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Nonprofit organizations in between the nonprofit and market spheres: Shifting goals, governance and management?
Author(s) -
Suykens Ben,
De Rynck Filip,
Verschuere Bram
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
nonprofit management and leadership
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.844
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1542-7854
pISSN - 1048-6682
DOI - 10.1002/nml.21347
Subject(s) - corporate governance , legitimacy , business , non profit , nonprofit organization , public relations , perception , accounting , political science , finance , business administration , neuroscience , politics , law , biology
In spite of the belief instilled by the New Public Management reforms that nonprofit organizations (NPOs) can benefit from more management, more measurement and more market practices, systematic knowledge on the organizational effects of NPOs incorporating business practices in their day‐to‐day functioning remains absent to date. This research note addresses this limitation by reviewing 49 research articles. The focus lies on the redefinition of nonprofits' mission and income streams, changing governance arrangements and shifting management practices. We find that, despite numerous detrimental effects cited in the literature, (a) generating commercial income can contribute to the financial stability of NPOs, and (b) hybridization towards the market domain can strengthen the organizational legitimacy of NPOs, suggesting that imitating for‐profit enterprises might contribute to nonprofit functioning in perception, rather than in practice.