This article puts the current cooperative pattern of state-nonprofit relations in France into historical context against the country’s statist past and suggests the implications this experience may have for other countries that share the statist background that France, perhaps in somewhat different form, also embodies. To do so, the discussion first reviews the current shape of the French nonprofit sector and the substantial scope and structure of government support of nonprofit human service delivery that exists. It then examines the unfavorable historical background out of which the current arrangements emerged and the set of changes that ultimately led to the existing pattern of extensive government–nonprofit cooperation. Against this background, a third section then looks more closely at the tools of action French governments are bringing to bear in their relations with nonprofits, the advantages and drawbacks of each, and the nonprofit role in the formulation of public policies. Finally, the article examines the key challenges in government–nonprofit cooperation in the provision of human services and the lessons the French experience might hold for Russia and other similar countries.

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) serve a unique purpose, filling gaps left by governments and for-profits. NPOs have the potential to do significant good in their communities. These organizations are often resource constrained, both financially and in terms of human capital. For that reason, personnel in small NPOs are often diverted from the organization’s mission to administrative functions. Outsourcing, as research has shown in for-profits, offers the opportunity to refocus human capital to the mission cost effectively. However, there is little research on outsourcing for small NPOs. This study focuses on small NPOs in regard to outsourcing administrative functions. Not surprising, small NPOs often use staff time and board resources on administrative functions to save money and may not understand the benefits of outsourcing. Most surprising was the finding that as the organization grows in revenue, employees, and annual budget, and even more functions are brought in-house.

The current study aims to study Hospital volunteers’ intention to stay in an organization through understanding motivation, management factors, and satisfaction. A total of 304 Hospital volunteers, mainly women, completed a questionnaire measuring motivations, management factors, satisfaction, and intention to stay. In this study, structural equation modeling was used. Results demonstrate that there is a positive relationship between (a) motivation and satisfaction, (b) management factors and satisfaction, (c) satisfaction and intention to stay, and (d) motivation and management factors. These results present important outcomes that should be reflected in the way organizations operate. This research indicates aspects which are most valued by volunteers and allows NPOs to design and establish appropriate and assertive management policies.

The interdependencies and conflicts between civil society and welfare states are of continuing interest and controversy among civil society researchers. Particularly, issues of motivation, collaboration, management, and institutional contexts have been subject to extensive scrutiny. Less prominent on this research agenda, the issue of public perceptions and legitimacy is highly relevant to the conversation on welfare state and civil society. This study contributes on this topic by investigating the public legitimacy of volunteer involvement in public welfare services. The article presents findings from a qualitative interview study of perceptions of welfare institutions conducted in 2013–2014 among 115 participants from Sweden and Denmark. The hypothesis investigated is that the Nordic model of welfare is legitimized by its public nature to a degree which excludes volunteers from legitimately contributing as part of public welfare institutions. Findings suggest that volunteers are held in high regard among Swedes and Danes, but the involvement of volunteers in public welfare provision is deemed both a threat to the Nordic model of Welfare and matter-out-of-place in regards to the role the interview participants ascribed to volunteers and civil society.

Previous researchers who applied cognitive dissonance theory to charitable giving found that giving is for many donors a means of acting consistently with their self-concepts as rational and moral beings. The present study extends this inquiry by investigating how “rationality” and “morality” are culturally constructed norms. Donor communications are effective insofar as their use of language reproduces the expectations of the stakeholder community’s shared culture. This finding is indicated by the author’s extensive ethnographic fieldwork in a Baptist denomination in the United States. The capacity of professional leaders to arouse, preempt, or reduce members’ cognitive dissonances over giving derived from language use that activated (as it simultaneously reified) concepts and associations approved by their Baptist subculture. Building on this and previous studies, the present author proposes a process model for pre- and post-decision cognitive dissonance over charitable giving.

In Italy, the development of the human social service field has been grounded in a peculiar type of government–third sector partnership. This article identifies the main features of such partnership and reconstructs its evolution in a long-term perspective. The main argument is that in Italy this partnership, historically based on particularism and political patronage, has gradually shifted towards a model combining market logic and participatory orientation. State regulation has been paradoxically strengthened in order to allow more transparency, freedom of choice, and effective joint planning. However, the lack of financial and technical resources exposes this new system to old style local arrangements.

Since a few years, humanitarian non-governmental organisations (NGOs) are faced with increased insecurity in regions where armed conflicts prevail, such as in Afghanistan, Somalia or Sudan. An analysis of the NGOs’ reaction to this development based on 23 semi-structured interviews reveals that identity matters and plays a crucial role. On the one hand, for reasons related to their identity, addressing this insecurity proves challenging for NGOs, which is why they tend to shy away from taking steps in this direction. On the other hand, identity can facilitate organisational learning and help overcome organisational barriers related to it. In this respect identity allows NGOs to join security networks and cooperate across NGO boundaries, while at the same time using it as an indicator to distinguish between who they can trust and who therefore is part of the network and who is not.

This paper uses the case of rural compulsory education promotion to explore corporate philanthropists’ involvement in long-term social development in China. By reviewing corporate donation, CSR programs, and presenting the organizational and program characteristics of 52 foundations setup by corporate elites, the paper shows that corporate philanthropy in China is at an early stage of development; corporate philanthropists participate in social development mainly through donation to government and government-organized-nongovernmental organizations; and they are more enthusiastic about supporting infrastructure projects. The paper also points out that corporate philanthropists possess the power of money, which can be used to promote the professionalization of the Chinese nonprofit sector.

The notion of a “welfare mix” has two different points of reference. One is the variety of institutional arrangements of modern welfare states in, basically, capitalist democracies. This is primarily connected to a cross-country comparative perspective, very much influenced by classic pieces of research on the varieties of welfare states in general and related typologies (above all Esping-Andersen, The three worlds of welfare capitalism, 1990; see also Arts and Gelissen J Eur Soc Policy 12:137–158, 2002; Castles et al., The Oxford handbook of the welfare state, 2011). We believe to know, for instance, that Scandinavian welfare states are much more state-centered and, accordingly, third sector organizations much less important than in, say, conservative or corporatist welfare states such as Germany or Austria or in liberal welfare states such as the United States (cf. Salamon and Anheier, Defining the nonprofit sector: a cross-national analysis, 1997). A second point of reference of the “mix” of welfare state arrangements is the combination of sector-specific institutions in the provision of welfare-related services in a given country. It is here where the notion of hybridity is particularly relevant since it is typically the arrangement of overlapping sectoral segments that characterize the “mix” in question (cf. Evers Int J Public Adm 28:736–748, 2005 for an overview). Examples are tax exempted foundations in the field of education or science, private voluntary associations providing public goods such as social services of various kinds or private goods such as housing provided by public enterprises or cooperatives.

The development and viability of the non-governmental organization (NGO) sector varies across the post-communist world. We explore the impact of corruption on NGO sustainability—the overall enabling environment and activities of the NGO sector—in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union from 1998 to 2007. To test hypotheses about the relationship between corruption and NGO sustainability, we employ time-series cross-sectional analyses of 27 post-communist states, controlling for domestic factors such as economic development, government expenditure, and democracy, and international factors such as levels of trade, foreign direct investment, and foreign aid, as well as a country’s status vis-à-vis the European Union. We conclude that corruption is consistently and strongly associated with lower levels of NGO sustainability. In particular, our analyses suggest that corruption is likely to degrade the legal environment and fiscal viability of the NGO sector greater than other aspects related to NGO activities such as advocacy or organizational capacity.

This paper, using original survey data, examines the factors influencing individual giving behavior toward the organizations focusing on who gives what to which types of organizations, especially the local civil society organizations. The study finds that the variables regarding personal socio-demographic traits, experiences of local social participation, and an attachment to local society are statistically significant, but not the contextual effect such as size of city. In addition, it reveals various factors influencing giving behavior toward the neighborhood associations and incorporated NPOs. That is, it may denote there are different attributes between people who give to the neighborhood associations and people who give to the incorporated NPOs. Thus, further development of organizational forms may be considered for achieving better local governance and providing local public goods by the promotion of charitable giving from the enlightened residents.

Participation of women in microfinance institutions (MFIs) is touted to advance development in developing economies. By applying the stakeholder theory, we examine the magnitude of women’s participation across MFIs based on their legal characteristics, that is, cooperatives and non-cooperatives across the following dimensions—organizational size, efficiency, loan size, and gender mix. We find that in the case of the cooperative types of MFIs, increases in average loan sizes are associated with decreases in female participation in the administration and governance. Further, the findings demonstrate that with increases in the participation of women borrowers, the number of women in organizational governance also increases. These findings suggest important research and practical implications regarding women’s empowerment through participation in mutual cooperative societies. We conclude that credit unions and cooperatives could be an effective tool for enhancing women’s participation in organizational administration and governance.

East Europe’s welfare states have undergone enormous changes in the two and a half decades since Communism collapsed. After forming part of a distinctive Communist political economy for four decades, they have been restructured in market-conforming directions that re-define public and private responsibility for societal well-being. Civil society or nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and market providers have entered the welfare sphere. The present paper maps divergent trajectories of East-Central European (ECE) welfare states and those of the Former Soviet Union (FSU), focusing on persistent legacies as well as innovation, political negotiation over reforms, and the strong influence of the European Union in shaping outcomes. It shows the growing role of NPOs across contemporary ECE and FSU welfare sectors, as advocates and as service providers partnering with governments. While NPOs remain comparatively weak in post-communist states, there is remarkable convergence of democratic and authoritarian regimes around policies of government–NPO partnerships to improve welfare performance.

Psychological contract fulfillment—an individual’s perception of the degree to which an organization fulfills its promises—is critical to understand how people behave in exchange relationships. I examine if fulfillment explains exit, (aggressive and considerate) voice, loyalty, and neglect behaviors of volunteers. Moreover, I test whether these relationships are mediated by violation and trust. Data were collected from 215 volunteers using an online survey and analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results indicated that fulfillment related negatively to exit, aggressive voice, and neglect behavior and positively to considerate voice behavior. Mediation analyses confirmed that violation and trust acted as mediators. I conclude that fulfillment is critical to understand why volunteers display exit, (aggressive and considerate) voice, and neglect behavior. Moreover, I propose that violation and trust are able to explain how fulfillment is related to these behaviors, through a “hot” and “cool” response system, respectively.

A typological approach to civic participation and nonparticipation may be useful to develop targeted recruitment or intervention strategies. We applied the behavior change framework, which distinguishes between preintenders, intenders, and actors, to civic participation. Using a sample of 695 individuals (aged 20–40) surveyed in 2010 in two of the new federal states of Germany, we conducted latent profile analysis on three continuous indicators of civic participation (factual participation, perceived behavioral control, and future intention). Five profiles emerged: the Staunch Abstainers, the Indifferent Abstainers, the Somewhat Committed, the Aspiring, and the Highly Committed. The profiles significantly differed in socioeconomic status (SES) but not in age, gender, employment, or family status. Moreover, a higher SES was not always associated with higher civic participation, and different SES indicators appeared to play different roles. We discuss ways to foster civic participation in each group.

Jones et al.’s (Acad Manag Rev 32(1):137–155, 2007) typology of stakeholder culture, representing the beliefs, values and practices that an organization has towards its stakeholders, has received widespread recognition. Yet, the literature lacks an instrument to quantify the typology. This study provides such an instrument by constructing and validating a scale of Jones et al.’s (2007) four other-regarding stakeholder cultures of corporate egoist, instrumentalist, moralist and altruist in the not-for-profit (NFP) context. Mail survey data were collected from top management of 621 Australian NFP companies limited by guarantee that were drawn from various online databases. Exploratory factor analysis produced a five-factor structure with the altruist factor split into two sub-factors. Confirmatory factor analysis supported Jones et al.’s (2007) typology by showing a satisfactory fit of a four-factor model. A major contribution of the study is that the scale may be used in future research into stakeholder culture and salience in NFPs and similar organizations.

Civil society theory has rarely been applied to the demise of the Weimar Republic. Emphasizing either the absence of intermediary organizations or the negative nature of Germany’s associational life, current civil society research does not integrate historical analysis with civil society theory. This essay roots civil society in modernity and individualism, thus, linking its fading during the 1920s to the inability of civil society theory to provide solutions to the complex problems of Weimar society. Paradoxically, individualism and modernity, the precondition for a liberal civil society, also paved the path to the homogenizing ideologies of the twentieth century.

Interorganizational networks are important structures for both service providers, who must navigate them as part of their organizational roles, and clients, who use them for the purposes of receiving benefits. This research develops and tests a conceptual model that explains some of the differences in the ways that these two groups perceive these networks. Drawing on surveys/interviews with 200 clients and 63 service providers of agricultural development training in Burkina Faso, this research demonstrates that clients perceive interorganizational networks differently than service providers. In particular, these results demonstrate that service providers perceive more organizations in the network, more competitive and collaborative ties among those organizations, and more competitive ties per organization than clients. From these results, we draw implications for social network, development communication, and organizational fields’ research.

This article explores the growth of the socio-economic strength of the nonprofit sector in Poland over the past 25 years of post-communist transition and this sector’s increasingly strong relations with government in the fields of human service delivery and social policy formulation. Among the factors contributing to the expanding role of the country’s nonprofit sector examined in the article are the early post-communist welfare gap, the impact of Poland’s accession to the EU, the new legal framework for nonprofits established during this period, the significant decentralization of governmental authority, and the resulting expansion of governmental support now reaching a level close to that in many Western European countries. At the same time, the article identifies the remaining vulnerabilities that continue to plague Polish nonprofit organizations as a consequence of its reliance on short-term contracts, limited access to public procurement procedures, and a general pull-back of the state from the provision of human services.

Social housing in Western welfare states has undergone change over recent decades, characterised by greater reliance on private actors, market mechanisms and commercial capital. Within housing research, this shift has been described as a linear ‘migration from the public sector towards the private market’, and conceptualised as ‘modernisation’. While empirical change calls for conceptual renewal, the labels we apply to processes of change may limit or enhance potential to understand them. This paper explores the problem of conceptualising change in social housing, focusing on a key facilitator of market-based reforms: the mobilisation of private not-for-profit housing associations as social enterprises in the housing market. It explores their changing roles in English and Dutch housing provision, tracking state policy shifts and debate over their organisational legitimacy for insights into their emergence and trajectories. Contrary to linear ‘modernisation’, findings suggest cyclical movement. Over time, aspects of the work and identity of housing associations shift between public and private domains.