The paper revisits Fukuyama’s (Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity, 1995) work on the effect of social trust on economic development and considers further the relation between family and social entrepreneurship. Specifically focusing on social care services in Taiwan, the paper highlights the role of family in social entrepreneurship. With family as a starting point, social entrepreneurship is grounded, emerges, and evolves in distinctive contexts of each society even in a society with the paradox of ‘familism’. By exploring the evolution of a social entrepreneurship case in Taiwan, this paper, expanding on Fukuyama, concludes that it is possible for the societies traditionally characterized by the paradox of familism to become more inclusive with higher trust through social entrepreneurship.

The present study aimed to explore underlying motivational factors of volunteerism at a special sporting event for persons with intellectual disabilities. The volunteer survey (n = 252) assessed sociodemographic characteristics, motives, satisfaction with life, psychological well-being, and affectivity of mainly intrinsically motivated volunteers versus traineeship attendees, doing a compulsory traineeship on occasion of the Innsbruck 2008 Winter Special Olympics. There was no significant variability in the motivation to volunteer scale (MVS) score between the groups. The inventory of approach and avoidance motivation (IAAM) data showed that primarily intrinsically motivated volunteers experienced higher self-gratification through their voluntary engagement. Regression analysis revealed that psychological well-being, satisfaction with life, and positive and negative affectivity was predicted by the IAAM and MVS. Individuals’ personal motives for volunteering appear to correlate with psychological well-being and affectivity and may influence prospective participation.

The aim of this paper is to shed light on the characteristics and impact of different institutional environments in non-profit welfare provision in Denmark. Based on an analytical framework inspired by the policy fields approach (Stone and Sandfort 2009), the paper argues that to understand the non-profit sector, it is necessary to take a closer look at the differences and similarities not only across welfare fields, but also across non-profit providers and their public counterparts within the same field. Based on data from case studies on primary schools and nursing homes in two Danish municipalities, a number of explanatory factors are identified and analyzed: Regulative rules, funding issues, norms and expectations, and the degree of competition. Results show important differences in the institutional environment of the two welfare fields, and that these differences have an actual impact on outcomes: Both collaborative activities of welfare providers and organizational commitment among leaders, employees, and users are highly influenced by characteristics of the institutional environment. It is argued that the applied analytical framework can help understand and explain the large variations in non-profit welfare provision across fields, within countries.

Russian regions exhibit wide diversity in institutional arrangements, not only due to varying natural conditions and economic development, but also due to the different political strategies pursued by their governors. Governors have wide discretion over the kinds of relationships they establish with local economic and social elites in the pursuit of nationally established goals. Some regional regimes are more pluralistic, others more authoritarian. Strategies for social and economic development vary as well. Some governors cooperate with local business associations and firms to induce investment and to overcome collective dilemmas such as those associated with skill formation. Characteristically, it is state actors who usually take the initiative in shaping state–society relations.

Government–nonprofit cooperation has been an issue of considerable debate in public management literature. Most studies have focused on Western countries where collaborative forms of government have become a core element in the provision of social services. Less is known about transitional countries such as Russia where government–nonprofit cooperation is a relatively new phenomenon that is taking shape in the ambiguous context of a hybrid political regime. This article studies the nature and extent of government–nonprofit relations in Russia’s regions. It focuses on the regional implementation of the Russian government’s program to enhance the cooperation with socially oriented nonprofit organizations enacted in 2010. The article aims to understand how this program has been realized on the ground, at the regional level, and how it is assessed by the actors involved. The article thereby contributes to a broader comparative understanding of the evolution of government–nonprofit relations by bringing the special case of Russia into systematic view.

The U.S. and the U.K. are considered as successful models of social enterprise. The Korean government benchmarked these two models in the hope of achieving similar success, without much avail. The growth of social enterprises in South Korea is attributed to the country’s characteristically strong central government and its creation of relevant institutions and provision of support services. However, this paper provides an alternate explanation by highlighting role of the third sector as the ‘policy entrepreneur’ in agenda-setting and policy implementation with regards to social enterprises in South Korea. Additionally, the decentralized local governments as well as the market structure dominated by big businesses are also examined as the main contributors to ‘policy windows’ for the third sector’s policy entrepreneurship. The paper showcases successful development of social enterprise despite the absence of a welfare state or a well-developed third sector, and argues that the phenomenon should hold numerous policy implications for other Asian countries.

To add to the growing body of literature on university–community engagement, this case study describes a 2-year partnership between a University and 11 nonprofit organizations that was formed as part of a grant funded Nonprofit Capacity Building Program. The article describes and analyzes a significant challenge that emerged between the parties involved in this particular relationship, respectively, the clear disconnect between the expectations of the partnership versus the reality. We argue that these differences were created by and often led to power imbalances. In addition, the formal structures of the grant acted as a sensemaking device for some of the nonprofits but were challenged by others. Negotiation over aspects to the program occurred continuously throughout the program. Despite the disconnect observed between expectations and realities, the expected capacity building outcomes were, for the most part, realized in the end. Specific examples of the expectations versus realities are analyzed and discussed.

This article analyzes the relationship between subjective well-being (SWB) and participation in neighborhood associations (NHA) in Japan. While the theoretical and empirical literature suggests a strong positive correlation between participation in NHAs and SWB, recent research on Japan could not validate this result. This study shows how those diverging results can be explained by including two factors in the analysis: the voluntariness of the action as well as loneliness as a mediating variable. Using linear regression models on data from two different studies, we find that—even in the case of Japan—voluntary participation in NHAs is positively associated with SWB in two ways: directly and indirectly mediated by loneliness. This result is robust to differently sampled data and different measures of our key variables.

This article departs from the observation of a widely heralded shift in the governance of welfare, which is claimed to represent a more complex and uncertain institutional environment for third sector organizations (TSOs). It has been argued that hybrid organizations carry innovative potential compared to traditional nonprofits in terms of more effectively or creatively dealing with contradictory pressures from multiple institutional logics. Using a recently developed theory to study nonprofit hybrids, this paper explores the concrete organizational practice of ‘managing hybridity.’ A qualitative study of institutional logics and participant interactions in a purposively sampled ‘post-corporatist’ hybrid TSO in Belgium was conducted. Our analysis first revealed that at the organization-level, our case represented a blended nonprofit hybrid. The particular combination of competing logics, however, put complex demands on staff members, who used three types of coping strategies in their everyday routines. A managerial and service logic prevailed, at the expense of the TSO's participatory and emancipatory mission. Implications of the findings for nascent theorizing on nonprofit hybrids are discussed.

We investigate cooperative attitudes among workers of nonprofit organizations by means of a novel empirical method combining experimental and survey data. Specifically, a two-player Prisoner’s Dilemma game is attached to a nationwide survey of social cooperatives in Italy. We experimentally manipulate social proximity of those interacting in the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the relative returns of mutual cooperation. We find that higher returns foster cooperation when social proximity of participants is low, while cooperation is not affected by a change in social proximity alone. Furthermore, social relations in the workplace and innate dispositional factors correlate with choices in the game. Our findings offer stimulating insights into the interplay between organizational features and workers’ motivations.

This article illustrates the development of government–nonprofit collaboration in the Netherlands. It first gives an overview of the scope and structure of the nonprofit sector and voluntary work and then explains the crucial steps in the evolution of the partnership arrangement between the public sector and nonprofit institutions. The article describes the past significance of so-called pillarization on the development of the nonprofit sector and its collaboration with the state. In accommodating a broad diversity of nonprofit organizations with different religious and social backgrounds, the Netherlands created an elaborate mechanism for government–nonprofit collaboration in which nonprofit organizations fulfill functions in service delivery and policy formation. However, the sector is now fundamentally fragmented and has little shared identity left today. Paradoxically, its past success also makes it less likely that the Dutch nonprofit sector will be regarded as a solution to current social problems.

New Public Management (NPM) and follow-up reforms have extended the external accountability duties of nonprofit organizations (NPOs). They are increasingly obliged to demonstrate performance in terms of efficiency and effectiveness and to introduce performance measurement systems (PM systems) for this purpose. This is also the case in Austria, a country with a strong (neo-)corporatist tradition. In the field of social services, nonprofit–government relations are now commonly regulated by performance-based contracts (PBCs) entailing specific accountability obligations. We assume that these externally imposed performance accountability demands affect both NPOs’ strategic focus and their relationships to important stakeholders including state authorities, and thereby influence the system of societal governance. Thus, we investigate NPOs’ stakeholder focus, (power) relations between NPOs and public funders and explore to what extent the latter exert influence on PM system development and how nonprofit executives assess the cost–benefit ratio of PM systems imposed on them.

Although happy New Left radical may seem like an oxymoron, many veterans of the protest cycle of the late 1960s-early 1970s in Japan seem to find happiness through political participation in an alternative invisible civil society. Guided by actor-network theory and utilizing long-term participant observation data, the study finds that participants bring distinctive cultural capital to their political activism and use their specialized skills to organize events and produce material objects that explain and promote their ideas. They derive personal enjoyment and a sense of purpose from the creative activities of “making and doing” that characterize their autonomous participation in the invisible civil society, and simultaneously build networks rich in social capital. Their activities meet the criteria for experiencing well-being or happiness both through strong network relations (social capital theory), and engaging in activities with autonomous motivation (self-determination theory).

The paper explores the impact of microfinance on multidimensional constructs of empowerment and the catalysts thereof. The reference point for analysis in the paper is the women microfinance borrowers’ self perception about their life transmutation as well as that of household power configuration. Unlike other recent research papers on the topic that focus on women’s economic empowerment, this paper focuses on both economic and socio-cultural empowerment. The paper is based on both primary and secondary data. Qualitative primary data were collected from women beneficiaries of microfinance in Bangladesh. This paper argues that microfinance can be a useful empowerment tool that can transmute women’s economic position and power relationships, but only when combined with financial literacy. It concludes that financial literacy is more important than access to credit and should be the focus of all future microfinance programs.

This article analyzes the role of three antecedents of life satisfaction (LS) among healthcare volunteers in Malaysia. The antecedents are: personality traits, motives to volunteer, and spiritual capital. This study has empirically tested the impact of individual dimensions of personality traits, motives, and spiritual capital along with their inter-relationships in explaining the LS. The volunteers of St. John Ambulance participated in this study. The model has been tested using structural equation modeling and it has been found that the three constructs have an explanatory power of 53 %. The main results are: (1) neuroticism, value motives, protective motives, personal well-being, and spirituality have a direct impact on LS and (2) enhancement motives, social motives, and religiosity have an indirect impact on LS. These results can provide insights to researchers and managers regarding profiling the right volunteers, providing the necessary infrastructure, and providing proper training to the volunteers.

The ‘social investment market’ in the United Kingdom is a growth area due to the governments’ focus upon building up the supply-side element of the market over the last decade, often through the direct financing of ‘Social and Investment Finance Intermediaries’ (SIFIs). However, this ignores problems that can occur on the demand-side of the social investment market, such as a lack of ‘investment readiness’ amongst social enterprises seeking investment. Indeed, whilst there is now a significant body of policy-based and practitioner research exploring the social investment market, there remains a paucity of empirical academic research. The research reported in this paper sought to explore SIFI perceptions of what constituted investment readiness in the social investment market. Semi-structured interviews were held with the fund managers (or relevant personnel) at 15 SIFIs in order to explore what they believed constituted investment readiness and how they assessed this. The results indicate that the conception of investment readiness in the social investment market is similar to that held in mainstream financial markets. The results are discussed in relation to the prior literature and theories of the social investment market.

In times of economic crisis, volunteer work comes to be seen as a resource, both an economic one that provides social services as the state cuts back on welfare spending; and a social one, to counteract the social disintegration that accompanies disenchantment with politics. As a result, governments across Europe have begun targeting the volunteer workforce through policy instruments. Our paper examines the effects of government policy on volunteering traditions by analyzing the implementation of a national voluntary service in Germany. Drawing on neo-institutional theory, we argue that Germany’s state initiative has sparked competition between the new government voluntary service and preexisting programs organized by civil society organizations. We will show that this conflict has not merely restructured relationships among program leaders, host institutions, educational facilities, and volunteers, but in fact called into question the very nature of volunteering as a civic practice.

Women’s NGOs are key players in the struggle to gain gender equality around the world. Motivated by a concern about the lack of progress in achieving gender equality on a global scale, the purpose of the study was to investigate the agendas and conceptualizations of women’s NGOs for gaining gender equality, and to find out to what extent they identified with feminist strategies for social change. This paper is focused on the intersection of how women’s NGOs conceptualise and deliver action towards gender equality and why gender inequality is still a major global social problem. The key mechanism for inquiry in this paper is the interrogation of how the concept of ‘empowerment’ in contemporary gender equality policies and programs, which are largely carried out by women’s NGOs, has emerged as a possible counter force to achieving gender equality. Given that ‘empowerment’ frames contemporary gender equality policy at all levels of governance (local, national and global), the study explored its impact on the progress of achieving gender equality from the women’s NGO perspective. The survey data revealed tensions between the wide range of feminist agendas of the NGOs and the limitations of the current empowerment paradigm. These tensions are between predominantly individualised empowerment processes and the much broader structural and other feminist objectives of how the NGOs understood gender equality as a concept and about how it could be achieved in practice.

This article explores Japanese civil society through voluntary activity in the Save Article 9 movement, a citizen’s activism movement reaching over 7,000 groups in Japan initiated to counter attempts of some government leaders to change or eliminate the current constitution and Article 9–Japan’s renunciation of war and militarism clause. It traces influences on Japan’s so-called “Peace Constitution” as it developed in the postwar period, cyclical challenges to it, and cyclical responses of citizens to preserve and protect it. It discusses an Austrian born woman who grew up in Japan and through circumstances after the war became part of the constitutional drafting committee though neither Japanese nor American at that time. It discusses the emergence of the Save Article 9 movement and activities of those in it. It presents the story of one woman who was a founder of a group, the daughter of a former governor of Osaka Prefecture, whose story reflects her commitment and provides a window on her father as a prisoner in Siberian camps for five years after the war ended, as an advocate for the postwar constitution, and of “social law” as Governor of Osaka Prefecture in the 1970s. It also discusses the similar orientation of the Governors of Tokyo Prefecture and Kyoto Prefecture during that decade. The article discusses how, after halting the threat to Article 9 in the first decade of the twenty-first century, Save Article 9 groups have continued to pursue a holistic vision of peace by being active in post-3.11 environmental debates, and as advocates for better relations between Japan and other Asian countries, notably Korea and China, and for greater inclusion of minorities in Japan, while remaining prepared for a re-emerging challenge to Japan’s peace constitution and its non-militarism clause Article 9.

A vexing research question concerns reciprocal relationships between social responsibility and volunteerism, characterized by volunteer identity and low volunteering cost perceived among young volunteers. This study analyzes panel data collected from 527 university students engaged in a volunteering project at a university in Hong Kong, China. Controlling for background and selectivity factors, the study reveals that the volunteer’s social responsibility displayed a positive effect on volunteerism 6 months later, but volunteerism did not yield a positive effect on social responsibility 6 months later. These results imply the emphasis on social responsibility as a precursor to sustain volunteerism. They also imply the need for university to orchestrate volunteering projects that foster volunteers’ volunteerism and social responsibility.