Urs Jäger

Volunteering Versus Managerialism: Conflict Over Organizational Identity in Voluntary Associations

This qualitative field study examines how volunteering and managerialism shape the organizational identity of six patient organizations from six different European countries. Volunteers represent a large part of the workforce in most voluntary associations. Even though the phenomenon of volunteering is becoming more and more important for organizations and society alike, so far it has only been studied at the individual level. The authors draw on the theoretical concept of dual organizational identities to describe the two differing collective self-descriptions that were present in the patient organizations. Drawing on 34 narrative interviews and focus groups, the authors document the differing perceptions of volunteers and paid staff about their organization’s identity and show how the conflicting dimensions—volunteer identity and managerial identity —result in intraorganizational conflict.

Balancing Acts: NPO-Leadership and Volunteering

Volunteering is regarded as an increasingly important phenomenon and the employment of volunteers as one of the typical traits of nonprofit organizations. However, the consequences of volunteering for everyday practices of NPO-leadership, i.e. the question of how non-paid employees are treated in settings where formal power is lacking, have so far not received the attention they deserve. Our paper discusses practices for leading without formal power by presenting findings from an empirical research project. Using a Grounded Theory approach, we identify five interrelated practices that question conventional notions of transformative or charismatic leadership.

Strategy’s Negotiability, Reasonability, and Comprehensibility A Case Study of How Central Strategists Legitimize and Realize Strategies Without Formal Authority

This article presents results of an embedded comparative case study about central strategists realizing strategies in a large nonprofit organization characterized by decentralized and inverse structures. Inverse structures lead to a paradoxical situation in which strategists of a nonprofit’s central office have to make deliberate decisions about resource allocation while having no authority over the implementation of strategic decisions. Legitimation is a crucial element in the creation and realization of new strategies. The authors thus ask the question: How do strategists achieve the legitimation and realization of strategies without formal authority? The findings show that, in all of the observed four strategies—also in the process of formalization—strategists of the central office built on emergent strategies that they supported in their legitimation by three steps: Strategists supported the strategy’s negotiability (pragmatic legitimation), continued supporting its reasonability (moral legitimation), and finally its comprehensibility (cognitive legitimation).

Analysis of Determinants of Revenue Sources for International NGOs Influence of Beneficiaries and Organizational Characteristics

Securing financial sustainability through fundraising and other forms of financing is a critical issue for many nonprofit organizations. This article extends the benefits theory by adding beneficiary and organizational characteristics to it and examines how these characteristics affect revenue source composition. Based on a survey of International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs) with headquarters in Switzerland, the results quantitatively demonstrate a predictive relationship between programmatic and financial management: First, Swiss-based INGOs’ revenue sources rely heavily on income-generating revenue sources. Second, the efficacy of the benefits theory of nonprofit finance is demonstrated outside of the organizational context of U.S. local/national nonprofits. Third, INGOs’ organizational and beneficiary characteristics influence their revenue source composition. Fourth, the results demonstrate clear differences between revenue sources. Fifth, overall, the beneficiary field is the most influential of the proven characteristics in determining revenue source percentages.

Experience of Solidarity: Why Executive Directors Work for Market Driven Nonprofits

The more nonprofits become challenged by resource shortages, the higher the demand for highly skilled executive directors. Nevertheless, we do not yet fully understand what motivates executive directors to work in nonprofits challenged by market forces. This article explores the career context and individual biographies of executive directors. Introducing a career field and career capital approach to the study of careers in nonprofits, we analyze what influences the career of executive directors of German faith-based social service organizations. The results of 23 interviews and four focus groups with 60 participants are twofold. First, four types of career capital influenced the executive directors’ career: Experience of solidarity, orientation to social service, skills for executive function, and leadership by appointment. Second, all careers were highly influenced by the experience of solidarity. The article ends by explaining why experience of solidarity is important for training and selecting nonprofit executive directors.

Beyond Balancing?: A Research Agenda on Leadership in Hybrid Organizations

Abstract: This study theoretically conceptualizes leadership challenges in hybrid organizations. In general, leadership is understood as a social relation where an actor influences the action of a second actor to fulfill the first actor’s intention, where the intention is usually a defined goal. However, because hybrid organizations operate at the intersection of different sectors, their leaders often need to lead without the option to set a single clear goal. Our study explores these questions: How do hybrid organizational environments affect leaders, and how can actors lead effectively in hybrid organizations? Introducing Bourdieu’s concept of fields and routine practice, we describe the organizational role of leadership in hybrid organizations as a “game” (Bourdieu) between the opposing logics of markets and civil society. The article concludes with a research agenda for further empirical examination of leadership practices in hybrid organizations, one that goes beyond simply balancing conflicting objectives and institutionalizes new practices that incorporate the logics both of markets and of civil society.

Multidiskursive Organisationen. Ein organisationstheoretischer Blick auf die NPO-Managementforschung

Der zunehmenden Zahl und Relevanz von Nonprofit-Organisationen (NPO) entsprechend, hat sich in den letzten Jahren die Nachfrage nach und das Angebot von Studien und Ratgebern zum Thema NPO-Management stark vermehrt. Zahlreiche Managementforscher und -berater versuchen seither, ihre Techniken an den „NPO- Mann“ zu bringen. In Teilbereichen konnen solche „Transferleistungen“ gewiss erfolgreich sein. Geht man indes von der These aus, dass sich Ansatze, die sich in marktorientierten Unternehmen bewahren, nicht unreflektiert auf NPO ubertragen lassen, so ist - grosso modo - auffallig, dass die NPO-Managementliteratur sich kaum mit moglichen Besonderheiten von NPO als Organisationen befasst - und ebenso wenig mit daraus moglicherweise resultierenden Besonderheiten des NPO- Management.

Grupo Islita: Is Financial Sustainability Better Secured by Becoming a Non-profit Organisation or a For-profit Enterprise?

Abstract This article presents a teaching case on a non-profit organisation that serves the base of the pyramid populations in Costa Rica. The organisation needs to determine whether its financial sustainability is better secured by increasing its services or by seeking funds from the donor market. The case presents three teaching goals. First, participants will learn the pros and cons of gaining financial resources as a non-profit organisation or as a business with significant social and environmental impacts. Second, participants will understand how an organisation can integrate poor communities into its core business. Finally, participants will reflect on the challenges that a management team faces when selling a socially oriented, sustainability-driven hotel service that is located in a high poverty area to upscale tourists or donors.

Sustainability for strategy

This book is for companies and managers around the world who want to incorporate sustainability into business strategy in order to improve their competitiveness. Our focus is not on sustainability per se. It is on strategy and how solutions to sustainability challenges can be incorporated into a company’s business strategy for increased competitiveness. In a nutshell, it is about sustainability for strategy and not about strategy for sustainability.1 In our view, sustainability is not something that is to be done in addition to strategy. It is a part of strategy and can lead to improved competitiveness. But is this always the case? Some say yes; others say no. In this book, we will explore this question in the context of Latin America and provide an answer. The obsession with China and India has led to a literature on sustainability that pays little or no attention to Latin America.2 This book begins to fill that gap. Latin America can certainly learn from best practices around the world but it can also teach the world about sustainability because it is a resourcerich region with a huge potential for greater resource efficiency, along with cultural dimensions derived from Catholicism and humanism to traditions of corporate paternalism that lend themselves to doing well by doing good. The work of the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group on ‘sustainability champions’ and other surveys underscore the increasing interest of companies in strategies that incorporate sustainability for competitiveness.3 The 2012 BCG/MIT Sloan Management Review report ‘Sustainability nears a tipping point’ provides some interesting statistics: 4000 managers from 113 countries responded to the survey; 70 percent said their company had placed sustainability permanently on their management agenda; 67 percent said this was a competitive necessity; and 33 percent said their sustainability initiatives were contributing to profitability.4

Gemeinwohlorientierung als Maxime professioneller Accountability: Ergebnisse einer empirischen Fallstudie

Seit UNICEF Deutschland von einer uberregionalen Tageszeitung mit dem Vorwurf konfrontiert wurde, Spendengelder zu veruntreuen, mussen sich die Verantwortungstrager des Kinderhilfswerks verstarkt der offentlichen Kritik stellen. Auch viele weitere Nonprofit- Organisationen (NPO) fuhlen sich verpflichtet, ihre Leistungen offentlich zu rechtfertigen. Angesichts dieser Beobachtung sprechen Wissenschaftler von einem Trend, der den ganzen sozialen Sektor betrifft und verschiedene Ursachen hat (A. Benjamin 2008: 201). So steigt der Einfluss der Stakeholder, gegenuber denen NPO die Verwendung ihrer Spendengelder legitimieren mussen (siehe hierzu auch M. Lee 2004 und M. Stephenson 2006). Das generiert bisher unbekannte Management-Herausforderungen, weil einige Stakeholder besser informiert, aufmerksamer und aktivistischer sind. Zudem verlangen viele dieser Gruppen Beweise, ob eine NPO tatsachlich soziale Problemstellungen bearbeitet und lost (B. Morrison/P. Salipante 2007). Dieser externe Druck erzeugt Wissenschaftlern zufolge positive Wirkungen auf die Organisation (L. M. Benjamin 2008: 217): In manchen NPO konnte beobachtet werden, wie Erfolgsbewertungen von Projekten zu einer verbesserten Ressourcenallokation fuhrten und wie die Motivation der Mitarbeiter bei transparenter Darstellung der organisationalen Leistung stieg – vor allem bei Ehrenamtlichen (U. Jager/T. Beyes/K. Kreutzer 2008). Angesichts solcher Veranderungen steigt der Druck auf das professionelle Handeln der Verantwortungstrager, wenn sie den Anspruchen der Stakeholder effektiv, effizient und systematisch zu entsprechen suchen (vgl. S. Ospina et al. 2002).