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Governance in non-profit organisations: a plural or ambiguous research field? Bibliometrics and definitions of a broad concept
Abstract
This article focuses on the concept of non-profit governance and the associated literature. It proposes a bibliometric analysis and a study of the definitions of non-profit governance to examine the ambiguity of the concept, decried by some researchers. Others rather think that it is a question of plurality. 277 articles were selected from Scopus as well as from the main publishers of scientific journals in management sciences. A bibliometric analysis (main authors, preferred journals, date of publication, countries, etc.) is complemented by a lexicometric and linguistic analysis of keywords, abstracts and definitions of non-profit governance. The results indicate a strong inspiration towards for-profit governance, a focus on the board of directors and a plurality of definitions of non-profit governance. This article therefore opens up many new research perspectives, complementary to those already stated by researchers who have constructed research agendas.
... Boards are a group of individuals within an organization with dedicated roles and responsibilities . Though recognizing most non-profit governance research from the management and sport management literatures focuses on phenomena within boards Plaisance, 2023a;Renz et al., 2023), several reasons contribute to the need for continued inquiry on this group. Renz et al. (2023, p. 257s) stated "we still know quite little about boards," which includes context and methodological approaches. ...
... Together, these issues contribute to limitations in researchers' understanding of non-profit boards' governance (Gee et al., 2023;Renz et al., 2023). Thus, a continued research stream on boards is arguably required to make claims regarding non-profit governance practices and processes (Gee et al., 2023;Plaisance, 2023a;Renz et al., 2023). ...
... This statement arguably applies to NPSO board decision making given it is a vital process for this group to fulfill its roles. Contingent factors can originate from instable environments (Gee et al., 2023;Plaisance, 2023aPlaisance, , 2023b related to crises (e.g. health), resource scarcity (e.g. ...
Purpose
Pressures from non-profit sport organizations’ (NPSOs) external environment influence governance structures and processes. Thus, this study explores the impact of external factors on NPSO board decision making.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a sample of six NPSO boards (two national, four provincial/territorial), data were collected via 36 observations, 18 interviews, and over 900 documents. A thematic analysis was conducted via NVivo 12.
Findings
Results identified two external factors impacting NPSO board decision making: the sport system structure and general environment conditions. External factors impacted NPSO board decision making in terms of duration, flow, interaction, and scrutiny.
Originality/value
Results demonstrate the need for NPSO boards to engage in boundary-spanning activities whereby external information sources from stakeholders are incorporated to make informed decisions. Practically, NPSO boards should harness virtual meetings to continue their operations while incorporating risk management analyses to assess threats and opportunities.
... In a general sense, management is a set of activities, including planning and decision-making, organizing, leading (managing people) and controlling, directed at the organization's resources (human, material, financial and information) and performed with the intention of achieving the organization's goals in an efficient manner (Baruk, 2006). Management in relation to NGOs is primarily intended to focus on achieving the organization's goals and mission, generally resultsoriented and stakeholder-oriented (Plaisance, 2022). Non-governmental organizations can be defined as pro-social organizations, known for promoting various moral goals, such as humanitarian aid and social issues or freedom, justice and equality, which are characterized by higher moral capital and social legitimacy (Romero et al., 2022) NGO's pro-social involvement is a network of connections between stakeholders where both local governments and beneficiaries are administrators and recipients of resources (Plaisance, 2023). ...
... Governance is therefore responsible for building a strategy that will allow the NPO to overcome the crisis (Jebran and Chen, 2021), in line with its planning and decision-making roles (ISO, 2010;Plaisance, 2022b). In particular, the board of directors should take new directions (Mather, 2020;Zattoni and Pugliese, 2021) and try to adapt to maintain its own activity and protect the organization's viability (Janssen and van der Voort, 2020). ...
In the face of crises, nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have focused on their financial viability but there are other operational aspects to consider (e.g., activity or volunteer involvement). This article investigates whether governance changes made by NPOs in times of crisis have enhanced organizational viability in a broader sense.
Through community-engaged research, the link between governance changes and organizational viability is examined. This study is based on a survey of 10,926 French NPOs and the conceptual framework of societal orientation.
They show that changing governance in the midst of a crisis can protect organizational viability, if the beneficiaries and members remain the core of the strategic target and if the content of volunteering remains stable. This article therefore calls for a better study of the risks of governance changes for internal stakeholders, both at the level of scholars and within the organizations themselves. The results extend recent works on governance change and highlight the relevance of societal orientation in times of crisis. This article helps to counter the criticisms regularly made about governance (particularly in France) and highlights the importance of maintaining the board of directors in NPOs. It invites NPOs to make decisions that protect their values, mission and beneficiaries at all times. This article focuses on societal orientation in relation to stakeholder theory, as well as the non-financial aspects of viability.
This article seeks to further the literature on the importance of stakeholders in the overall performance of nonprofit organizations. Specifically, in the French context, the effect of each type of stakeholder has to be studied. The stakeholders of NPOs indeed correspond to their environment, which is uncertain, unpredictable, complex and sometimes hostile. Using French NPOs reports and disclosures about their performance, multiple regressions establish the various effects of stakeholder consideration, which are heterogeneous, variable and more or less positive. The results confirm the theoretical framework proposed from the contingent approach and the agency, stakeholders, resource dependency and stewardship theories. The article thus defends a contingent view of performance and the importance of taking organizational characteristics into account when making decisions. Moreover, while the normative approach of stakeholder theory is important, it must be nuanced according to the nuisance power of stakeholders (which corresponds to the instrumental approach). To do this, stakeholders must be differentiated and prioritized (especially in terms of resources). The results also highlight an optimistic view of cooperation between sectors, whereas fears of negative isomorphisms are often highlighted. In short, this research calls for a nuance in best practices, in favor of adapting them to each NPO according to the organizational context.
The purpose of this study is to analyze the influence of donors in the organization of governance practices of sponsored projects in non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from an agency theory perspective. For this, the sponsored project was understood as a temporary organization. The study relied on data collected through document survey in contracts and call for tenders for project support, and on semi-structured interviews with executives from donor organizations in a Latin America country. The study found that the governance of NGOs is impacted by temporary governance derived from projects. In turn, the projects are circumvented by aspects of compliance and enforcement through pressure from donors, and transferring donor management processes to NGOs produces two shadows over NGOs: (a) there is a public organizations’ influence of laws, norms and actions of state decentralization that demands NGOs to organize themselves like the State; and, (b) on the corporate donors side, an organization aligned with business is required.
This paper conducts a bibliometric review of global research on the role of boards of directors in corporate governance. Boards of directors play a crucial role in the corporate governance of publicly traded firms, as they monitor the performance of top executives on behalf of shareholders and help to set the firm’s overall strategic direction. Our review documents most influential articles, authors, and journals in this area. The bibliometric analysis highlights the multi-disciplinary nature of research on boards of directors, covering the fields of finance and economics, accounting and auditing, and management and strategy. Furthermore, co-citation analyses reveal the core theoretical and conceptual articles on agency theory and ownership structure that provide the foundation for research on corporate governance and boards of directors. The review shows that, despite its practical importance, studies on how boards of directors contribute to corporate sustainability represent only a small fraction of the articles in this literature. This highlights the need for more research on this particular topic in the coming years. Moreover, the keyword co-occurrence analysis suggests other emerging research topics in the BDCG knowledge base are in the areas of gender diversity, CSR, and innovation, which pinpoints possible future research directions for scholars in the field.
Purpose
This paper assesses the effects of deposits structure and ownership structure on the GCC Islamic banks’ Corporate Governance Disclosure (CGD) practices.
Design/methodology/approach
We based our study on a sample of 38 Islamic banks operating in 5 GCC countries and we observed them over the period from 2006 to 2011. We employed the transparency and disclosure score, developed by S&P’s, to identify our sample’s CGD scores.
Findings
This paper’s findings suggest that the level of CGD: (1) is lower for Islamic banks with higher ownership concentration, for levered Islamic banks and for Islamic banks with greater concentration of Non-Profit Sharing Investment Accounts (PSIA); and (2) is higher for Islamic banks with greater concentrations of PSIA; the Islamic bank size; the bank age; listed bank and the country transparency index. By disaggregating the total CGD into the 3 sub-categories, we are able to specify, also, the components of CG impacted by various determinants.
Research limitations/implications
This paper is subject to a number of limitations. Firstly, there is manual scoring of annual reports (subjectivity). Secondly, the research focuses exclusively on the GCC context and excludes the other Middle East, Southeast Asia and Far East countries where ownership structure and deposits structure might affect CGD differently. Thirdly, the governance score, which we used in this research, is developed by S&P and does not take into account the characteristics of Islamic banks.
Practical implications
Our findings suggest many policy implications. Firstly, through the optimization of ownership structure, GCC countries’ regulators have to improve the Islamic banking system’s CG mechanisms through the optimization of ownership structure (dispersed ownership) in order to promote transparency and disclosure. Secondly, regulators and policy makers should revise guidelines with the main purpose of protecting PSIAs’ holders (considered to be minor shareholders without voting power) through promoting disclosure and transparency. Thirdly, our findings can be useful for many international supervisory bodies, like the IFSB and AAOIFI, in evaluating transparency and disclosure standards.
Originality/value
This study is expected to be useful for all market participants: investors; financial analysts; managers; marker regulators; and many international Islamic supervisory bodies, like the IFSB and AAOIFI, by providing new requirements on CGD in the GCC region and in better understanding its determinants for Islamic banks in this region.
The study of nonprofit governance is coming into its theoretical heyday by incorporating a sophisticated understanding of its contingent and multidimensional nature. A systems view of governance acknowledges the interplay of internal and external dynamics on board performance. But empirically, large-scale, generalizable data that can test these concepts on board performance have been scarce. This study helps to fill that gap with a structural equation analysis of a national representative survey of member-serving organizations. The results suggest that board performance is associated with complex organizational and labor dynamics, and that performance metrics themselves are multidimensional. Furthermore, not all relationships with strong boards are directly measurable. Some appear related to indirect external market dynamics or healthy internal dynamics such as learning and self-evaluation.
Policy reforms to primary health care delivery in New Zealand required government-funded firms overseeing care delivery to be constituted as nonprofit entities with governance shared between consumers and producers. This paper examines the consumer and producer interests in these firmsʼ allocation of ownership and control utilising theories of competition. Consistent with pre-reform patterns of ownership and control, provider interests appear to have exerted effective control over these entitiesʼ formation and governance in all but a few cases where community (consumer) control pre-existed. Their ability to do so is implied from the absence of a defined ownership stake and the changes to incentives facing the different stakeholding groups. It appears that the pre-existing patterns will prevail and further intervention will be required if policy-makers are to achieve their underlying aims.
This paper sought to assess whether Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) indulging in poverty alleviation in Mwenezi District of Zimbabwe are implementing principles of good governance such as strategic planning, advocacy, legitimacy, transparency, accountability, monitoring and evaluation in their work. The study adopted a qualitative approach in which semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten NGO program managers who were chosen purposively. The main reason was that the researcher sought to obtain in-depth information on the way NGOs implement principles of good governance in Zimbabwe. Secondary analysis was also used to establish the existence of literature on the implementation of good governance principles in Zimbabwe. The study established that whilst some NGOs observe principles of good governance such as transparency, and information dissemination, some are not, which often led to conflicts between NGOs and the government over accountability issues. The study recommended that NGOs need to revamp their governance structures such as boards of trustees and foster close cooperation with international institutions such as World Bank, International Monetary Fund and Commonwealth to enjoy good financial relations towards funding development projects.
p>El sector público ha venido buscando nuevas formas de organización con la finalidad de reducir la burocracia, construir nuevas fuentes de financiación, ser instituciones más transparentes y con una mayor rendición de cuentas sobre su gestión entre otras cosas. Por lo tanto, se estudiará el campo del gobierno corporativo (GC) y su influencia el en área del sector público. De esta forma, nuestra investigación se centra en un estudio bibliométrico comprendido entre los años 2007-2012. Se analizará las temáticas más relevantes y significativas, las universidades que investigan el fenómeno del GC en el ámbito público y las revistas que abordan esta temática. Para este fin, hemos tomado las 47 revistas de mayor prestigio e impacto internacional incluidas en Public Administration.</p
This study explores which governance practices nonprofit leaders consider necessary to avoid organizational crises. Further, it explores whether these leadership mental models of crisis resistance depend on the organizational context. This helps determine whether practical learning points are organization specific or can be applied broadly. With a multilevel sample of 304 leaders from 44 Belgian nongovernmental development organizations, an exploratory path analysis reveals that nonprofit leaders consider continuous improvement, as a governance practice, particularly relevant for effective organizational crisis resistance. A multilevel analysis also shows that variations in leadership mental models cannot be explained by the organizational variables used in this study (organizational size, leadership group size, operational activities, and languages in the leadership group). This article concludes with a discussion of consequences for further research.
This article presents empirical evidence of the governance challenges faced by Australian not-for-profit (NFP) organisations. There is a dearth of academic research in the not-for-profit sector on issues of governance. Using survey and interview data, we explore what NFP leaders believe are key governance challenges, and what this means for theory and practice of NFP governance. We demonstrate that the effectiveness of governance systems is influenced by internal and external contingencies that NFP organisations face, such as variations in board roles, stakeholder and membership demands, funding arrangements, board member recruitment processes, skills of board members, and resources for training and development. We argue for a shift of focus away from prescriptive and normative NFP governance models, and contend that generic best practice governance standards for NFPs ought not to be further pursued, and that a contingency approach is more promising. Keywords: Governance, Not-for- Profit sector, Contingency Theory To cite this document: John Chelliah, Martijn Boersma, and Alice Klettner, "Governance Challenges for Not-for-Profit Organisations: Empirical Evidence in Support of A Contingency Approach", Contemporary Management Research, Vol.12, No.1, pp. 3-24, 2016. Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.7903/cmr.14538
This paper discusses the governance issues in nonprofit organizations (NPO). The theoretical framework of agency theory is used to analyze the relationship between agents and principals (donors and volunteers) in such kinds of organizations. Similarly to the for-profit organizations, the mechanisms of incentives and monitoring are crucial to the alignment of interests among principals and agents. However, considering the NPO's intrinsic characteristics, due to the difficulty to implement external and internal governance mechanisms, the challenges of alignment are far more complicated. The NPOs are idiosyncratic, being in many situations complex to establish performance comparisons with similar organizations.
We answer the call that governance research should focus more on processes outside the boundaries of boards, especially for nonprofit organizations. In particular, we suggest and elaborate concrete steps with respect to the advantages of a leadership coalition perspective to focus more on the behavioral and informal aspects of governance. Through a comparative case analysis of five nonprofit organizations, we explore contingencies between characteristics of nonprofit leadership coalitions and governance quality. We identify two dimensions to classify leadership coalitions: centralized versus diffused influence and specific versus holistic influence. These dimensions are subsequently related with observed governance quality. We frame our finding in the existing literature on group faultlines, which are socially constructed dividing lines within groups, and we discuss the importance of establishing a balanced coalition between a weak or nonexisting and a strong dominant coalition to ensure high governance quality. We also present propositions on how governance quality and its various sub-dimensions can be studied as a complex, nonlinear intermediate concept between coalitional aspects of leadership groups and nonprofit organizational performance. Finally, we discuss concrete avenues for further testing and verification of our theoretical interpretation.
This study has examined the relationship between director’s remuneration, corporate governance structure and performance of a sample of 150 companies listed on the Bursa Malaysia from year 2008 until 2013. The sample was selected to provide matched-pair of government linked companies (GLCs) and non-government linked companies (non-GLCs), as it was anticipated that these group would have different governance structure, the key difference being government ownership. The result holds even when we control for company specific characteristic such as corporate governance, company size, leverage, director’s remuneration, board size and auditors. This study uses panel based regression model to examine the impact of government control mechanism on company performance using two important measurers. These are accounting based measure proxies by ROA and non-accounting based measures by Tobin’s Q. Statistically significant relationships were found across the groupings and for different performance measures. Findings appear to suggest that there is a significant impact of government ownership on company performance after controlling for company specific characteristics.
In recent years, nonprofit scholars have increasingly studied the phenomenon of social enterprises which has become a generic term describing a wider reorientation among third sector organizations. The emergence of social enterprises has also led to a dynamic of hybridization and broadening in the cooperative sector, similar to an earlier dynamic of “economization”, but this time on the other end of the organizational spectrum. This paper aims at developing a fine-grained conceptual understanding of how this organizational dynamic is shaped in terms of member coordination, thus contributing to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of different organizational forms of cooperatives. Specifically, to highlight the difference to traditional member-focused cooperatives, the paper introduces the term third-party-focused cooperatives for those social enterprises which emphasize economic goals as well as control and ownership by a particular community (typically place-based). The key result of the paper is that with the shift from member- to community-focus in cooperatives, the main coordination mechanism becomes one of norm-based trust on the basis of generalized reciprocity. In contrast to traditional maxim-based trust member coordination on the basis of relation-specific reciprocity, this enables third-party-focused cooperatives to mobilize bridging and linking social capital, facilitating collective action aimed towards the community interest. The findings suggest that this identity shift requires a mutual re-positioning between the cooperative and the nonprofit sector, in terms of umbrellas as well as regulatory and legislative bodies.
Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) play an important role in the development of the civil society, and they have a role in local economic development as recognized in developing countries in a few past decades. As it is widely recognized by these nations' legislation and the policy documents, NGOs are private entities that pursue finalities of public interest, by raising new resources, designing new services and encouraging empowerment and participation. The study aimed at eliciting the roles of NGOs through major projects undertaken in Nigeria and their impact. This study aims at eliciting the roles of Governance in NGOs in Nigeria and impact in value creation in the communities. Combined instruments of questionnaire surveys, interview and secondary data are utilized.
Nonprofit organizations play a role in the creation of a society that is civil, and it is an important one that neither the state nor for-profit organizations undertake. This raises the question of governance and accountability, which is often addressed by looking to agency-based models from the private sector. The acknowledged problem is that the agency’s notion of owners does not translate well to nonprofits. Adapting the concept of leasehold (wherein the managers and organization operate with broad autonomy, using resources supplied by supporters in exchange for the promise that specific societal value will be created, and are accountable for doing so) allows for a more flexible and responsive arrangement. It also suggests a mechanism whereby many independent nonprofits taking multiple approaches help civil society evolve.
The study examined the independent board structure adopted by New Zealand Cricket (NZC) and issues of board process including board roles, calibre and structure. Data collection consisted of in-depth semi-structured interviews of NZC senior management/board members, supplemented by archival document review and analysis. The findings, although not generalisable across the whole nonprofit sport sector, supported the literature on the roles and calibre of board members in an independent board structure. Due to increasingly professional operations and growth of commercialisation in sport, expertise in commercial aspects was noted as required. Given the majority of non-profit sport organisations’ federated structure, collaborative governance theory appears to be an area of future research when evolving from a delegate to independent or hybrid governance model.
This paper compares perspectives on the governance of the management models
employed by two of Canada’s largest provincial park systems, from the viewpoint of
non-governmental organization members (NGOs) with an interest in protected areas.
The two models are the parastatal model of Ontario (ON) Provincial Parks and the
public and for-profit combination model of British Columbia (BC) Provincial Parks.
Governance was evaluated using a computerized survey based on the 10 United Nations
Development Program (UNDP) criteria of governance: accountability, consensusorientation,
effectiveness, efficiency, equity, public participation, responsiveness, rule
of law, strategic vision and transparency. As part of a larger project, the survey was
administered to members of NGOs with an interest in either of the two park systems.
This was done in 2008 for British Columbia Parks and in 2009 for Ontario Parks.
Analysis suggested that the 10 governance criteria might form 11 governance factors.
Data suggest statistically significant differences in perception between NGOs in Ontario
and British Columbia Park. Specifically, members of NGOs in Ontario had positive
views and ranked all 11 governance factors closer toward good governance. Members
of NGOs in British Columbia ranked 8 of 11 factors negatively, toward weak governance.
This is the first study of this type where members of NGOs with an interest
in either Ontario or British Columbia Parks voiced their opinion of governance within
a systematic survey framework on the management models of the park systems with
which they are involved. The research demonstrates that members of NGOs in Ontario
have many more positive scores for the governance of the parastatal model than those in
British Columbia have for the public for-profit model. We conclude that this difference
is due to two factors: the management model used and the institutional relationships
between the park systems and the associated NGOs.
This article presents an original multi-methodology approach to the collection and analysis of social representations of educational streams using a questionnaire survey conducted among 668 students (for the main study) in secondary education in French-speaking Belgium. Four methods of analysis are used: prototypical analysis, similarity analysis, the centrality control and thematic analysis of open questions. The different methods, their practical implementation and the tools used for data processing are presented and discussed. The combination of quantitative processing and qualitative analysis of the results proved particularly suitable in the context of our approach. Our questionnaire enabled us to quickly and efficiently gather a corpus that was rich enough to permit the qualitative analysis of data.
Non-profit organisations (NPOs) are meant to serve the public rather than to earn a profit for its members.Charities are also NPOs and have philanthropic goals as well as social well-being. It is imperative that theseorganisations to observe good corporate governance to safeguard the interest of the public and donors. Corporategovernance consists of a number of good elements such as trusts, clear vision, mission, direction, transparency,internal control, sustainability and corporate social responsibility. There were a number of charities andnon-profit organisations in Singapore which has flaunted the regulations and lost the trust of the public.Singapore has implemented various measures and regulations to govern these charities and NPOs. Itcontinuously upgrades the code of governance and educates the charity and NPO sector on the need for goodgovernance. However, irregularities seemed persistent. Donors, who are the main contributors to the existence ofthese charities and NPOs, had to have a say in the regulation of such charities and NPOs. Donors’ perception andexpectation have to be addressed so as to achieve an effective set of governance principles which do not overregulatethe charities and NPOs. Based on the findings of extant literatures and surveys, it was found that donors’perception on corporate governance has not been evaluated sufficiently. Singapore is improving the awareness ofgood governance among its charities and NPOs but has not looked at governance in donors’ point of view. Thispaper stresses the importance of donors’ perception in view of existing regulations and code of governance inSingapore charities and NPOs.
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of organisational control and both its importance and utility for understanding nonprofit organisations.
Design/methodology/approach
– This paper uses a critical realist (CR) methodology to discuss the concept of control and its utility to research on governance of nonprofit organisations.
Findings
– The current study offers a conceptual framework that presents a holistic view of control, relevant for analysing nonprofit organisations, and a methodological lens (CR) through which this framework can be implemented.
Research limitations/implications
– This paper suggests that studies of governance should consider different levels of analysis, as suggested by examining the concept of control using a CR framework. This notion has yet to be tested empirically and a framework for examining governance from a CR perspective of control is suggested. Context is highly relevant to understanding control, and thus, this model requires testing in a wide diversity of nonprofit sectors, sizes of organisations and time periods.
Originality/value
– The literature on organisational control provides useful insights to advance our understanding of nonprofit organisations beyond the notion of governance, and this paper proposes both conceptual and methodological underpinnings to facilitate future research.
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationships between self-governance through board members and firm performance. Results of this study revealed significant relationships only between some board characteristics and some measures of financial performance. Overall, the findings indicate that board members are not promoting good governance in their organizations. This indicates the need of a specific governance framework to guide board members of nonprofit organisations (NPOs) to engage in good self-governance for the benefits of the NPOs and their relevant stakeholders.
This study is positioned within the nonprofit sport context and builds on an emerging body of work in sport
governance to investigate how nonprofit sport organizations can develop their governing capability. A rich
data set derived from a 2-year action research study in an Australian state sport organization revealed a lack of
stakeholder engagement underpinned by confusion about stakeholder-governing responsibility as the central
issues in developing governance capability. The lessons drawn from the Squash Vic experience integrated
with sport governance literature and stakeholder theory show the need to embed the notion of stakeholder
salience or primacy to explain and clarify the dilemma of multiple stakeholders and the lack of stakeholder
engagement in the governing process. We introduce Fassin’s (2012) notion of “stakeowner” and associated
ideas of reciprocity and responsibility as a helpful characterization of the legal members in the stakeholder governance
relationship.
The economic importance of the non-profit sector is growing rapidly in the USA and Europe. However, the law has not kept abreast with its development. The European Court of Justice has extended certain freedoms of the EC Treaty to non-profit organisations, and more case law is expected to follow in the near future, but the observations, theories, solutions and legal and non-legal rules in this field are manifold. The chances of harmonising the law on a European level are slim. Despite these differences, a common core of international corporate governance problems and regulatory solutions can be seen. This volume of essays brings together a variety of international experts from both corporate governance and governance of non-profit organisations to compare the two areas and explore the lessons that can be learned regarding comparative corporate governance for non-profit organisations.
The main objective of the paper is to identify and explore specifics and trends of international scientific collaboration in the field of strategic management in Europe over the last quarter‐century. Specifically, the study analyses those scholarly connections between countries and cities on the basis of co‐authorship to determine the flow of knowledge from the geographical aspect, as well as the state of collaboration among different authors (co‐authorship and citations' networks), that is, the depth of such network (collaboration intensity) and whether such a scientific community is consistent, i.e. number of connected elements or related networks. This is the first time international scientific collaboration between researchers in the field of strategic management has been studied to such an extent. We employed all sources of relevant data and analyzed 5,237 results from the Scopus and Web of Science databases. Through the application of bibliometric analysis, our study offers a comprehensive and up‐to‐date identification and assessment of trends in international scientific collaboration in the strategic management field in Europe.
In this article, we offer a critical analysis of governance arrangements looking at the evolution of the Italian local welfare system over a time period of more than 40 years. The broad idea of a shift "from government to governance" is questioned. The nonprofit organizations had a vital role in the foundation of the Italian local welfare system. However, their participation in the governance arenas of today is often illusionary. This has practical consequences, as innovation in the welfare domain needs authentic public-private partnerships, and genuine participation of the nonprofits at all levels of social and political action.
This study tests the association between various stakeholder groups and whether nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have obtained accountability accreditation. In particular, the study intends to answer the following research questions: (1) Does the governance of an NPO have any impact on the likelihood that the organization obtains certification? (2) Does an NPO’s investment in executives affect certification efforts? (3) Does employing a professional fundraiser play a significant role in whether an organization seeks accreditation? and (4) Are certification efforts influenced by the relative sophistication of donors of the NPO?
The findings of this study indicate that organizations with strong internal governance (indicated by their answers to the governance-related questions in Form 990) are more likely to have obtained certification when compared to a group of nonprofits that did not receive the certification. In addition, nonprofits that invest more in their executives are more likely to receive SFX certification. Interestingly, external stakeholders (donors making restricted gifts, and professional fundraisers) are not associated with the likelihood of holding the SFX certification.
Journal of Public Budgeting, Accounting & Financial Management
This article makes a case for increasing the discursive awareness of practitioners and developing their discourse analytical skills. Although the importance of such an awareness is being increasingly recognized by scholars and practitioners alike, the insights of fine-grained discursive analyses of talk-in-interaction have rarely been seriously considered as resources for accomplishing managerial objectives. Consequently, reflecting on naturally occurring talk as a way of managing remains rare. In this article, we provide an illustration of how the in situ practice of telling stories of organizational change could give change initiators the tools with which to make visible, and thus actionable, the seen but unnoticed underlying assumptions, unshared information, and patterns of collective thinking about change. We close the article with a call for discourse analysis to be taken more seriously in management practice and training.
The need for nonprofits to foster legitimacy within their communities has led to growing calls for mechanisms of sound governance based on the engagement of stakeholders in organizational activities. Previous studies have investigated the mix of governance mechanisms used by nonprofits to manage legitimacy, without paying attention to the different challenges of legitimacy these organizations face. Aiming to fill this gap, this article employs a multiple case study methodology to explore how mechanisms for engaging stakeholders in governance can be shaped by the need to gain, maintain, or repair legitimacy. The findings show that formal mechanisms based on the direct designation of board members by local stakeholders play a pivotal role in repairing legitimacy. Gaining legitimacy requires actual participation of stakeholders, while maintaining legitimacy calls for formal mechanisms that balance representativeness and competencies of the leadership.
Purpose
In this paper we use original data collected from school board members representing nonprofit charter schools in the state of Minnesota to examine the relationship between the distribution of board-executive governance responsibilities and the performance of organizations operating as part of a New Public Management style macro-governance reform.
Design/methodology/approach
A combination of survey data collected from Minnesota charter school board members and hard performance data is utilized in two OLS regression models to predict the link between organizational governance and school performance.
Findings
We find that boards can improve hard measures of organizational performance by shifting responsibility of day-to-day operations closer to the executive, and public advocacy duties closer to the board. The results build on the existing literatures on school board governance and board-executive relations. Overall, the findings suggest the existence of an ideal balance between board-executive governance responsibilities in key functional areas on charter school boards.
Originality/value
Though a healthy literature exists regarding the value of charter schools, very few studies have actually explored the way in which these organizations are governed. Our study is the first to link charter board governance responsibilities to performance.
Social service contracting between governments and nonprofit organizations has received increasing popularity in China and has aroused enthusiasm in engaging nonprofit organizations in governance issues. This study argues that service contracting, driven by New Public Management tenets, may unexpectedly evolve toward collaborative governance (CG) by creating and consolidating necessary conditions of CG. Practices in Shanghai present evidence that governments and contracting nonprofits jointly make decisions, enforce regulatory functions, set rules, and improve community governance. The analysis shows that over time contracting may lead to generation of mutual trust, acquisition of governing resources, and consolidation of collaborative accountability. The evolutionary perspective provides not only a contingent way to develop CG in a context of heavy social control but also a theoretical link between New Public Management and New Public Governance. Copyright
Analyses of survey responses from the executive directors of 184 human service organizations examined the relationships of board characteristics to board activities, and of board activities to organizational outcomes. Results indicated that board characteristics most predictive of board activities were the numbers of board members who were representatives of the client population, who had expertise in marketing, who were trained in the types of service provided by the agency, and who regularly performed volunteer work for the agency. Although in general board activities had few statistical relationships with agency outcomes, the board's involvement in working to enhance the agency's image in the community was related to a number of outcome measures.
The effect of internal governance on performance is potentially economically significant but may be difficult to identify because of confounding external disciplinary mechanisms and the endogenous choice of internal governance. This study addresses those difficulties by using nonprofit hospitals as an economic environment with muted external disciplinary mechanisms and instrumenting for internal governance using governance spillovers of geographically local public firms. Using patient heart attack survival as a measure of performance, a one standard deviation increase in strength of internal governance reduces the probability of death by 0.89 percentage points after controlling for patient characteristics.
This paper explores the respective roles of the board and the General Assembly in the governance process of civil society organisations. Based on a quantitative survey of 715 French CSOs, the authors propose a typology of CSO governance styles that reflects a broad view of governance. The results show that next to the conventional board-based governance style, other styles exist: control-based governance, participative governance, General Assembly-based governance. The research confirms the importance of the General Assembly in CSO governance and suggests that the different governance bodies can specialise in different roles.
This study examines how nonprofits' external environments and organizational characteristics explain their likelihood of having written policies for good governance. Findings from the 2010 data of the National Center for Charitable Statistics show that state requirements for registration and annual reporting are not related to a nonprofit's likelihood of adopting such written policies. The results instead indicate that organizations that engage in lobbying activities and operate in metropolitan areas are more likely to have good governance standards. Most of all, the analysis shows that organizational resources, both financial and human, explain differences in the adoption of these policies. These findings suggest that the nonprofit community should collectively invest in building the infrastructure that helps smaller organizations develop good governance policies and, hence, stay competitive.
The idea of a “third sector” beyond the arenas of the state and the market is probably one of the most perplexing concepts in modern political and social discourse, encompassing as it does a tremendous diversity of institutions and behaviors that only relatively recently have been perceived in public or scholarly discourse as a distinct sector, and even then with grave misgivings. Initial work on this concept focused on what is still widely regarded as its institutional core, the vast array of private, nonprofit institutions (NPIs), and the volunteer as well as paid workers they mobilize and engage. These institutions share a crucial characteristic that makes it feasible to differentiate from for-profit enterprises: the fact that they are prohibited from distributing any surplus they generate to their investors, directors, or stakeholders and therefore presumptively serve some broader public interest. Many European scholars have considered this conceptualization too narrow; however, arguing that cooperatives, mutual societies, and, in recent years, “social enterprises” as well as social norms should also be included. However, this broader concept has remained under-conceptualized in reliable operational terms. This article corrects this short-coming and presents a consensus operational re-conceptualization of the third sector fashioned by a group of scholars working under the umbrella of the European Union’s Third Sector Impact Project. This re-conceptualization goes well beyond the widely recognized definition of NPIs included in the UN Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts by embracing as well some, but not all, of these additional institutions and forms of direct individual activity, and does so in a way that meets demanding criteria of comparability, operationalizability, and potential for integration into official statistical systems.
This study compares educational foundations in the Chinese Mainland and Taiwan systematically and empirically using a complete evaluation index-system tool based on corporate governance theory that involves both static governance structures and dynamic governance mechanisms. Understanding the differences between foundations in the Mainland and Taiwan can affect government policy and foundation management methods. A group decision making-analytic hierarchy process (GDM-AHP) alongside an evaluation index value of foundation governance (EIVFG) model established a weight coefficient of the evaluation index system, yielding EIVFG scores. Despite having similar EIVFG scores, foundations in the Mainland and Taiwan have distinct governance structures. The governance mechanisms of foundations are more important than their governance structures, and Taiwanese educational foundations are more mature than Mainland foundations with regard to their underlying governance mechanisms. These findings underscore the importance of policies that employ the principles of fairness and impartiality (rather than requiring legal inspections) and that establish thereby an environment of mutual trust that fosters foundations’ maturity and growth.
Nonprofit governance models rarely incorporate board intragroup dynamics as a significant board factor that influences performance. However, intragroup dynamics such as cohesion and conflict have demonstrated a relationship with board performance suggesting that board intragroup dynamics play a larger role than previously thought. In order to better understand the relationship between intragroup dynamics and performance, a systematic quantitative literature review was conducted. Through an extensive search process and the application of a series of inclusion criteria, 43 papers were identified and reviewed. Three types of intragroup dynamics (cohesion, the board–CEO relationship, and boardroom climate) were shown to have a positive relationship with performance whereas the relationship between performance and two other intragroup dynamics (conflict and power patterns) was mixed. It was concluded that intragroup dynamics should be a central factor in board governance models. Using the findings of this review, directions for future research were identified.
This article examines the democratic contribution of nonprofit organizations to governance arrangements. Conceptualizations of governance focus on the multisector arrangements between public, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations that emerge to create public value. Nonprofit organizations have been found to contribute efficiency and effectiveness to these arrangements; however, less is understood about the democratic contribution nonprofits make. It is hypothesized that nonprofits contribute democratic value when they pursue the public interest in accordance with their civil society function. A binary logistic regression analysis is performed on negotiated Community Reinvestment Act agreements from 2000 to 2009 to predict the types of nonprofits that participate in agreements. The results show that nonprofits involved in agreements represent the public interest, as measured by their organizational purpose, representation in communities of need, and organizational capacity. The article suggests that the public interest consequences of governance arrangements vary based on the sources of accountability introduced by the participating organizations.
Using the lens of board governance, this study examines the capacity of Chinese nonprofit organizations as an alternative to the market and the state in addressing societal problems. Based on case studies of two community-based organizations, we find that in both the advocacy-oriented and service-oriented organizations, the board focuses on fundraising and program development. Yet this seemingly similar focus results from different environmental conditions: facing unfavorable institutional and resource environments, the board of the advocacy organization is pressured to take a more proactive and rigorous role for the sake of survival. In contrast, the board of the service organization, with significant support from the government, is committed to expanding the organization. Our findings thus raise concerns about whether Chinese nonprofit organizations are an effective "third way" to address public problems.
L’information non financière : état de l’art et perspectives de recherche fondées sur une étude bibliométrique
We conduct a bibliometric analysis of academic articles published on the topic of non-financial information (NFI). This analysis covers 787 articles published in 53 journals over the timespan 1973 to 2013. We examine several important questions about the state of the art of academic research on NFI: How is NFI defined in the literature? Can NFI be precisely defined? How has interest in NFI evolved over time in the academic literature? What are the main topics covered by NFI research? What are the main methodologies used by researchers? To what extent are studies country-specific? We find that many articles do not define the concept of NFI but refer to underlying concepts such as social, environmental, human capital or corporate social responsibility (CSR) reporting. We document that academic research on NFI reached a certain degree of maturity around the late 1990s / early 2000s, a time when several new specialized journals were created that now capture an important share of the market. We identify 10 topics covered by research on NFI and show that the most frequently-studied topic in NFI research is CSR reporting. We also discover that the volume of research concerning auditing of NFI is growing, whereas management accounting/control research on NFI is limited. We find that the growth in NFI research is fueled mainly by articles using archival data (quantitative or qualitative) and essay methodologies. Finally, we suggest directions for future research.
The purpose of this paper is to present and develop a firmer grasp of the underlying dimensions of organizational capacity in nonprofit human service organizations. The paper draws on the resource-based view of the organization (Barney et al. in Journal of Management 37:1299, 2011; Wernerfelt in Strategic Management Journal 5:171, 1984), which recognizes that organizational attributes and capabilities facilitate performance. Interviews were conducted with 66 executives in moderate sized, human service organizations to discuss factors that influence performance. Findings suggest that human, financial, and social capital all contribute to organizational performance. Executives emphasized the quality of people associated with the organization including the role of the board of directors in supporting performance. Many respondents also believed that maintaining healthy and dynamic external relationships was critical to success.
This paper examines the initial impact of a ‘good governance’ code for charitable organisations that was promulgated in the Netherlands in 2005. Data are gathered from publicly available annual reports of 138 charities in the post-implementation phase of the code (2005–2008). We first examine whether the code altered charities’ governance structures. Next, we investigate managerial pay as a key aspect of discharging financial accountability because prior literature focused on ‘excessive’ compensation. The findings indicate that a strengthened governance structure positively affects the likelihood of disclosing information concerning managerial pay, as well as mitigating managerial pay level.
Many governments perceive a ‘contested ground’ between Non‐governmental Organisations ( NGO s) and governments in multilateral environmental agreements ( MEA s). Governments have asserted a concern that increasing NGO involvement is an erosion of their sovereignty.
The other side of this coin is that wildlife related MEA s including the Convention on Migratory Species ( CMS ) are a low order political priority and government budgets for these environment issues are stretched. Many governments lack even basic implementation budgets, let alone capacity for progressive work. MEA secretariats are funded so minimally that there is insufficient facility to really progress implementation.
A recent review of wildlife related NGO s associated with the work of the CMS family has found that NGO s will commit to increase implementation efforts if the right dynamic is created.
Moving beyond the impression of ‘contested ground’ to a ‘collaborative governance’ future, where all participants are invested in policy, discourse, negotiation and arbitration could increase human and financial resource and in turn increase implementation for the CMS family.
Nonprofit organizations are now involved in human service provision internationally. However, these organizations perform in variable ways that potentially undermines their public service function. Eldercare is a case in point. Drawing on various strands of organization theory and taking German care homes as an example, this article argues that differences in performance (concerning “input quality”) may emanate from a distinctive mode of external governance that is crowding out capacity for quality-oriented internal governance. This is illustrated by evidence from an embedded case study. The findings hint at general problems with a “marketized” devolution of public services to nonprofits.