Philanthropy patterns in major Australian performing arts organizations

Taking a management perspective in the field of philanthropy, this study examines 12 Australian major performing arts organizations over 19 years (2000–2018), which were identified as vulnerable and struggling with overreliance on public grants. Underpinned by theories that integrate understandings of external and internal resource management—resource dependence theory and the resource-based view—we uncover insights into what drives the increase in their philanthropic income. Using data from 228 annual reports and interviews, we present an original taxonomy that identifies organization-donor relationships and organizational efforts in nurturing philanthropy. We uncovered the interplays between donor engagement and positioning philanthropic staff in terms of organizational structure. Longitudinal financial and narrative data demonstrate that external resource management through donor engagement and internal resource management through organization structure emphasizing philanthropy have a significant impact on the growth of organizational philanthropic income

Integrating Social and Political Strategies as Forms of Reciprocal Exchange into the Analysis of Corporate Governance Modes

The concept and theory of reciprocity provide fruitful ways of integrating social and political strategies because both involve donating valuable resources to non-market recipients – mainly non-governmental organizations, politicians and regulators – who are not contractually bound to reciprocate although a return is normally expected. Besides, we interpret the use of non-contractual reciprocity through relational-models theory and transaction-cost economics. The former offers a model of ‘equality-matching’ that corresponds to reciprocity while transaction-cost economics’ criteria of uncertainty, frequency and asset specificity can be applied to non-contractual relationships in order to determine their efficiency. We also differentiate reciprocity from bribery and offer research implications of the fact that goods can be obtained from others without using transactions

Can corporations contribute directly to society or only through regulated behaviour?

This paper explores the mechanisms by which corporations can contribute to society. It examines the roles of regulation and the autonomous contributions of corporations. The roles of incentives to managers to ‘do good’ and of corporate culture to foster social responsibility are considered. The investigation finds that modern corporations are bound by a web of rules and signals that both constrain and support action towards social goals. These include not only formal regulation, but also signals from consumers, compliance with standards, employee expectations, supplier demands, and pressures from civil society. Rules and signals vary by place and time and corporate social responsibility practices must evolve with these pressures from stakeholders

Strategies Leaders in a Canadian Charity Use to Maintain Donors’ Trust and Ensure Continued Donations

Eroded public trust and financial support threaten charity organizations\u27 sustainability. Charity directors are concerned with eroding trust as lack of confidence adversely impacts the economic lives of disadvantaged communities. Grounded in Stewart’s ladder of accountability theory and Alderfer’s existence, relatedness, and growth theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies charitable organizations’ leaders use to maintain donors’ trust and ensure continued donations. The participants were five charity directors who used strategies to maintain donors’ trust and ensure ongoing donations. Data were collected using semistructured interviews and document reviews. Through Braun and Clarke\u27s six-step thematic analysis, six significant themes were identified: accountability, transparency, government funding, having good policies in place, meeting donors’ psychological needs to donate, and working with affiliated charities. A key recommendation for charity leaders is to adopt and maintain accountability and transparency best practices, including the availability and disclosure of annual independent audited financial statements to minimize scandals and misappropriation of funds, safeguard resources, maintain donors’ trust, and ensure continued donations. The implications for positive social change include the potential to implement charitable programs and activities to improve the local community\u27s educational, social, and economic lives of disadvantaged people

Myths of Missile Defense: International Ambition Driven by Domestic Politics

This dissertation investigates the paradoxical revival of strategic missile defense, a resurgence notable for high economic, diplomatic, and strategic costs and a lack of imminent threats. Despite historically incurring substantial costs, including massive downstream costs, with more projected in the near future, it is fundamentally flawed, both technologically and strategically. It creates significant diplomatic hurdles in arms control, spurs arms races, incentivizes first-strike postures and countermeasures like MIRVing ICBMs, and creates a world where we are less safe with it than we were without it. This study challenges the idea that this resurgence is driven by legitimate national security needs, instead arguing that it is best understood as a form of overexpansion—a self-defeating policy of aggression. Although Jack Snyder's theory of Coalition logrolling provides insights into overexpansion, it falls short in explaining the specific dynamics of missile defense resurgence, particularly concerning the timing, involvement of actors without direct benefits, and the lack of effective democratic oversight. Using historical process tracing and organization theory, this dissertation uncovers that the resurgence is driven by an informal network of actors bound by resource dependencies, including financial connections, information exchanges, and personnel dynamics. These actors strategically leverage resources to ensure survival, mitigate uncertainty, resist autonomy infringements, and access necessary resources. This approach allows a more nuanced understanding of the resurgence's timing, accounting for shifts in resource distribution (financial and political) following exogenous events. The dissertation tracks how network actors strategically shaped their environment to benefit the network, employing tactics that transcended immediate personal gains. It highlights their efforts to manage uncertainties, manipulate organizational environments, and create demand for network-provided resources. The study examines strategies to buffer against environmental fluctuations, including strategic secrecy, information management, and practices for perpetual resource acquisition. Network actions that undermined international agreements for the network's advantage, while resisted by actors with minimal network ties, are also analyzed. The resurgence of strategic missile defense is best understood through an organization theory lens, focusing on resource dependencies and network behaviors. This perspective comprehensively explains the policy's revival, emphasizing an influential network's strategic actions and motivations within the US defense policy sphere

Pulp Fictions: The Role of Detachable Corporate Social Responsibility in Building Legitimacy for Uruguay’s Largest Ever Foreign Investment.

This thesis examines how practices of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) serve to legitimise Uruguay’s largest ever foreign investment, the US$2.5-billion pulp mill constructed by the Finnish-Chilean firm Montes del Plata. Unusually, this investment prompted little social conflict, which runs counter to the community tensions frequently associated with large-scale infrastructure investments in Latin America. To explore this, the thesis takes an agency-oriented approach to the study of corporate-community relations. It offers fresh insights for critical management scholars and anthropologists of corporations into the techniques of collusion and co-optation in large-scale foreign direct investment (FDI) projects. Based on participant observation with Montes del Plata’s community relations managers and their community interlocutors, conducted over separate periods during and after the mill’s construction, the thesis examines the legitimising impulse of corporate citizenship, both as concept and practice. I show how the company seeks to incorporate itself as a morally-infused entity through ongoing interactions between its representative agents and external actors. I argue that the form of CSR that emerges is neither moral nor responsible, but its command over social relations nonetheless makes it a potent force for corporate capitalism’s expansion. The mill owner attempts to manage its social and political relations in such a way as to secure the proximity needed for legitimacy-building, while creating the requisite distance to reduce onerous moral obligations; a balance that I analyse using the concepts of detachment and depoliticisation. The thesis opens with a discussion of the politics of representation, demonstrating how the agents of Montes del Plata (the Corporation) shape the local political ecosystem through the recognition, or not, of its counterparties’ claims to representativeness. Chapters 1 and 2 also explore the theory of personation, especially in the efforts by the Corporation’s community managers to infuse the company with moral characteristics. Their struggles in doing so invite consideration of a pragmatic approach to legitimacy building through the calculated management of social relations. Chapters 3 and 4 further show how principles of detachment and depoliticisation frame the Corporation’s approach to relationship management. Chapter 3 examines how participation and empowerment are utilised to depoliticise development goods and stage the Corporation’s detachment from their delivery. Chapter 4 examines the detachment effects of the changes to the region’s political economy sparked by the mill project, and how the mill owner depoliticises public expectations of job creation. The conclusion makes the case for a distinctive approach to FDI legitimation driven by detachment (and reattachment) and facilitated by depoliticisation, which I term ‘detachable CSR’