Brenda K. Bushouse

Applying Service Learning in Master of Public Affairs Programs

Abstract This paper uses a case study of service learning in a nonprofit management course to explore how service learning can be adapted for MPA programs. The main argument of the paper is that client-based projects must be combined with reflective exercises to best link theory and practice. The nonprofit management course examined in this paper required students to work on a semester-long management-related project for a nonprofit organization. Students were encouraged to reflect in class and in journal assignments in a way that would link project experience with class readings and professional experience and ambitions. The paper presents lessons learned in adapting service learning to client-based projects in an MPA course.

Producing Knowledge For Practice Assessing NVSQ 2000-2010

The question of relevance and the production of usable knowledge for practice has been a foremost concern for the field of nonprofit studies since the early years of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Exploring the research of nonprofit scholars from 2000 to 2010, this research note examines the following overarching question: How well do authors in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ) explore the practice implications of their research? We find that more work needs to be done in improving the applicability of our research for practice, while recognizing that some work is geared toward the advancement of basic knowledge in the field of nonprofit studies. We adopt the position that scholars engaging in research with direct relevance for practice should invest in supporting praxis, investing a portion of their writing in addressing the “so what” question for both scholars and practitioners.

Elinor Ostrom’s Contribution to Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Studies

Elinor “Lin” Ostrom, winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economics, spent her career developing ideas and tools to address the concept of governance—what Oliver Williamson describes as the “provision of good order and workable arrangements.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Action (NVA) scholars are similarly concerned with good order and workable arrangements but draw on different, if not more disparate, scholarly traditions. This special issue sheds light on the promise that integration of the tools developed by Ostrom and NVA scholarship holds. In this article, including its primer appendix, we provide a broad introduction to the tools created by Lin and her collaborators at The Ostrom Workshop (the “Workshop”) in the interest of exploring their utility for NVA scholars’ central questions.

Utilizing the Institutional Analysis and Development Framework to Understand Quality Variation in Mixed Economies for Toll Goods: The Importance of Governance Structures

This paper utilizes the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Framework to analyze the delivery of toll goods with post-experience information asymmetry to argue for the adoption of governance structure as the classification criterion rather than sector. Toll goods are goods for which it is possible to exclude people from using the good but the good is consumed jointly with others. This paper focuses particularly on toll goods with post-experience information asymmetry, such as child care and nursing home care, for which quality is difficult to monitor even after the service has been received. The main focus of the paper is to advance our understanding of mixed economies of for-profit, nonprofit, and public providers that emerge in the market for toll goods. Research to date uses sector as the distinguishing criterion to group providers for analysis; however, I argue that governance structure provides a superior criterion precisely because it captures the subsector variation in decision-making that ultimately impacts the quality of services delivered.