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Non-Governmental and Not-for-Profit Organizational Effectiveness: A Modern Synthesis

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Abstract

NGO/NPO effectiveness remains a prominent concern for scholars and practitioners, but the literature on this issue is increasingly fragmented along disciplinary lines. We address this problem by presenting a comprehensive and interdisciplinary review of the literature on NGO and NPO effectiveness using citation analysis. In order to uncover commonalities across disciplines concerned with similar questions, we deploy a structured literature review using snowball sampling within citation networks. This approach limits author biases, fosters an interdisciplinary perspective, and adds a different methodological approach to conventional content-based literature reviews. Our review uncovers three trends: (1) there is broad scholarly consensus that unidimensional measures of effectiveness are not useful—even though such measures are commonly used by NGO/NPO rating agencies; (2) the scholarship on NGO/NPO effectiveness is dominated by conceptual works, while empirical studies remain rare; (3) a consensus on how to operationalize effectiveness remains elusive. These results suggest that progress in our understanding of NGO/NPO effectiveness requires enhanced efforts at crossing disciplinary divides, adding empirical analyses, and increasing attention to develop shared categories and methodologies.

Résumé

L’efficacité des ONG/ASBL demeure un sujet majeur de réflexion des chercheurs et praticiens mais les publications sur cette question sont de plus en plus fragmentées le long des lignes disciplinaires. Nous traitons ce problème par la présentation d’une étude exhaustive et interdisciplinaire des publications sur l’efficacité des ONG et des ASBL en recourant à une analyse de citations. Afin d’identifier des éléments communs à travers les disciplines s’intéressant à des questions similaires, nous développons une étude structurée des publications en utilisant un échantillonage en chaîne au sein des réseaux de citations. Cette approche limite les partis-pris des auteurs, favorise une perspective interdisciplinaire et ajoute une approche méthodologique différente aux études conventionnelles des publications basées sur le contenu. Notre étude met en évidence trois tendances: (1) il existe un large consensus intellectuel quant au fait que les mesures unidimensionnelles de l’efficacité ne sont pas utiles bien que ces dernières soient couramment utilisées par les agences de notation des ONG et des ABSL; (2) la recherche sur l’efficacité des ONG et des ABSL est dominée par des travaux conceptuels, alors que les études empiriques sont encore rares; (3) un consensus sur la manière d’opérationaliser l’efficacité demeure inexistant. Ces résultats indiquent qu’une compréhension optimisée de l’efficacité des ONG/ABSL exige des efforts accrus visant à traverser les divisions disciplinaires, ajouter des analyses empiriques et être plus attentif au développement de catégories et méthodologies communes.

Zusammenfassung

Die Effektivität von nicht-staatlichen bzw. Nonprofit-Organisationen ist für Gelehrte und Fachleute nach wie vor von wichtigem Belang; doch ist die Literatur zu diesem Thema entlang disziplinärer Linien vermehrt zersplittert. Wir behandeln dieses Problem, indem wir eine umfassende und interdisziplinäre Auswertung der Literatur zur Effektivität von nicht-staatlichen bzw. Nonprofit-Organisationen präsentieren, wobei wir auf die Zitationsanalyse zurückgreifen. Um Gemeinsamkeiten zwischen den betroffenen Disziplinen aufzudecken, die sich mit ähnlichen Fragen beschäftigen, nehmen wir eine strukturierte Literaturauswertung vor und wenden das Schneeballverfahren innerhalb der Zitationsnetzwerke an. Diese Vorgehensweise schränkt die Voreingenommenheit des Autors ein, fördert eine interdisziplinäre Perspektive und ergänzt die konventionellen inhaltsbasierenden Literaturauswertungen durch eine weitere methodologische Vorgehensweise. Unsere Prüfung enthüllt drei Trends: (1) es herrscht weitgehend Einigkeit zwischen den Gelehrten, dass eindimensionale Effektivitätsmaße nicht zweckdienlich sind—auch wenn diese Maße im Allgemeinen von Ratingagenturen für nicht-staatliche bzw. Nonprofit-Organisationen angewandt werden; (2) die Wissenschaft in Bezug auf die Effektivität von nicht-staatlichen bzw. Nonprofit-Organisationen wird von konzeptionellen Arbeiten dominiert, während empirische Studien eher die Seltenheit sind; (3) Einigkeit darüber, wie die Effektivität zu operationalisieren ist, liegt fern. Diese Ergebnisse weisen darauf hin, dass zur Erlangung eines besseren Verständnisses der Effektivität von nicht-staatlichen bzw. Nonprofit-Organisationen größere Anstrengungen unternommen werden müssen, die dazu führen sollen, die disziplinären Differenzen zu überkommen, empirische Analysen hinzuzufügen und das Augenmerk erhöht darauf zu legen, gemeinsame Kategorien und Methodologien zu entwickeln.

Resumen

La efectividad de las ONG/NPO (Organizaciones No Gubernamentales/Organizaciones Sin Ánimo de Lucro) sigue siendo una preocupación destacada para eruditos y profesionales, pero el material publicado sobre esta cuestión está cada vez más fragmentado en líneas disciplinarias. Abordamos este problema presentando una revisión integral e interdisciplinaria del material publicado sobre la efectividad de las ONG/NPO utilizando el análisis de citas. Con el fin de descubrir los elementos comunes entre las disciplinas afectadas con cuestiones similares, desplegamos una revisión estructurada del material publicado utilizando el muestreo de bola de nieve dentro de las redes de citas. Este enfoque limita los sesgos de los autores, fomenta una perspectiva interdisciplinaria, y añade un enfoque metodológico diferente a las revisiones convencionales del material publicado basadas en el contenido. Nuestra revisión descubre tres tendencias: (1) existe un amplio consenso entre los eruditos de que las medidas unidimensionales de efectividad no son útiles aunque dichas medidas sean utilizadas comúnmente por las agencias de calificación de ONG/NPO; (2) el mundo de los eruditos de la efectividad de las ONG/NPO está dominado por trabajos conceptuales, mientras que los estudios empíricos siguen siendo raros; (3) un consenso sobre cómo operacionalizar la efectividad sigue resultando esquivo. Estos resultados sugieren que el progreso en nuestra comprensión de la efectividad de las ONG/NPO requiere un aumento en los esfuerzos por superar las divisiones disciplinarias, añadir análisis empíricos, y aumentar la atención para desarrollar categorías y metodologías compartidas.

摘要

非政府组织/非盈利组织的效能问题一直是学者和业内人士的关注重点,但各个学科中关于这一问题的文献却越来越支离破碎。为了解决这一问题,我们利用引文分析,对关于 NGO 和 NPO 效能的文献进行了全面的跨学科综述。为了找到不同学科对于类似问题的共同点,我们在引文网络内利用雪球式采样,对文献资料进行了结构性综述。这一方法限制了作者的偏见,培养了一种跨学科的视角,还在基于内容的传统文献综述之外增添了一种不同的方法。我们的综述发现了三种趋势:(1)学者普遍认为,单一角度的效能评估没有实用价值—尽管这种评估被 NGO/NPO 评级机构广泛采用;(2)对 NGO/NPO 效能的学术研究以概念为主,实证研究少之又少;(3)关于如何使效能具有可操作性,仍难达成一致意见。上述结果表明,要想更好地理解 NGO/NPO 效能,就需要更努力地打破学科界限,增加实证分析,更加重视发展共享的类别和方法。

ملخص

فعالية المنظمات الغير حكومية/المنظمات التي لا تسعى إلى الربح (NGO/NPO) لا تزال مصدر قلق بارز للعلماء والممارسين، لكن مجزأة على نحو متزايد في الأدب حول هذه المسألة على طول خطوط تأديبية. نحن نعالج هذه المشكلة من خلال تقديم إستعراض شامل ومتعدد التخصصات من المؤلفات حول فعالية المنظمات الغير حكومية (NGO) و المنظمات التي لا تسعى للربح (NPO) بإستخدام تحليل الاستشهاد.. من أجل الكشف عن القواسم المشتركة في مختلف التخصصات المعنية بمسائل مماثلة، نحن ننشر إستعراض أدب منظم باستخدام عينة كرة الثلج داخل شبكات الاستشهاد. هذا النهج يحد من تحيزات المؤلفين، ويعزز منظور متعدد التخصصات، ويضيف نهجاً مختلف المنهجية إلى إستعراض الأدب التقليدي القائم على المحتوى. مراجعتنا تكشف ثلاثة اتجاهات : (1) هناك إجماع واسع على أن الوسائل الأحادية الأبعاد للفعالية ليست مفيدة – على الرغم من إنه عادة تستخدم مثل هذه الوسائل من قبل وكالات تصنيف المنظمات (NGO/NPO)، (2) المنح الدراسية على فعالية (NGO/NPO) تهيمن عليه يالعمل المفاهيمي، في حين الدراسات التجريبية لا تزال نادرة، (3) توافق في الآراء حول كيفية تفعيل الفعالية لا يزال بعيد المنال. هذه النتائج تشير إلى أن التقدم في فهمنا للمنظمات (NGO/NPO)، الفاعلية تتطلب تعزيز الجهود عند معبر القسمة التأديبية ، وإضافة التحليلات التجريبية، وزيادة الاهتمام المشترك لتطوير الفئات والمنهجيات.

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Notes

  1. A growing literature has pointed to the detrimental effects created by a view that reduces NGO effectiveness to a ratio of program spending (Wing and Hager 2004; Lowell et al. 2005; Goggins Gregory and Howard 2009). We discuss the origins of this movement below in the section A Historical Look at Organizational & NPO/NGO Effectiveness. More recently, some of the rating agencies, including Charity Navigator, have pledged to change their evaluation criteria to include measures of actual performance. See Charity Navigator et al. (2009). See also footnotes 4 and 15.

  2. For an exception, see the Transnational NGO Initiative at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs; see http://www.maxwell.syr.edu/moynihan_tngo.aspx.

  3. For example, a review published by Forbes in 1998 concentrates on these six nonprofit journals: Academy of Management Journal, Administration in Social Work, Administrative Science Quarterly, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management & Leadership, and Voluntas.

  4. We recognize that our own paper is conceptual in nature as well and does not provide empirical evidence. However, we hope to provide a significantly improved framework that will facilitate empirical analysis.

  5. See also footnotes 1 and 15. This view remains prevalent today in the methodologies of self-appointed rating watchdogs which include organizational growth as a key indicator for a successful not-for-profit. In the United States, the availability of financial data based on 990 forms combined with an absence of good measures for actual impact has driven the reporting practices of watchdogs emerging since the 1990s.

  6. Aldrich clarifies that perception is important, because it affects an organization’s ability to operate in a given community or industry, retain customers, raise capital for growth, gain protection from political or regulatory figures, and attract dynamic employees (Aldrich 1999, pp. 228–332).

  7. Kaplan and Norton have remained top sellers in the applied management literature and have received thousands of citations for their academic work.

  8. To understand why this is the case, see the expansive literature on small world properties of networks (e.g., Milgram 1967; Watts and Strogatz 1998).

  9. It is possible to generate a constrained sample by only selecting a certain percentage of the articles at each sampling stage, and it can be shown that by utilizing search rank information in scholar to select the sample exponential reductions in sample size can be achieved while still retaining the important structural features of the citation network (see: Lecy et al. 2010).

  10. Available at: http://scholar.google.com/.

  11. This is consistent with laws of information sciences identified by Zipf and Bradford (Zipf 1935; de Solla Price 1976; Garfield 1980).

  12. Goal-oriented models have been heavily criticized within the effectiveness literature (Herman and Renz 1999), which explains why these models are not popular within the study sample. Also note that resource models, although not prominent in the literature, are used by organizations like Charity Navigator because financial data is readily available, whereas program data or reputation data is not.

  13. For example, Herman and Renz (2004) identify the following constituents: clients, employees, funders, licensing and accrediting bodies, boards of directors, and vendors.

  14. This was a trend in the organizational literature in the 1970s and continues in the current not-for-profit literature.

  15. President and CEO of Charity Navigator, Ken Berger, outlined a new rating system based on three major components (financial health, accountability and transparency, and outcomes) during an Interaction Forum in July 2009 (Heiberg and Bruno-van Vijfeijken 2009).

  16. For example, Sowa et al. (2004) recommend applying the MIMNOE using structural equation models (SEM) to account for imperfect construct measurement and hierarchical linear models (HLM) to ensure unbiased estimation, as a result necessitating simultaneous assessment of effectiveness of several organizations within a single industry.

  17. In addition, we classified four articles as primarily “literature reviews” and four as “other” (“other” includes: methodology, how-to, and large-N).

  18. Furthermore, many of the articles in our study using a more qualitative approach relied on underdeveloped case studies and anecdotal evidence rather than a more rigorous qualitative framework.

  19. It is important to note that, to the best of our knowledge, no large scale survey of NPOs or NGOs regarding program evaluation has been conducted. Therefore, these numbers are preliminary.

  20. This survey had 91 respondents, for a return rate of 57%.

  21. The author did not ask about the use of experimental designs that included a random assignment of clients to either treatment or a control group, because previous communications had indicated that there would not be any program evaluations with this type of design in the Dallas area.

  22. In addition, 48% indicated that there was not enough staff time available and 33% indicated that they did not have the proper knowledge to conduct an evaluation.

  23. See the work of the MIT Poverty Action lab for some inspiring examples.

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Correspondence to Jesse D. Lecy.

Appendices

Appendix 1

See Table 2.

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Appendix 2

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Lecy, J.D., Schmitz, H.P. & Swedlund, H. Non-Governmental and Not-for-Profit Organizational Effectiveness: A Modern Synthesis. Voluntas 23, 434–457 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-011-9204-6

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