INGOs can create synergies that neither side can obtain alone Schulpen 2011, 2013). ...
Collaborative relations between international and local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have often been analysed in terms of their nature and impacts. This study explores several local organizational characteristics that may explain the existence of such collaboration in the first place. Drawing upon a set of organizational theories and original data from a recent survey of 223 local NGOs in Lebanon, the study offers novel empirical evidence that international NGOs may reach and empower a subset of local NGOs better than others, which could exert distributional and undesirable effects on local NGO ecosystems.
... While some NGOs and bilateral organizations attempt to transfer successful programs and services from one country to another, organizations are increasingly recognizing that cultural and regional differences significantly impact the success of their efforts. Effective community action requires collaboration among local opinion leaders and outreach workers to overcome cultural barriers and ensure programmatic success (Babalola and Kincaid, 2009;Sanyal, 2006). Working with local leaders can lead to campaign messages and interventions that more strongly resonate, reach, and influence targeted audiences. ...
... Increasingly, foundations are requiring NGOs to provide specific measures of campaign effectiveness prior to considering them for future funding (Young, 2002). Thus, humanitarian organizations must be strategic in their partnerships to ensure they are collaborating with others who increase their capacity for both technical assistance and advocacy objectives (Sanyal, 2006). ...
Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to test a predictive model for organizational factors on the extent to which organizations involved in non-governmental organizations (NGO) or bilateral partnerships conduct campaign planning research. Design/methodology/approach ‐ In-depth interviews with 120 heads of organizations running AIDS campaigns in Uganda were conducted. The interviewers queried the participants regarding characteristics of their organization and the extent to which they conducted campaign planning research during their last campaign. The information was assigned to quantitative categories, so that the predictive model could be tested using path modeling software. Findings ‐ The results of the path analysis indicated that the model fits the data well. An emergent finding from the path analysis involved the relationship between the number of trained staff workers and the tendency to solicit outreach worker feedback. Organizations with a greater number of trained staff workers sought outreach worker feedback to a greater extent during the campaign. The model also clarified that none of the tested variables predicted the organization's frequency of pretesting campaign messages. Research limitations/implications ‐ Limitations of the current study include its single-issue and single-country focus. Organizational factors were excluded in this study that may be relevant and should be considered in future research (e.g. size of the organization, management style, public versus private). The factors included in this study, however, are commonly studied characteristics of organizations. Regardless of location, organizations differ in terms of financial resources, formalization, and focus, and engage in formative research to varying extents. Research is also an important part of the campaign process, regardless of the issue or organization type. Practical implications ‐ NGOs that involve community outreach workers for assistance in crafting campaign messages and test early messaging strategies with audience members are likely to see improved campaign effectiveness and improved cultural competencies. Originality/value ‐ By identifying the characteristics of local organizations that may facilitate formative research activities, this study makes a significant contribution to the literature on HIV/AIDs and health communication campaigns. As the context surrounding HIV/AIDS campaigns continues to evolve, NGOs and bi-lateral organizations are in continued demand to develop new and more effective campaign messages to address emerging issues.
... Nevertheless, we argue that a multiple case study design provides a richer analysis of partnership processes than a single case study, and represents a useful starting point for theorizing about the similarities and differences in partnership tensions encountered by these types of organizations (Yin, 2009). While we acknowledge that generalizations are not possible beyond the two NGOs examined here (Sanyal, 2006), we agree with Houlihan (1997) that examining similar cases in different countries is useful for learning about how different political systems face similar problems. ...
... Finally, critical questions have certainly been raised in the vast international development literature about partnerships and whether pooled resources are filtering down to achieve development goals, especially when multinational corporations are involved (Brinkerhoff, 2002;Prieto-Carron, Lund-Thomsen, Chan, Muro, & Bhushan, 2006;Sanyal, 2006), but the partnership tensions experienced between sport NGOs and high performance sport have yet to be examined. In addition to opening up a new avenue for sport management research, the practical implications of this study are that examining partnership tensions in this global context will Swiss and Canadian NGO Partnerships with High Performance Sport 77 provide sport managers with a broadened and more realistic understanding of the complexities involved (Thibault, 2009). ...
Over 400 sport for development non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have formed in recent years, operating projects in more than 125 countries globally. These NGOs typically focus on sport participation in countries in the Two-Thirds World, and usually have partnerships with their more established national sports organizations in their home country. Drawing on partnership theory, the purpose of this study was to analyse tensions underpinning partnerships with high performance sport from the perspectives of staff in Swiss and Canadian sport for development NGOs. Qualitative research methods were used, including a content analysis of the two NGO websites along with various organizational documents. Key staff from each NGO were also interviewed. The findings reveal three major tensions that both NGOs encounter. The first is competing values and this was tied to different approaches to sport programme delivery and concerns that NGO programmes are seen as a feeder system for their high performance sport partners. The second tension related to gaining legitimacy. While there were benefits in being associated with the established histories of high performance sport partners, the NGOs wanted to move the sport for development agenda forward independently but found it difficult to do so. Resource dependency was a third tension identified by both NGOs that shaped and were shaped by power imbalances between sport partners. The implications of the findings for sport for development NGOs and ideas for future research are discussed.
... Local organizations are known to enlarge their room to maneuver through personal relationships (Baaz, 2005;Fernando, 2007), trust building (Mawdsley, Townsend, & Porter, 2005), the strategic use of discourse (Ebrahim, 2001;Hilhorst, 2003), the selective release of information (Ebrahim, 2002), and the private aid agencies' need for success (Ebrahim, 2002). The latter show that partnerships to some extent are characterized by mutual dependence (Michael, 2004;Sanyal, 2006). ...
... In effect, in all three case countries, partners with a strong reputation had in fact funding agencies coming to them and not the other way around. The underlying idea of symbiotic relationships (see Michael, 2004;Sanyal, 2006) was clearly explained by a CA-partner: "We do believe that Christian Aid needs us as badly as we need them. With our work we give them a lot of visibility, particularly compared to some of their other partners. ...
This article examines decision making in the partnerships between three private aid agencies and their local partners in Ghana, India, and Nicaragua. Drawing upon a mixed methodology, the article maps the relative influence of these partners vis-a-vis the agencies and reveals the processes underlying decision-making outcomes. Three main findings are advanced: (a) Institutional rules regulate per topic the extent in which partners can participate in the decision making, ranging from exclusion to full decision-making authority; (b) four clusters of decision-making topics were identified reflecting the different degrees to which partners are allowed to participate in the decision making; and (c) while partners' ability to influence decisions above all is affected by the institutional rules, some have more influence than others depending on their organizational capacity and their respective project-officer.
... The second part reiterates the same sub-sections, adapting them to practical situations with the views of interviewees' all working in the development field. The third part analyses mini-case studies reflecting on previous conclusions to assess how the development world functionates as a bureaucratic one; and to what extent aiming for mutuality can be an effective strategy for NGOs. 1 Sanyal, Paromita (2006), 'Capacity Building Through Partnerships: Intermedary Nongovernmental Organizations as Local and Global Actors', Non-profit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 35(1), p. 66 2 Bell A. Daniel & Coicaud, Jean-Marc (2007), Ethics in Action: The Ethical Challenges of International Human Rights Nongovernmental Organizations (New York: Cambridge University Press), p. 79 3 Bell & Coicaud (2007), pp. 90-92 4 Peter A. Gourevitch, David A. Lake & Janice Gross Stein (2012), The credibility of Transnational NGOs, when virtue is ...
... 34 interaction in North-South NGO relations', Development in Practice, 15(1), pp. 78-79 Missoni & Alesani (2014), p. 126 25 Crespin, Julie (2006), 'Aiding local action: the constraints faced by donors agencies in supporting effective, pro-poor initiatives on the ground', International Institute for Environment and Development, 18(2), p. 433 26 Elbers & Arts (2011), p. 719 27 Mawdsley, Townsend, Porter & Oakley (2002), p. 20 Lewis & Sobhan (1999), p. 123 28 Sanyal (2006), pp. 75-77 29 Lewis & Sobhan (1999), pp. ...
Multi-level governance materialises in the chain of influence between donors, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), local partners and beneficiaries. This stepped relationship is often characterised by a degree of mutual mistrust and by divergent interests. It exists in a realm between formal highly bureaucratised and standardised development systems coupled with ineffective management practices, short-term agendas and lack of interpersonal relations, which undermine the creation of mutuality between the former and mostly informal stakeholders at the receiving end. This enquiry on “leadership as process” examines the role of NGOs in creating “substantial” mutuality in this chain of relationships. The data collected showed that there is a gap between upstream (donors and NGOs) objectives and the context in which they operate. The study concludes that by establishing mutuality and ownership NGOs can bridge the gap and limitations of the current system. Keyword: multi-level governance; non-governmental organisations; leadership-as-process; trust; development agendas
... While some NGOs and bilateral organizations attempt to transfer successful programs and services from one country to another, organizations are increasingly recognizing that cultural and regional differences significantly impact the success of their efforts. Effective community action requires collaboration among local opinion leaders and outreach workers to overcome cultural barriers and ensure programmatic success (Babalola and Kincaid, 2009; Sanyal, 2006). Working with local leaders can lead to campaign messages and interventions that more strongly resonate, reach, and influence targeted audiences. ...
... Increasingly, foundations are requiring NGOs to provide specific measures of campaign effectiveness prior to considering them for future funding (Young, 2002). Thus, humanitarian organizations must be strategic in their partnerships to ensure they are collaborating with others who increase their capacity for both technical assistance and advocacy objectives (Sanyal, 2006). Characteristics of the local organizations with which NGOs and bilateral organizations partner vary greatly, and these variations may impact campaign effectiveness. ...
... In other words, NPOs are service delivery non-profit organizations. Supportive NPOs, on the other hand, provide a series of distinctive services and programs which conventional NPOs (or practical NPOs) would not include in their daily operations (Sanyal, 2006), including NPO incubation, and NPOs alliances formation. 'Support Organizations' was first adopted by Brown and Kalegaokar (1999) to solve challenges like amateurism, material scarcity, paternalism and relationship with state or market, in civil society. ...
... Previous research defines NSO with different terminologies, such as support organization, umbrella organization, intermediary organization, non-profit management support organization, mediating orga-nizations, and development NGOs (Brown & Kalegaokar, 1999, Carroll, 1992, Sanyal, 2006. Despite considerable literature, scholars have not achieved a general agreement on the definition of NSOs. ...
The application of the business-like strategic model in the nonprofit sector has attracted increasing attention from scholars and practitioners in both western countries and Asian countries like China. In order to assess how the business-like strategic model can be applied successfully in an authoritarian regime, this Chapter concentrates on a single case in China's context, the Nonprofit Incubator (NPI), to identify the contributing factors to its success in applying the business-like strategic model. Drawing from two theoretical frameworks of policy window and balanced scorecard, this chapter examines the internal and external management of NPI to investigate how, and to what extent, a business-like strategic model is adopted in the context of China. Findings indicate that organizational needs to be very sensitive to both internal and external managerial environment so as to achieve its success. This chapter argues that the business-like strategic model is feasible in China without any obvious disparity compared with its implication in Western countries.
... Economy | 11 Vol.7 (2019) no.1, pp.9-27;www.managementdynamics.ro Another significance of capacity building in the case of NGO is related to its clients/ beneficiaries/ communities. NGOs can and should contribute to increased community capacity (Craig, 2007;Eade, 2010;Sanyal, 2006). Community (capacity) building would be an appropriate goal for nonprofits. ...
... Networking and partnerships also improve training, as well as capacity building (Sanyal, 2006). These approaches determine better approaches in the line of values transfer, better responding to community and staff needs, better coverage and field presence, as well as legitimacy. ...
The effectiveness of NGOs, similar to other types of organizations, depends on the quality and implication of their employees and volunteers. The literature highlights the role of learning capabilities, organizational learning, networking and community capacity building in ensuring organizational sustainable development in the NGO sector. In this framework, professional human resources should be an important part of the management strategy. Continuous and personalized training would be also important for NGOs. The present paper presents a qualitative investigation aiming to map the training needs and practices of the NGO sector in Romania, both from the perspective of its representatives and its stakeholders. The findings show a general agreement and concern related to the professionalism of the workers in the sector, as well as related to the lack of explicit responsibility/the feeling of being accountable assumed by the members of the sector. The study also revealed a need for closer cooperation between the members of the Quadruple Helix.
... " (Sherman, 2004, p. 73). As the underlying capacity of faith-based organizations has become better understood, there has been better planning to address their capacity-related needs (Clerkin & Grønbjerg, 2007;Sanyal, 2006). ...
Key Points
·This article describes the efforts of two foundations to sustain the ministries of Catholic sisters in two regions: northeast Ohio and South Carolina.
· Spanning more than 10 years, the initiative has drawn on multiple strategies – including convening, grantmaking, communicating, and research – in partnership with sisters themselves to sustain a diverse set of ministries.
· The work informs foundation practice by illuminating an approach to capacity development in very different regional contexts.
· Key lessons include being sensitive to the context, paying attention to both individual and organizational capacity, and the need for data.
... According to Rivenbark and Menter (2006) third sector organisations prefer to use their limited resources to develop and operate programs rather than develop organizational capacity. In a study of the role of intermediary organizations in the capacity building, of local NGOs, Sanyal (2006) found that many local NGOs lacked financial and human resources and were concerned about financial sustainability. The ability of local NGOs to run programs was compromised by a lack of resources indicating the importance of the organization's ability to manage its finances, and therefore the importance of AS. ...
The study investigates the relationship between CEO compensation and performance of State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) in South Africa, using data for the period 2009 to 2011. The results indicated that there exist no positive relationship between CEO compensation and SOEs performance as measured by return on assets. The results also indicated a positive relationship between CEO compensation (base salary) and the size of SOEs as measured by total revenue and number of employees. The results suggest that board members of SOEs in South Africa should hold CEOs accountable for the performance of SOEs, and should not pay huge salaries and bonuses to non performing CEOs.
... After decades of development, it is obvious that the government and non-profit need to work synergistically which meets public needs and benefits (Salamon, 1995;Young, 1999), and multiple cross-sector partnerships have become more important than ever. Also, the complexity of interactions between the two sectors has inspired the creation of numerous typologies from the perspective of collaboration theory (Babiak and Thibault, 2009;Guo and Acar, 2005;Sanyal, 2006). Based on these, many authors believe that the non-profits have become a formal part of local disaster management system (Coate et al., 2010;Jobe, 2010;Xu and Lu, 2013) and can serve as a useful complement to the government in the geo-disaster emergency management (Hou and Lv, 2013). ...
Since unexpected geo-disasters have been causing enormous losses all over the world, it is unsustainable for the government to perfect the emergency rescue channels, so the non-profit could be embedded as far as possible. Nevertheless, the linkage performance may be affected by various different factors and it is always difficult to improve all aspects simultaneously. This paper's aim is to propose an imperative issue on how to identify the critical success factors (CSFs) that impact the linkage mechanism between government and non-profit in the geo-disaster emergency decision. Therefore, an effectively integrated approach of interpretive structural modelling, fuzzy logic and decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory is adopted to visualise the causal relationships and hierarchical structure, six CSFs are identified from the initial 22 factors that are extraordinarily essential for the linkage mechanism, and all factors can be achieved for better improving the effectiveness of the linkage mechanism in the geo-disaster emergency decision.
... Así, a finales de los años 90 y principios de los 2000, se empieza comprender la importancia de la interconexión entre países, actores y sectores de intervención múltiples, dando lugar a la configuración en red de nuevos compromisos colectivos y una responsabilidad conjunta, un enfoque que a partir de ese momento es considerado por muchos estrategas mundiales como la única forma de avanzar en el proceso de globalización (60,61). Los dirigentes políticos y responsables de la salud pública cambian progresivamente su forma de trabajar con los sectores privados y asociativos, pasando de las asociaciones internacionales público-privadas a las asociaciones mundiales para la salud y creando, durante esta transición, nuevos mecanismos institucionales para gobernar la salud mundial (62)(63)(64). ...
El presente libro nace con el objetivo de aportar a la discusión
sobre los retos que el estudio de la Epidemiología tiene en un contexto global en el que 193 países miembros de la Organización de las
Naciones Unidas (ONU), organizaciones de la sociedad civil y otras
partes interesadas, acordaron “Transformar nuestro mundo: la Agenda 2030 para el Desarrollo Sostenible" (1), como un plan de acción
en favor de las personas, el planeta, la prosperidad, la paz y las
alianzas, mismo que entró en vigor el primer día de enero de 2016.
La Epidemiología en su origen, se concibió como una rama de
las ciencias médicas para tratar epidemias, o controlar enfermedades
epidémicas sumamente infecciosas (cólera, peste, viruela, y más) y,
con el tiempo, ha contribuido también a controlar enfermedades no
transmisibles como el cáncer, las enfermedades cardiovasculares y
los trastornos genéticos, entre otras. Su comprensión ha permitido
intervenir antes de que se declare la enfermedad, es decir, sonar
alarmas previo a que sea demasiado tarde y, ayudar a los altos funcionarios a formular estrategias para su solución (2).
No obstante, el avance progresivo del concepto de salud, ha
permitido pasar de no sólo la prevención de enfermedades infecciosas y no transmisibles, a considerar a la salud como un estado de
bienestar físico, mental y social integro. Más recientemente, la salud
se inscribe como un derecho humano, cuyo enfoque implica la no
discriminación, la disponibilidad de los bienes y servicios públicos
de salud, así como la accesibilidad, calidad, universalidad y rendición de cuentas (3), en un medio ambiente sano.
... funds, technical assistance, space, manpower, training and support) that allow communities, their organisations and associations, to assess their needs and cultivate their own human, social and economic capital for purposes of developing and delivering services and building collective political power. Intervening institutions have commonly included private foundations, local and state governments, policy research centers, labor unions and universities (Bartczak 2005;Fasenfest & Gant 2005;Ferman 2006;Fisher, Fabricant & Simmons 2005;Maurrasse 2001;Sanyal 2006). ...
This article examines the benefits and limitations of ‘loosely-coupled’ research collaborations between university faculty and 12 grassroots community-based organisations (CBOs). The authors assert that community-based research projects that develop the knowledge base within CBOs, and can be described as ‘pre-capacity building’ work, can be an important stepping stone to the subsequent development of more formal and strategic capacity-building partnership ventures. However, such projects must be approached carefully with a clear understanding of the ‘threshold dimensions’ that must be met before proceeding with any collaboration. Written as a cautionary tale, the authors identify some of the problems that arise when the threshold stage is poorly executed, and more generally speak to the dangers of initiating even loosely-coupled collaborations in the absence of an explicit and well-established campus commitment to and support for community engagement and partnerships.
Keywords: Community capacity-building, community-university partnerships, community research, collaboration
... In addition to depoliticization, other factors that determine the effectiveness of CSOs have been underlined in the literature (see, e.g., Anheier 2014). These include whether funds are obtained through membership fees or from national/international funders (see, e.g., Banks et al. 2015;Henderson 2002;Igoe 2003); whether the CSO focus is directed at local, national or global issues (see, e.g., Edwards et al. 1999;Siméant 2005); the nature of the CSO governance structure, including autonomy/ hierarchy/democratic centralism (see, e.g., Sanyal, 2006); the degree of institutionalization (see, e.g., van der Heijden, 1997); and the extent of its membership base (see, e.g., Banks et al. 2015;Kotzian and Steffek 2013;Milligan and Fyfe 2005). ...
A push to reverse unsustainable trends has come from environmental civil society, but its track record is somewhat inconsistent. Why are some environmental organizations able to enhance the environmental cause, while others fail to create a substantial impact in the move toward environmental sustainability? This paper considers related but disparate clusters of literature and identifies factors that have an impact on the effectiveness of civil society. It also addresses the ambiguity that is attached to civil society—a concept with considerable historical baggage and contextual differentiation. Given that each conceptualization of civil society has its own body of literature and that these do not necessarily speak to each other, we propose an analytical framework that integrates a variety of dimensions relevant to the analysis of environmental civil society organizations (CSOs): the degree of institutionalization, the mode of interaction with the state, sources of funding, the locus of mobilization, the choice of issue(s), and the degree of politicization. Using these organizational characteristics, our framework further integrates contextual factors, constructing a multidimensional space where there are opportunities and constraints for environmental CSOs. This framework allows us to examine diverse paths shaped by context-dependent strategic choices of environmental CSOs which may either limit or enhance their capacity to make an impact. These strategic choices are tracked by selecting entry points inspired by fieldwork conducted in Turkey—specifically, institutionalization, the choice of issue(s), and politicization.
... Boglio Martínez mentions other terms in social work and social science literature to discuss similar kinds of organizations: "intermediary," "bridging," "broker," "facilitator," "support," "infrastructure," "selfreliance promoting," and "development NGO"'(Arrosi et al., 1994;Balbis, 2001;Brown, 1991;Brown & Kalegaonkar, 2002; Carroll, 1992;Chavis et al., 1993;Fisher, 1998;Lee, 1998;Rubin & Rubin, 2001;Sanyal, 2006; World Bank, 2006). ...
... In effect, in all three case countries partners with a strong reputation had funding agencies coming to them, instead of the other way around. The underlying idea of symbiotic relationships (see Michael, 2004;Sanyal 2006) was clearly explained by a CA-partner: "We do believe that Christian Aid needs us as badly as we need them. With our work we give them a lot of visibility, particularly compared to some of their other partners. ...
... Second, uncovering the conflicts and tensions involved in Platforms formed around social-justice oriented NGO-based transnational networks has been shown in previous research to be an important step in improving and sustaining NGO communication and collaborative efforts so that longevity, policy influence and mutual benefits can be achieved (Cullen, 2005). While generalizing beyond the case studies examined in this research is not possible (Sanyal, 2006), we are building on the work of other sport scholars by examining cases in different countries (Houlihan, 1997), which has been beneficial for understanding how those working within 'different political systems face similar problems' (Hayhurst and Frisby, 2010: 77). ...
Internet platforms are increasingly becoming strategic tools for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) involved in international development to collaborate, share information, and gain legitimacy. Drawing on the literature on neoliberalism, sport for development, globalization and networking through communication technologies, this article examines the interpretations of staff working in Canadian and Swiss sport for development and peace (SDP) NGOs on the role of the Platform, while also exploring the challenges and benefits of the Platform for each NGO. Qualitative research methods were utilized, including a content analysis of documents on the Platform and the two NGO websites, along with interviews with staff from both NGOs. The findings revealed, on one hand, that staff for both NGOs were concerned about the Platform’s potential to support collaboration amongst organizations that: a) are frequently in competition with one another – a feature of NGO culture in a neoliberal political environment; and b) commonly adopt divergent approaches to SDP work. On the other hand, both NGOs acknowledged that the Platform and the UN-endorsed International Year of Sport and Physical Education were at times useful for disseminating and legitimizing SDP globally, although the potential of new media technologies has not been realized because of inequalities within and around the NGO community. Implications of the findings along with ideas for future research are discussed.
... The BC Non-Profit Housing Association and the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC are two such organizations: both are active in advocacy, training, capacity development, research, and bulk purchasing. Many authors have found that the capacity of organizations to achieve their objectives is higher among those exhibiting strong partnerships, a benefit that can be attributed to the enhanced amount and diversity of human, social, and financial capital made available through these relationships (e.g., Loza 2004;Sanyal 2006 ...
When citizens take collaborative action to meet the needs of
their community, they are participating in the social economy.
Co-operatives, community-based social services, local non-profit
organizations, and charitable foundations are all examples of
social economies that emphasize mutual benefit rather than the
accumulation of profit. While such groups often participate in
market-based activities to achieve their goals, they also pose an
alternative to the capitalist market economy. Contributors to
Scaling Up investigated innovative social economies in British
Columbia and Alberta and discovered that achieving a social
good through collective, grassroots enterprise resulted in a
sustainable way of satisfying human needs that was also, by
extension, environmentally responsible. As these case studies
illustrate, organizations that are capable of harnessing the power
of a social economy generally demonstrate a commitment to
three outcomes: greater social justice, financial self-sufficiency,
and environmental sustainability. In these locally defined and
controlled organizations we see possibilities for a more human
economy capable of transforming the very social and technical
systems that make our current way of life unsustainable.
... According to Rivenbark and Menter (2006) third sector organisations prefer to use their limited resources to develop and operate programs rather than develop organizational capacity. In a study of the role of intermediary organizations in the capacity building, of local NGOs, Sanyal (2006) found that many local NGOs lacked financial and human resources and were concerned about financial sustainability. The ability of local NGOs to run programs was compromised by a lack of resources indicating the importance of the organization's ability to manage its finances, and therefore the importance of AS. ...
Accounting skills are important for the continued viability and growth of organisations. However, many organisations in the community sector are faced with problems unique to the sector making the acquisition of accounting skills particularly difficult. This paper explores the issues faced by Community Organisations (CO) to gain access to appropriate accounting skills. The study is centred upon answering three questions: What are the accounting skills required by community organisations? What level of understanding of accounting is there in the Victorian community sector? How accessible are accounting skills to the community sector? The answers to these questions were obtained through interviews with people involved with the community sector either as managers of intermediate organisations or community organisations. The findings of this research show that access to accounting skills in the sector is uneven. The evidence also suggests that the uneven access is the result of a number of barriers including: A lack of funding; A lack of time; Limited availability of appropriate accounting courses; A lack of awareness by volunteer and paid staff, and board members of the need for basic accounting knowledge. Recommendations to overcome these barriers are also made.
... Hence, it is linked to better organizational performance and more effectively meeting the needs of communities affected by natural disaster (Nolte & Boenigk, 2011. Indeed, studies reveal that organizations that engage in effective interorganizational collaboration find working together improves organizational performance (Galaskiewicz et al., 2006) and capacity (Sanyal, 2006) and increase acquisition of resources and capital (Hardy et al., 2003). ...
Humanitarian organizations involved in disaster risk reduction (DRR) play a major role in helping communities better cope with disaster risks. But a lack of research has hindered our understanding of how to equip organizations with the capacity to carry out effective DRR measures. To address this question, this study unpacks the determinants of humanitarian organizations’ DRR performance. Survey data from 104 global humanitarian organizations revealed that external communication capacity was positively associated with organizational leaders’ perception of organizational DRR performance both directly and indirectly via interorganizational collaboration and social media communication. In contrast, collaboration communication quality was positively linked to perceived organizational DRR performance indirectly via interorganizational collaboration and social media communication. These findings highlight the centrality of communicative and relational resources required for effective DRR performance, which helps long‐term community resilience building. Despite social media's importance for engaging with stakeholders, this research suggests that organizations should also use media channels beyond social media to build external communication capacity and improve DRR performance.
... Moreover, mining conflicts usually occur between local communities/CSOs and multinational/national mining companies, and hence, are widely considered an example of contentious politics. As a result, the literature on collective action and social movements, is both insightful and relevant to better understanding the new wave of mobilization against extractive industries [26], with extensive debates ranging from how CSOs should be structured in their attempts to maximize the strength of collective challenges [27], and their degree of institutionalization [28], to funding sources and the extent of their membership base [29]. Given that institutionalization and professionalization require greater effort to generate financial resources, highly professionalized and institutionalized organizations are criticized, for instance, if they lose touch with the communities they seek to represent. ...
This paper examines conflicts that occur between mining companies and civil society organizations (CSOs) around the world and offers an innovative analysis of mining conflicts from a social network perspective. The analysis showed that, as the number of CSOs involved in a conflict increased, its outcome was more likely to be perceived as a success in terms of environmental justice (EJ); if a CSO was connected to other central CSOs, the average perception of EJ success was likely to increase; and as network distance between two conflicts increased (or decreased), they were more likely to lead to different (or similar) EJ outcomes. Such network effects in mining conflicts have policy implications for EJ movements. It would be a strategic move on the part of successful CSOs to become involved in other major conflicts and disseminate information about how they achieved greater EJ success.
... Specifically, such a relationship allows INGOs to better understand the local players (Smith, 2015), bring technical and managerial expertise to them (Marshall and , and help local NGOs obtain access to international networks while simultaneously helping to put local issues on the international agenda (Sanyal, 2006;Yang, 2013;Suárez and Gugerty, 2016;Brass et al., 2018). ...
Today, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are among the most important stakeholders in terms of global governance and business operations. The aim of this thesis is to investigate the external and internal influential factors of the operational efficiency of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in China. By introducing the extended resource-based view (ERBV) into the context of NGO operations, a proposed conceptual model with 14 indicators is tested. In this study, based on the panel data collected on the Chinese Research Data Services Platform (CNRDS) and ERBV, a multiple regression analysis is performed to test the 14 influential factors identified in the dataset. By adopting ERBV, it is concluded that both intra- and inter-organisational resources are interacted and make a significant and positive association with NGOs’ operational efficiency. In particular, it is found that the availability of financial resources, political connections and NGO professionalism are all crucial factors to improve NGO operational efficiency in China. In addition, this thesis also made several contributions. First, in terms of the theoretical contribution, it may be the first study introducing the ERBV into the context of NGO, which extended several concepts (e.g. professionalisation, and interactions between internal and external resources) into the NGO context; Second, this study contributes to practitioners, such as managers in NGOs and corporates (e.g. the different roles of volunteers and paid staffs in fundraising); Also, this study makes social contributions, including implications for policymakers in China. By the end of this research, several limitations and research directions are presented for studies in the future.
... NGOs or with private companies. As in agriculture, NGOs play an important role in contributing to the empowerment of local communities to reduce political interference (Sanyal, 2006;Fernandez, 2006). Empowerment remains high on the agenda for organizations to progress towards co-production of services (Isham, Kelly and Ramaswamy, 2002). ...
... The latter include more ''expansive" (Venner, 2015) approaches stressing the interdependencies of social actors in capacity development and participatory approaches emphasizing the relevance of ownership and the participation of the community (Lavergne & Saxby, 2001). With changes in organizational structures and the emergence of intermediary organizations and development initiatives aiming for more sustainability, capacity development has also undergone shifts and adaptations (Sanyal, 2006;Wetterberg, Brinkerhoff, & Hertz, 2015). Recent techniques/methods recognize that capacity development is not just about the event, goal, or output, but also involves processes and relationships (Bolger, 2000;Brinkerhoff, 2008;Girgis, 2007). ...
A central goal of capacity development is transforming participants into autonomous agents. However, there is often an inherent tension between capacity development and autonomy because capacity development programs are frequently set up to fill an externally predefined lack in capacity. In this article, we argue that this tension can be addressed when capacity development is set up to advance what we call “narrative autonomy” (Williams, 1997). Narrative autonomy centers on individuals’ narrative interpretations as they reveal or create the meaning of their own identity and situation, creatively draw on available materials, and discern courses of action true to these interpretations. The advancement of narrative autonomy requires certain capacities and conditions. Expanding on existing participatory approaches that focus on capacity development occurring within relationships and informal processes, we show how capacity development programs can be set up to advance these capacities and conditions through the intricate relations between formal and informal processes. We illustrate our theoretical claims through an empirical study of a capacity development partnership program involving a feminist Delhi-based civil society organization and seven local partner organizations in the state of Jharkhand. This program targeted women who had been elected to village councils. We show how the program advanced elected women representatives’ narrative autonomy through informal relationships that undergirded formal capacity development, and how the formal training helped to provide a language for constructing these narratives and a context conducive to advancing autonomous action that was true to the women’s narratives. By redefining the relationship between autonomy and capacity development, we move the theoretical debate beyond problematizing the aid-dependency power relations often seen in capacity development programs and provide a way forward for practice.
... Collective action through local organizations has to deal with local or national authorities, with NGOs or with private companies. As in agriculture, NGOs play an important role in contributing to the empowerment of local communities to reduce political interference (Sanyal, 2006;Fernandez, 2006). Empowerment remains high on the agenda for organizations to progress towards co-production of services (Isham, Kelly and Ramaswamy, 2002). ...
In development studies, collective action often appears as a condition for achieving long‑term ownership of development-oriented actions. Here, collective action is considered as a condition for the expansion of individual strategies. We also view collective action as a product of individuals getting together to achieve some common goal and thus accepting the constraints linked to collective action.
This paper explores the conditions for collective action to generate inclusion when agriculture transforms. Changes related to agricultural transformation have often led to urban migration for those rural and agricultural populations that could not cope with “modernization.” In the coming decades, agricultural transformation in rural areas may lead to more varied responses such as new farming patterns including more labour and thus require a broader diversity of collective action.
We consider households as the basic level where decisions are taken regarding domestic and economic activities: any improvement in one of these spheres will benefit the other. Improvements in households will also depend on other levels of investment: in local communities, in various interlinked sectors and by developing vertical linkages with other levels of organization, up to national policy level.
Based on a range of theoretical and empirical references, we propose a framework that goes beyond sector-oriented perspectives, linking several interconnected domains where collective action can make a contribution towards inclusion. In each of these domains, collective action could usefully focus on three main areas that potentially influence those domains: public goods provision, expanding opportunities (livelihood diversification and community infrastructure), and challenging current norms and behaviors.
We then explore how to operationalize this collective action framework to generate inclusion at local level across sector-oriented interventions, including by developing linkages with higher levels of organization, up to social movements. What is at stake is the ability of research and policy making to support initiatives that cut across sector frontiers, favor interactions that open local people up to new ideas and beliefs, and look to bridge gaps in social status and between local and global thinking.
... Further, they suggest that these ratings convey information similar to that communicated by traditional credit ratings. Sanyal (2006) highlights the importance of partnership and capacity building strategies among intermediary NGOs. The partnership is viewed as a cure for centrally managed bureaucratic NGOs and capacity building as a measure for strengthening local NGOs. ...
In a development forum, there is a great need to look at the ground realities of organizations, especially in the context of the post-globalization scenario. Thereby comes the notion of ‘community’ from the donor’s point of view. The donors’ participation in the daily activities of the people, especially women, to make them earn their means of livelihoods poses questions which are of prime importance to have an academic engagement theoretically, empirically and otherwise. My study discusses the role of community-based organizations (CBOs) in implementing developmental programmes in rural areas across the country. It is noteworthy in the case of sericulture enterprise a large number of women are active at various levels, which further proved to be one of the important crop enterprise prevailing in the locality. This paper attempts to interrogate how women empowered themselves as a part of the CBOs. This could eventually lead to policymakers, government and other agencies to advise development programmes. The paper draws its analysis and inferences from a fieldwork carried out with the sericulturists of a village in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh in India.
... Finally, NGO capacity has been studied as an outcome, particularly in research on capacity building (Gupta et al, 2006;Minzner et al., 2014). For instance, NGOs may seek to build their capacity via interorganizational collaboration (Sanyal, 2006). Similar to nonprofit capacities, nonprofit performance (or effectiveness) also encompasses multiple dimensions and includes outcomes of an organization's management and program activities, such as financial health, employee satisfaction, client satisfaction, and social impact (Sowa et al., 2004). ...
Capacity-building initiatives are popular among nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) worldwide. In response to a lack of valid and reliable capacity measures for NGOs working on various social issues, Shumate and colleagues developed an 8-dimension, 45-item NGO capacities instrument, based on data from U.S. NGOs. However, the proliferation of international research on NGO capacity raises questions about the degree to which such an instrument equally applies in other countries. To allow meaningful comparisons of NGO capacities across countries, we examine the measurement equivalence of this NGO capacity instrument across a matched sample of Chinese ( N = 119) and U.S. ( N = 150) NGOs. Findings suggest a new NGO capacity instrument, which comprises seven factors and 28 items and better accounts for the capacity of both Chinese and U.S. NGOs. Based on the new instrument, a series of comparative analyses highlight the influence of institutional factors on NGO capacities.
Over the past several decades, local capacity development (LCD) has played a central role in helping countries move towards democratization. Despite its recognition in the field of social development, LCD approaches to promoting change have been heavily criticized for their ineffectiveness in promoting sustainable change for local communities. Based on field notes, the paper addresses challenges in promoting local capacity develop‑ ment, and proposes a new approach to civil‑society organizations (CSOs)' local capacity development within the Moldavian context that will strengthen democracy.
External pressure by funders can be a catalyst for a more proactive and strategic approach to quality management in the non-profit sector, however it can also lead to cynical responses which do little to promote learning and improvement. This case study of a national infrastructure organization that supports a network of local non-profit organizations provides insight into the attitudes and challenges that can arise from such external, top-down pressure.
Democratisation presents opportunities and threats to non-governmental organisations (NGOs). Greater openness associated with democratic regimes provides opportunities for participation and influence not previously available. At the same time, increasing state capacity may threaten the continued relevance of NGOs. The article examines the Environment and Natural Resources Foundation (FARN) of Argentina and the Regional Environmental Center (REC) of eastern Europe to assess environmental support organisations in post-authoritarian contexts. The aims of the article are to identify opportunities and threats to environmental support organisations and to examine the strategies they adopt to advance their interests and achieve their goals.
This essay theorizes grassroots support organizations (GSOs) as empowerment-oriented development nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and grassroots support as a growing field of community-based practice. It offers a conceptual definition of GSOs; specifies their organizational features, functions, and goals; and differentiates them from other public and private intermediary organizations. It also details the activities carried out by GSOs and suggests how these cohere into a model of grassroots support. The article discusses the challenging issues of financing, accountability, and scale faced by GSOs. Finally, it establishes the relevance of social work to grassroots support and GSOs as fields of study and practice.
The NGO–donor relationship is especially volatile. NGOs in developing countries heavily rely on foreign donor funding and donor dominance is evident. This article explores the relationship at times when donors revise funding priorities and partner NGOs try to adapt. The article draws on qualitative research of multiple observations to study the decisions of four NGOs in response to several shifts in donor funding. The analysis reveals variation in NGO responses to such shifts: suspend the relationship, reach common ground, automatically execute the donor’s interests, and voluntarily and deliberately adapt to the situation. Building on Hirschman’s typology, four modes of NGOs’ response are identified: exit, voice, loyalty, and, a newly proposed mode, adjustment. Additional interpretation of NGOs’ responses and possible implications for NGO management are discussed.
This research examines challenges associated with partnerships among a group of cross-sector organizations. The context for this study is a nonprofit organization in Canada's sport system and its numerous partners in public, nonprofit, and commercial sectors. The results reveal challenges in the areas of structure and strategy. Specifically, data uncover structural challenges with respect to problems with governance, roles, and responsibilities guiding the partnerships and with the complexity of partnership forms and structures. The data also uncover strategic challenges, in light of the focus on competition versus collaboration among various partners and the changes in missions and objectives through the duration of the relationship. The results and implications for nonprofit organizations involved in multiple cross-sector partnerships are discussed.
Literature on the management structures of feminist organizations differs from other organizations because they are alternative organizations driven by commitment to ideology and an egalitarian structure. However, recent research suggests that there has been a change in thinking. Scholars argue that feminists should not take the position that there is only one “form of freedom.” Rather, the structures women adopt for their organizations should depend on the context. Despite these suggestive findings from the international feminist literature, there is not much documented on the structures of women's non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and upper and middle class women who choose careers as volunteers and activists. This study examines the personal motivations and complex opportunities related to careers in feminist organizations. Using a feminist standpoint framework, a snowball sample of twenty-one women is interviewed. The data reveals unique dynamics associated with careers in NGOs with a feminist mission and structure in India.
Social enterprises are created to solve social problems through market-based interventions. While the existing literature describes the types and nature of marketing in social enterprises, the role of relationship marketing in social value creation has not been considered. This chapter explores the role of a relationship approach to marketing to enhance the acceptability of social enterprises and their innovative solutions. The chapter uses an illustrative case of an Indian social enterprise. The case describes how a social enterprise uses relationship marketing with their stakeholders for the successful adoption of social innovation and its sustainability. The findings indicate three enabling factors for relationship marketing: customer-orientedness, mutual trust and commitment, and a supportive institutional setup. A relationship marketing approach helps social enterprises in two ways, co-creation of value and customization of the offering. The case contributes to our understanding of the role and relevance of strategic marketing approaches in addressing social problems.
Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in Zimbabwe has a long and varied history within a complex and dynamic governance system. Significant amounts of research have critiqued the successes and failures of Zimbabwe’s CBNRM programme – the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resource Use (CAMPFIRE) – across its three decades of implementation. Past research has mainly a focused on specific CAMPFIRE projects and their wider governance structures, in which the district level has been considered as the 'local' level. Studies have ignored the complex and important sub- system of natural resource management governance between the district level and the local communities. Thus, there is a lack of understanding of the intricate structures and processes involved in the sub-district system, and a shortfall in research that attempts to understand micro-level realities of managing and governing natural resources. This paper analyses natural resource management using survey, interview and focus group data from four study villages across Binga and Chiredzi Districts in Zimbabwe, all of which have been part of a CAMPFIRE project. Through qualitative assessment of the sub-district natural resource management governance system, the paper unravels past and present, and formal and informal, governance structures and processes. Governance gaps are identified, alongside the implications these have for the involvement of communities and local actors in natural resource management.
Findings stress the need to identify routes to bridge current local level governance gaps and prevent new gaps from forming, such that local knowledge and community empowerment are afforded a more central role in the planning and implementation of CAMPFIRE and other CBNRM initiatives.
Access to needed resources – material, human, social‐organizational, cultural and moral – remains a crucial link between sentiments for change and the capacity of social movements to mobilize around those sentiments. Thus, the relevance and usefulness of resource mobilization theory are undiminished and the broader approach remains vital to analyzing the full spectrum of contemporary social movements and collective action. This chapter rearticulates the earlier differentiation of five resource types before turning attention to the broader issue of how movement actors acquire resources by describing four major mechanisms of resource access – self‐production, aggregation, co‐optation, and patronage. It goes on to address important concepts of exchange relationships through which specific movement actors gain access to particular resources. It then reviews the extensive scholarly literature on resource mobilization published since the 2004 review by Edwards et al. appeared, characterizing the wide uses to which these ideas have been put.
La création des centres locaux de développement (CLD) remonte à la seconde moitié des années 1990. Elle marque une étape singulière dans l’histoire de la décentralisation au Québec. Cette structure tout aussi inédite qu’innovante est calquée sur le territoire des municipalités régionales de comté (MRC). Elle s’est principalement vu confier la responsabilité de soutenir la création de l’emploi à l’échelle locale et supramunicipale, dans une période marquée par un taux élevé de chômage. Chaque CLD est doté d’un conseil d’administration autonome, majoritairement composé d’élus locaux. Ces organismes à but non lucratif sont financés à parts égales par l’État québécois et les municipalités. Du reste, l’idée de décentralisation est généralement associée à une plus grande transparence administrative et à un dialogue plus étroit des organisations (quasi) publiques avec la société civile. Or, une enquête menée auprès de plusieurs CLD démontre paradoxalement que ce processus de décentralisation administrative se fait en l’absence d’une reddition de compte adéquate portant sur la qualité des services offerts par les CLD à leurs collectivités respectives. En ce sens, la décentralisation administrative n’est pas forcément un gage de démocratisation du développement. Toutefois, l’introduction récente de dispositions administratives par le ministère de tutelle, de concert avec la ville ou la MRC ainsi qu’en accord avec le guide des bonnes pratiques, a permis une amélioration sensible de la reddition de compte dans les CLD.
As they assemble organizations from different economic sectors, intersectoral collaborations are co-constituted by institutional pluralism. However, the intimacy and inequality of these arrangements also constrain an organization’s ability to respond strategically to the concomitant institutional pluralism. Members of the organization experience pluralism as a tension I call moral ambivalence, that is, they simultaneously hold opposing judgments about their actions or the situations in which they find themselves. Moral ambivalence leads actors to engage in institutional work, pragmatic compromises directed toward coping with the competing institutional rules they face. This institutional work produces hybrid actions that, in turn, help the organization maintain internal cohesion and prevent negative outcomes. The article traces the sources of institutional pluralism to organizational imprinting from for-profit partners and institutional pressures from other members of the field. Data come from an ethnography of a single nonprofit organization that collaborates with several large for-profit organizations.
The article presents a mixed-method study of 15 cross-sector partnerships (CSPs) in human services. The study sought to examine the activities, organizational characteristics, and relationships among organizations from the government, nonprofit, and business sectors at three interrelated stages of the partnership: inputs, processes, and outcomes. The findings indicate that socialization prior to entering CSPs is an important component of building the partnership and attaining its espoused goals. Power struggles inhibit the achievement of goals in CSPs, whereas joint decision making and reaching a consensus contribute to achieving goals and added value in terms of improving the quality of services and clients’ well-being. The article presents insights and highlights the dilemmas that CSPs face with regard to their operation and processes. The implications of these dilemmas for establishing and managing effective CSPs as well as for nonprofit policy are discussed.
It is often assumed that reconstruction within a conflict is an important move towards building back conflict affected areas. However, the role development agencies such as non-governmental organisations (NGOs) play in such reconstruction are often marred by lack of adequate interaction with parties involved in the development housing projects. The paper provides an overview of NGO-community interaction and presents findings on the barriers to effective interaction. This paper argues that for any meaningful long-term development to occur, effective and efficient interaction must exist between all the parties involved in the housing development. The paper contributes to the body of knowledge by developing a framework to investigate the outcomes of NGO intervention in housing projects. Using case studies of housing projects in post conflict communities in Nigeria, the barriers of effective and efficient interaction is analysed. The paper concludes that the effective and efficient interaction of the development agents produces better community participation when integrated in the housing development projects.
The Liberian environment is characterized by enormous reliance on international aid, substantial amounts of which is channeled through civil society organizations (CSOs). These civil society organizations have played an important role in Liberia’s redevelopment since the end of the civil war in 2003, despite the fact that international aid to Liberia is increasingly characterized by unstable funding patterns and shifting donor priorities. This makes it vital to deepen our understanding of international aid funding to Liberian CSOs. This study uses mixed methodology to examine what impacts the ability of Liberian CSOs to attract aid funding, the nature of the donor–CSO relationship, and how this relationship impacts the capacity and behavior of CSOs. Results indicate CSO competence and efficiency are associated with ability to attract aid funding. Pressures and imbalance in the donor–CSO relationship contribute to high levels of environmental uncertainty for Liberian CSOs in the sample, leading to adaptive behaviors related to activities and funding streams.
Following the 2004 tsunami, and at a time of rapid social and political change, the Maldives embarked on a program to establish child, family and community support services throughout the country. This chapter describes how an education program in social service work was established to prepare graduates to undertake this new area of work. The education program is envisaged by the Maldivian stakeholders as part of a longer term plan to establish social work as a profession in the Maldives. The author led a team of social work academics from the University of Newcastle, Australia, to work as partners with the Maldives government and UNICEF to develop a course curriculum. The chapter is thus written from the perspective of an "involved outsider". Maldivian ownership and control remained a central principle for establishing the education program and for developing social services. Challenges encountered in preparing and implementing the curriculum are examined in the chapter. These challenges included negotiating the priorities of the different stakeholders, balancing local and international input, addressing resources for sustainability and ensuring a critical response to the tendency for social work education to assume western values and perspectives. A capacity building approach was used as the underlying framework to guide the project. An Experience-Based Learning model was adapted in preparing the curriculum for the Maldives context. This pedagogical approach was found to be a useful one for a curriculum that is designed to be implemented in another cultural context. The Experience-Based Learning model places particular importance on the experiences and values of the student as the starting point for learning and hence it is less likely to assume western ways of thinking. Findings from an evaluation of the course are presented in the chapter, with attention paid to challenges and directions for the future of social work education in the Maldives in line with the principles of quality, sustainability and promotion of Maldivian models of practice. The ideas and experiences of the Maldivian people involved with the course (students, graduates, College staff, Ministry staff, UNICEF) are presented in the chapter through direct quotes gathered from people who participated in the evaluation process.
After World War II, developing societies around the world experienced a range of problems which included: economic and political crises; dysfunctional governments and institutional failures, causing excessive political pressures on public institutions; pathological disorders in bureaucracy; structural complexities in public service delivery; and rampant corruption in public resource management. In the late 1960s, several structural and pluralist approaches emerged to address institutional problems and inefficiencies in public service delivery, but these accentuated state-centrism and supported greater administrative and legislative powers among the established national political economy regimes. This not only crippled public services, but also strengthened the top-down mechanisms in decision making and bolstered upward accountability in the institutional structures. Mainly based on neoliberal ideology, ‘governance’, as a concept and as an application, gradually emerged and was utilised to address institutional crises, poor governing systems, economic vulnerability and ambiguities of service delivery.
In service delivery systems, the idea of governance reinforces institutional development and creates avenues for communities to embrace its elements, in improving local self-governing systems. This brings about a shift from government to governance, and supports greater sharing of power between the state, market and civil society, via new networks and partnership structures. Community governance, as an offshoot of governance, works to enhance service delivery at the grassroots by augmenting capabilities, employing participatory structures, building social capital and streamlining central-local relations.
In Nepal, the service delivery system is regulatory, top-down and elite-controlled, which adversely impacts upon institutional mechanisms and the governance system. Although governmental endeavours in improving the service delivery system were instigated over the last few decades through several policy interventions, achievements have been slow in coming and targets have remained unmet. This study has focused on issues that have implications for effective deployment of community governance in enhancing basic community service delivery in Nepal.
Using a mixed approach, 110 community based organisations (CBOs) in Nepal, representing community forestry users groups, community organisation development groups and women development organisation groups, were selected to participate in organisational surveys, focus-group discussions and in-depth interviews. The findings show that CBOs are uniquely positioned and their roles are supportive, in reinforcing community governance in many ways. First, they seek to unite the grassroots population into various groups to perform governance roles, responsibilities, powers and functions. Secondly, CBOs mobilise local knowledge and resources for the development of self-reliance. Thirdly, through rigorous facilitation of activities in communities, CBOs reduce government costs in the provision of development assistance. Fourthly, their active involvement makes possible effective amelioration of poverty, mainly in remote areas and marginal communities. Finally, these organisations ensure the practice of governance at the grassroots.
However, in terms of their nature and activities, the functional capability of these CBOs appears to be weak or, at best, moderate. Public access to basic services, participation in political and democratic activities, mobilisation of local resources, extent of economic activities, exercise of local power and other opportunities seem to be affected by institutional crisis, governance malfunction and unsound policies. The collaboration between state, market and communities appears to be power-based and top-down in orientation.
Further, the existing flawed institutional mechanisms of service providers, caste-based socio-economic structures of communities, lopsided community power structures, parochial political interest, and capacity and resource constraints, play restraining roles in the service delivery system at the grassroots. This existing process further strengthens patron-client relationships, bureaucratisation and centralisation. To eliminate these issues and increase the efficiency of the service delivery system, community governance can play a catalytic role in ensuring stakeholder participation and strengthening community control mechanisms.
This thesis examines the politics surrounding the anti-poverty grassroots support work of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in our current moment of competing political agendas and global economic crisis. Grassroots support is a community development model in which development agencies, such as NGOs, collaborate in the empowerment of impoverished communities and the transformation of their socio-economic problems. However, these generic claims of empowerment and social change obscure the fact that NGO promoted grassroots support can advance diverse and often competing political projects: from neoliberal reforms to social justice-oriented initiatives. This political indeterminacy brings into question the assumed transparency between the empowerment claims and actual effects of community-based social change efforts.
In this dissertation, ethnographic case studies of two NGOs— Social Action of Puerto Rico, Inc. and the Sila M. Calderón Foundation—are used to show the political orientation and overall effects of grassroots support in contemporary Puerto Rico. Analysis of Puerto Rican and U.S. federal anti-poverty policies and programs demonstrates the entanglement of these NGOs with the post-1980s neoliberal agenda that reduced Puerto Rico’s welfare state and transferred governmental functions to nongovernmental institutions. The research also exposes the practice of grassroots support as a highly conflictive process in which the socio-economic inequalities and divergent political interests prevalent among program participants, and between these and NGO staff, hinder the accomplishment of empowerment goals. Ultimately, the research shows the limited potential of NGO promoted grassroots support as an effective strategy to overcome poverty and/or offset the negative effects of neoliberalism and economic stagnation for marginalized communities in contemporary Puerto Rico.
The federal government often works through nonprofit intermediaries to reach and empower communities in the United States. One increasingly popular policy strategy is to offer grant funding to intermediary organizations in an effort to strengthen communities. Funded intermediaries are tasked with building the capacity of faith-based and community organizations at the local level, but the policy theory that informs these programs does not specify how these capacity-building efforts will lead to stronger communities. Missing is a middle-range implementation theory that links inputs to community-level changes through the actions of an intermediary. Derived from empirical case study evidence using process-tracing analysis, the theory of the community-integrated intermediary posited in this article helps fill that gap.
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 international actors) and from inside (amateurism, restricted focus, material scarcity, fragmentation, and paternalism). We describe the rise of agencies to serve critical support functions, such as strengthening individual and organizational capacities, mobilizing material resources, providing information and intellectual resources, building alliances for mutual support, and building bridges across sectoral differences. Then, we examine how those organizations have solved critical problems for NGO communities, and we develop some propositions about the creation and establishment of support organizations, their strategic position, the choice to take strategic action, and how external assistance can support their strategic roles.
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. Examples of bridging organizations and their constituencies of various types (associations, networks, cross-sectoral partnerships, political coalitions, social movements) are described. On the basis of these examples, it is argued that bridging organizations and their constituent networks are shaped by values and visions, their tasks, member diversity, and external threats. The cases suggest that bridging organizations can play key roles in building local organizations, creating horizontal linkages, increasing grassroots influence on policy, and disseminating new visions and organizational innovations. Finally the paper argues that bridging organizations are central players in an emerging "multisectoral" development paradigm that is less subject to the flaws of the still-dominant market-led and state-led paradigms.
Initial sociological interest in network forms of organization was motivated in part by a critique of economic views of organization. Sociologists sought to highlight the prevalence and functionality of organizational forms that could not be classified as markets or hierarchies. As a result of this work, we now know that network forms of organization foster learning, represent a mechanism for the attainment of status or legitimacy, provide a variety of economic benefits, facilitate the management of resource dependencies, and provide considerable autonomy for employees. However, as sociologists move away from critiquing what are now somewhat outdated economic views, they need to balance the exclusive focus on prevalence and function-ality with attention to constraint and dysfunctionality. The authors review work that has laid a foundation for this broader focus and suggest analytical concerns that should guide this literature as it moves forward.
This analysis of the organizational character of the YMCA focuses on factors leading to the successful transformation of a welfare organization. It is argued that the organization's broadly stated goals and unrestricted clientele encourage a wide diversification of programs and target populations. Federated structure leads to decentralized decision making, and to control by local elites. Since YMCA professionals do not have a well-defined ideology, and since the organization is linked to an enrollment economy, the organization is highly responsive to the needs of its relatively integrated and typically middle-class clientele. Possible role dilemmas stemming from the organization's structure are discussed.
This study focuses on make-or-buy decisions as a paradigmatic problem for analyzing transaction costs. Hypotheses developed from Williamson's efficient boundaries framework were tested in a multiple-indicator structural equation model. The influence of transaction costs on decisions to make or buy components was assessed indirectly through the effects of supplier market competition and two types of uncertainty, volume and technological. In addition to transaction costs, the decisions were hypothesized to be predicted by both buyer production experience and the comparative production costs between buyer and supplier. The hypotheses were tested on a sample of make-or-buy decisions made in a division of a U.S. automobile company. The results show that comparative production costs are the strongest predictor of make-or-buy decisions and that both volume uncertainty and supplier market competition have small but significant effects. The findings are explained in terms of the complexity of the components and the potential pattern of communication and influence among managers responsible for making the decisions.
The classical approach to the study of the transformation of social movements (here called the Weber-Michels model) predicts
that a movement organization will become more conservative and that its goals will be displaced in favor of organizational
maintenance. Using organizational and incentive analysis, the classical approach is subsumed under a more general set of concepts
which lead to predictions about growth and change. The movement organization responds to the ebb and flow of sentiment in
the larger society, to its relations with other movement organizations and to success or failure. Leadership and schismogenetic
tendencies affect the nature and vicissitudes of its goals, and the recruitment and commitment of members. Neither greater
conservatism nor organizational maintenance are iron laws.
Past analysis of social movements and social movement organizations has normally assumed a close link between the frustrations or grievances of a collectivity of actors and the growth and decline of movement activity. Questioning the theoretical centrality of this assumption directs social movement analysis away from its heavy emphasis upon the social psychology of social movement participants; it can then be more easily integrated with structural theories of social process. This essay presents a set of concepts and related propositions drawn from a resource mobilization perspective. It emphasizes the variety and sources of resources; the relationship of social movements to the media, authorities, and other parties; and the interaction among movement organizations. Propositions are developed to explain social movement activity at several levels of inclusiveness-the social movement sector, the social movement industry, and social movement organization.
A simple theory of power relations is developed in an effort to resolve some of the ambiguities surrounding "power," "authority," "legitimacy," and power "structures," through bringing them together in a coherent scheme. After defining a reciprocal power-dependence relation, attention is focused upon properties of balance and "balancing operations" in such relations. The theory dictates exactly four generic types of balancing process, and discussion of these leads directly into processes of group formation, including the emergence of group norms, role structure and status hierarchy, all presented as the outcome of balancing tendencies in power relations. Within the framework of this theory, authority appears quite naturally to be legitimized power, vested in roles, and "legitimation" is seen as a special case of the coalition process through which norms and role-prescriptions are formed. Finally, through treating both persons and groups as actors in a power-network (two or more connected power-dependence relations) the door is opened for meaningful analysis of complex power structures. Brief reference is made to findings from two experiments pertaining to hypotheses advanced in this theory.
This review article focuses on the three control mechanisms that govern economic transactions between actors: price, authority, and trust. In contrast to conventional approaches that view market and hierarchy as mutually exclusive control mechanisms (or as poles of a continuum), we argue that price, authority, and trust are independent and can be combined in a variety of ways. For instance, price and authority are often played off each other within firms, while trust and price are sometimes intertwined to control transactions between firms. We also identify a type of organization largely ignored in the literature: the plural form. In the plural form, organizations simultaneously operate distinct control mechanisms for the same function. For example, organizations operate franchises and company-owned units under the same trademark, and companies sometimes make and buy the same part. To understand this form, the analytic focus must move from individual transactions to the broader architecture of control mechanisms.
Among the most widely cited books in the social sciences, The External Control of Organizations has long been required reading for any student of organization studies. The book, reissued on its 25th anniversary as part of the Stanford Business Classics series, includes a new preface written by Jeffrey Pfeffer, which examines the legacy of this influential work in current research and its relationship to other theories. The External Control of Organizations explores how external constraints affect organizations and provides insights for designing and managing organizations to mitigate these constraints. All organizations are dependent on the environment for their survival. As the authors contend, âit is the fact of the organizationâs dependence on the environment that makes the external constraint and control of organizational behavior both possible and almost inevitable.â Organizations can either try to change their environments through political means or form interorganizational relationships to control or absorb uncertainty. This seminal book established the resource dependence approach that has informed so many other important organization theories.
People, power, change
- L Gerlach
- V Hine
Gerlach, L., & Hine, V. (1970). People, power, change. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.
Activists beyond borders
- M Keck
- K Sikkink
Keck, M., & Sikkink, K. (1998). Activists beyond borders. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
The strategy of social protest
- W Gamson
- Dorsey
- L Gerlach
- V Hine
Gamson, W. (1975). The strategy of social protest. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
Gerlach, L., & Hine, V. (1970). People, power, change. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.