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Entrepreneurs, Organizational Strength, and the Pursuit of Public Goods by Voluntary Organizations
Author(s) -
Stiles Elizabeth A.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
politics and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.259
H-Index - 23
eISSN - 1747-1346
pISSN - 1555-5623
DOI - 10.1111/j.1747-1346.2008.00103.x
Subject(s) - legislature , transgender , revenue , interest group , public good , collective bargaining , lesbian , profit (economics) , business , turnover , economics , public relations , microeconomics , labour economics , political science , psychology , finance , politics , management , law , psychoanalysis
Robert Salisbury has assumed that interest group entrepreneurs are profit‐driven and make attempts to procure collective goods to increase their membership and revenue. This article's research question takes the reverse of Salisbury's claim: can interest group entrepreneurs increase the likelihood of procuring collective goods by increasing their organizational strength? Results of a study of statewide Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) organizations show that larger memberships are positively and significantly associated with success in procuring collective goals while increased budgets are significantly but negatively associated. The implications are twofold. First, the assumption that entrepreneurs pursue collective goods for reasons of self‐interest may be more complicated than Salisbury suggests. The relationship could be the opposite—interest group entrepreneurs build their membership to secure collective goals. Second, because of the finding that more members means more legislative success, but greater budgets means less legislative success, interest group entrepreneurs interested in procuring collective goals should consider maximizing their membership rather than their budgets.