Questions about aid reduction and its implications are crucial to understanding the future of civil society in many low- and middle-income countries and in post-conflict states. Local civil society in these contexts is often heavily influenced by foreign donors. This article provides an introduction to this theme issue about aid reduction and local civil society. The objective of the introduction and issue articles is to examine the causes of aid reduction and donor withdrawal, the impacts on local civil society organizations (CSOs), and any resulting change in local civil society. We ask: What are the global trends in aid reduction? What impacts does aid reduction have on local CSOs? How do local CSOs respond and adapt? The contributions in this issue demonstrate that aid reduction is indeed global in scale and that impacts and adaptations are often strikingly similar across countries and regions. These similarities form the basis for building new theory but also prompt new questions about the global effects of aid on civil society.

Volunteers are crucial to the functioning of nonprofit organizations. Thus, researchers in various disciplines investigate volunteer performance, broadly defined as the value of individual volunteers’ activities for the accomplishment of organizational goals. Yet a comprehensive overview is still missing. To structure this fragmented literature, the systematic review presented herein covers the antecedents and dimensions of individual volunteer performance in the light of organizational success discussed in 75 academic articles. With an integrated framework of volunteer performance, derived from theoretical considerations of organizational success and the ability–motivation–opportunity framework, this article suggests a systematic classification of current scientific knowledge about the antecedents and dimensions of volunteer performance. In turn, this review offers two instructive research avenues helping to develop a holistic picture of the antecedents and dimensions of individual volunteer performance.

This empirical study examines knowledge production between 1925 and 2015 in nonprofit and philanthropic studies from quantitative and thematic perspectives. Quantitative results suggest that scholars in this field have been actively generating a considerable amount of literature and a solid intellectual base for developing this field toward a new discipline. Thematic analyses suggest that knowledge production in this field is also growing in cohesion—several main themes have been formed and actively advanced since 1980s, and the study of volunteering can be identified as a unique core theme of this field. The lack of geographic and cultural diversity is a critical challenge for advancing nonprofit studies. New paradigms are needed for developing this research field and mitigating the tension between academia and practice. Methodological and pedagogical implications, limitations, and future studies are discussed.

This paper introduces the special issue and explains the diversity as well as common features of mobilization practices present in cities around the world. The paper starts with presenting the specificity and history of urban movements worldwide, as well as the development of ‘right to the city’ frame. Drawing on the existing literature, it focuses on presenting different forms of urban activism and interpretations of ‘right to the city’ slogan. This paper strives to fuse the framework of social movements as networks (Diani, in: Diani, McAdam (eds) Social movements and networks, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp 299–318, 2003) of challengers (Gamson in The strategy of social protest, Wadsworth Publishing, Belmont, 1990) with the concepts of diffusion and translation of ideas, borrowed from Finnemore and Sikkink (Int Org 52(4):887–917, 1998). It also illustrates the application of the theoretical concepts of incumbents and challengers (Gamson 1990), organizational platform and norm life cycle (Finnemore and Sikkink 1998) as well as the development on movement networks within and between localities (Diani in The cement of civil society: studying networks in localities, Cambridge University Press, New York, 2015). The theoretical model helps to explain the rapid global spread of the notion of the ‘right to the city.’ The paper concludes with a discussion of the urban context, both ‘glocal’ and global, as an arena of social mobilization around different aspects of the ‘right to the city.’

Comparative research on nonprofit organizations (NPOs) has been a prominent approach for advancing our understanding of these organizations. This article identifies the primary drivers that shape the NPO comparative research agenda and explores new research trends. Based on a systematic literature review, nine definitional aspects and ten impulses are identified as drivers of NPO research. This article conducts a correspondence analysis to study the relationships between the definitional aspects and impulses that are discussed in 111 articles that were published in philanthropic and third-sector journals in the period January 2001–January 2015. Based on our results, we suggest three new clusters for future comparative research: investment and growth, participation and social impact, and social cohesion and civil society.

This study aims to present the progress and development in research carried out on the strategies put into practice at nonprofit organisations. To this end, we carried out a systematic review of the literature making recourse to the ISI Web of Knowledge platform for the data collection process that resulted in the 62 scientific articles (published between 1981 and 2016) analysed in this review. This analysis correspondingly sets out a description of the studies, a timeframe for their respective dates of publication and details about the research methods applied. The results convey how, over the last four decades, there have been a range of studies of nonprofit organisation strategy-related themes with the greatest incidence clustered around the terms strategic management, strategic planning, strategic typology (Miles and Snow 1978), innovation strategies and the strategic management of human resources. We found that the 1980s focused on the theoretical foundations of strategy in nonprofit organisations and the 1990s showed a theoretical consolidation of strategy in nonprofit organisations. The first decade of the twenty-first century shows a focus on improving the management of nonprofit organisations, and in the past decade there has been a diversification in the strategies adopted by these organisations. We furthermore set out suggestions for future research alongside the theoretical and practical implications of this study.

The capability of organizations to respond to unexpected events has been investigated from different theoretical angles: organizational learning, improvisation, ambidexterity, resilience, to name but a few. These concepts, however, hardly ever refer to structural characteristics. Against this backdrop, the aim of this paper is twofold. First, based on systems and organizational learning theory, it will theoretically link the characteristics of organizational structure with organizational responses to unexpected external jolts, thus contributing to better understand the reactions of organizations to the unexpected. Second, it will empirically illustrate the relation of organizational structure with organizational responses by investigating how Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) in Austria reacted to the unexpected inflow of refugees from Central Europe. In 2015, CSOs accepted a wide range of responsibilities and worked together with government entities to provide shelter, catering, and transport for almost one million refugees. Based on participant observations during operation, in-depth interviews (2015 and 2016) and focus groups with decision-makers (2017), we will sketch three longitudinal case studies of organizations with very different structures, concentrating on the processes and operations they developed during the crisis. Our findings show that their responses are closely related to their structure, specifically to the flexibility and the stability of structural elements. Remarkable changes took place in all organizations investigated. Initial responses and first structural changes occurred mainly where the structure already allowed for flexibility. Yet in the long run, the adaptations also impacted the stable structural elements.

Much of the literature on local civil society organizations and foreign aid focuses on the short-term consequences of funding cycles and contract conditions, but treats foreign aid at the macrolevel like a largely stable condition, as though countries receiving foreign aid will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Empirical evidence of aid reduction, however, suggests that this approach neglects long-term phenomena. This article examines aid patterns on a global scale and explores their potential consequences for civil society organizations. Working from World Bank data, we identify general patterns in country-level aid reduction. We examine the frequency of country-level aid reduction, the magnitude of reduction, its duration, and whether aid reduction tends to be rapid or gradual. Mapping these patterns establishes that country-level reductions in aid are a regularly occurring, global phenomenon. Moreover, even as global ODA levels increase, instances of country-level aid reduction are also increasing. Our findings lay the foundation for building new, generalizable theory about aid reduction and allow us to identify pressing questions about the consequences for civil society organizations in need of further research.

Do government activities discourage or leverage nonprofit activities? The extant literature has proposed competing lines of arguments, making the net effect ambiguous. The present study conducts a meta-analysis to synthesize extant studies concerning the relationship between the level of government activities and the level of nonprofit activities within a locality and explore potential moderating effects. Through systematically reviewing 30 extant studies, the study finds a mostly positive association between the level of government activities and the level of nonprofit activities, but this relationship is generally weak and sometimes statistically insignificant. In addition, the moderator analysis concludes that data structure, unit of analysis, and field of activity significantly moderate effect size estimates across extant studies. Overall, the net relationship between the level of government activities and the level of nonprofit activities within a locality ranges from null to slight positive. Government activities generally seem not to discourage nonprofit activities, but may slightly leverage them.

Research on the relationship between non-profit organizations (NPOs) and the public sector has been dominated by predictions of isomorphism where change and tensions in NPOs are attributed an imposing institutional setting. This article argues that research represents a selective perspective on organizational life due to its portrayal of organizational change as synonymous with an isomorphic, linear trajectory. The purpose of this article is to illustrate different sources and characteristics of change and tension. The article presents an analytical framework comprising of four components: evolving change, episodic change, inherent dilemmas, and conflicting logics, facilitating an understanding of the organization as movement. The analysis of a case study organization suggests that by identifying different dimensions of changes and tensions we can gain a richer understanding of the complexity of processes underpinning the organization as movement. The analysis reveals how multiple, parallel processes related to change and tensions generate reflections that drive integrity and identity formation at individual and organizational levels.

The right to the city is a concept that helps rethink spatial–social dynamics, which has recently reinvigorated the field of organization studies. Following Lefebvre and considering the failure of both the market and the state, other scholars pinpoint the need to rethink social–spatial and geographical–historical relations. They do so by theorizing the city as a host for urban commons. Collective and non-commodified, these spatial–social experiences need to be constantly reproduced and preserved through commoning practices in the struggle against spatial injustice. A case study shows that a civil society organization (CSO) uses participatory art to (re)produce urban commons at the level of a local community and to redress partially spatial injustice. We theorize participatory art-making as a social practice of commoning, i.e., a process of organizing for the commons—collective art-based activities to serve a community—and of the common—to (re)produce a community while performing them. Such commoning practices are not only about sharing urban resources but also about using and experiencing differently urban spaces. By making participatory artworks in public spaces and co-designing street furniture with residents of poor areas, TDA helps to better cope with the tensions between residents and local authorities and between amateurs and professional artists. By negotiating the long-term implementation of these creative artworks in the public space with public authorities, TDA has fostered the empowerment of inhabitants as they have experienced citizens’ reappropriation of some public spaces in Marseille.

The reliability of volunteers is a major concern for many nonprofit organizations. To address this problem in more detail, we develop a theoretical model of volunteer reliability based on psychological contract theory. By taking this perspective as a starting point, we explore how individual volunteer characteristics, organizational factors, and sociological developments shape the exchange of inducements and contributions between volunteers and nonprofit organizations. We discuss how these factors can create tensions in the psychological contract and determine the extent to which volunteers behave reliably. As such, we develop a theoretical framework for addressing the reliability problem in volunteer management.

We examine how societal-level institutional logics impact the way in which hybridity develops in nonprofit organizations using international, comparative and qualitative case studies of community regeneration organizations in England and France. The research applies theoretically based conjectures about types of hybridity to empirical data generated from 20 interviews, document analysis and observation in five nonprofits in the city of Lyon and five in Sheffield. We find that the French nonprofits are ‘blended’ hybrids that integrate state and community institutional logics, while ‘assimilated’ hybrids combining state, community and market logics are found in the English cases. Undertaking contextually situated analysis of institutional logics generates new knowledge on the influences on nonprofits’ rules, practices and narratives, so improving the level of knowledge about, and capacity to manage, this sector.

Effective delivery of services for the public good involves a multiplicity of organizations and actors, including those from the public, nonprofit, and private sectors. In some cases, service delivery is accomplished using programs that directly engage volunteers, including key public services like community-based and nonprofit volunteer fire departments. Volunteers in fire departments—often highly engaged volunteers with specialized training—provide vital services for a substantial portion of the United States, allowing local governments to realize considerable cost savings. Thus, issues of volunteer retention are a critical challenge for fire departments. Existing research has addressed issues of retention in a variety of settings; we argue that the challenging and particular context of fire departments is worthy of focused research. This article is an exploratory study of the predictors of voluntary firefighter retention in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. We use data from a web-based survey of volunteer firefighters to examine the factors that influence volunteer retention, focusing specifically on volunteer management practices and broader job-related concepts. Results indicate that volunteer training, performance management, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment influence both short- and mid-term intent to remain, indicating that management practices and programs, as well as other contextual factors that shape satisfaction and commitment, are important in retaining volunteers.

This article proposes a network analytic approach to the role of frames in shaping the structure of civic organizational fields. Adopting a perspective from the global South, it looks at the impact of the expression “Right to the city” (RTC) over alliance building among civil society actors, exploring patterns of collaborative ties among 129 civil society organizations active in Cape Town from 2012 to 2014. The article addresses two broad questions: What is the relation between RTC and other frames that are also frequently invoked to describe urban struggles and issues? Does the RTC frame affect the structure of urban civic organizational fields in significant ways? Data suggest that while RTC plays a significant role in local civil society, it is neither the only interpretative frame that Capetonian civic organizations draw upon to characterize their activity, nor the more salient. “Urban conservation,” especially tied to nature conservation and environmental issues, actually shapes the structure of local organizational fields in a sharper manner. This is, however, a potentially more divisive frame, rooted as it is in the apartheid legacy that still shapes urban dynamics in the city.

The architecture of international aid to developing and emerging economies is undergoing significant change. Post-aid world conditions will reshape relationships between international aid actors including donors, civil society organizations (CSOs), governments, and other institutions. These trends draw attention to South–South Development Cooperation (SSDC) as a promising direction in regions like Latin America. CSOs’ participation in SSDC might challenge and divert the dependency and power asymmetries in traditional North–South aid. As potential adaptive strategy for CSOs, SSDC diversifies the actors involved in aid and the resources exchanged, and produces different development discourses. The article outlines SSDC as an alternative development model and specifically considers the participation of CSOs. It provides a case of CSOs’ participation in SSDC in the region of Latin America. As research on CSOs in SSDC is limited, the article contributes to its further understanding and provides further avenues of research.

Based on the county-level longitudinal data in the USA, this study finds that racial diversity is positively associated with the nonprofit sector size. We further find that the share of children below poverty level is negatively associated with the size of nonprofit sectors. Our findings support the government failure theory. Random effects models also show that federal funding and local funding are positively associated with the size of nonprofit sectors, which confirms interdependence theory. Lastly, we do not find statistically significant relationship between social capital—measured by the number of associations—and the nonprofit sector size.

Revenue diversification, which generates resources from different streams and an increased number of sources, has been highly recommended as an active strategy to maintain revenue stability. To help NGOs to strategically improve or maintain revenue diversification, we identified managerial and environmental drivers of revenue diversification. Using a national sample of 429 Chinese grassroots NGOs, we investigated the extent to which organizational legitimacy, board involvement, and resource competitiveness influence organizational revenue diversification. Our findings reveal that managerial factors, including organizational legitimacy and board involvement, could increase organizational revenue diversification in terms of the organizational revenue diversification index (HHI) and the number of revenue sources. Regarding environmental factors, regional organizational density may exert a negative influence, whereas revenue diversification could improve with increasing regional GDP.

Nonprofits continue to be faced with financial challenges to fulfill their missions. Both the academic literature and nonprofit practitioners have explored revenue diversification and concentration strategies to meet these challenges. While these two strategies are essentially antagonistic, both have received support as being viable strategies to create better outcomes for the organization. This article examines whether revenue diversification or concentration strategies lead to greater mission outputs in a nonprofit context. Using resource dependence theory as a guiding framework, two opposing hypotheses are tested to gain more insight into the diversification versus concentration dilemma. A unique dataset is built and utilized to estimate a zero-inflated negative binomial regression model to assess the correlation between revenue diversification and mission outputs. Results indicate that revenue diversification (and not concentration) is associated with an increase in organizational outputs.

The breach of psychological contract is the perception by the members of an organization that it has reneged on promises made when they began their relationship with it. This perception generates intense negative emotions and is an effective predictor of future behavior in the work setting. In this investigation, we explore the relations between breach of contract and organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) in volunteers. We also explore the mediator role of negative affect in the relationship between breach and citizenship behaviors and the moderator role of age. This study was carried out using a two-wave design, with 419 socio-assistential volunteers. The results support a direct effect of breach of contract on OCB and an indirect effect of breach through negative affect. Moreover, age moderates the relation between breach of psychological contract and negative affect. Lastly, the conditional effect of breach of contract on negative affect is greater in younger volunteers but loses its power in older volunteers. The implications are discussed in order to comprehend volunteers’ activity and design interventions.