Sustainability in voluntary organisations : Exploring the dynamics of organisational strategy.

This thesis aims to develop further understanding of organisational sustainability in the voluntary sector, as a complex and dynamic phenomena inextricably linked to capacity for survival. In taking a holistic approach to exploring the dynamics of sustainability, the study considers the influencing factors, both internal and external, that can drive strategic change within voluntary organisations through an extensive multi-method research programme incorporating exploratory focus groups, descriptive survey fieldwork and multiple-case studies. Specifically, the research outlines the major internal and external systems that are important for voluntary organisations to consider when developing strategies for sustainability and, perhaps more importantly, explores the interconnections between them. The thesis departs from much of the dedicated voluntary sector literature, which often adopts a rationalist prescriptive approach to organisation and management. In aiming to advance something of a more critical approach, which considers what may be termed the 'emotional' side of strategy, the study makes a key contribution to the voluntary sector strategy literature. Ultimately, the author argues that to study, govern and manage voluntary organisations involves thinking about philosophy, politics and ethics. In the context of developing strategies for sustainability, this equates to considering who says what the job is, how it should be done, and how people are affected by doing it one way rather than another. In this regard, it would appear that acceptance and legitimisation of certain (pluralist or unitary) approaches to strategy and change is associated with the coherence between that approach and the social values expressed in the organisation's service work. It is argued that there is potential for voluntary organisations to utilise the strategy process to surface, articulate and test assumptions across organisational functions and hierarchy. This is especially relevant because of the turbulent environment that many organisations in the voluntary sector face and the diversity of the many stakeholders who have an interest in the organisation's long-term ability to achieve its mission. In these circumstances, it is unlikely that those individuals at the apex of the organisation (be they trustees and/or senior management) will be able to 'figure it out from the top' and have everyone else 'following the orders'. The practical implication of the thesis is that if strategy is, at least partly, about collective purpose and shared visions of the future, trustees and managers of voluntary organisations must recognise this explicitly in the way they create strategy. Indeed, the study demonstrates how some voluntary organisations have deeply involved individuals throughout the organisation in the strategy process as a means of creating, raising and sustaining commitment to a cocreated future vision of the organisation

Sustainability in voluntary organisations : Exploring the dynamics of organisational strategy.

This thesis aims to develop further understanding of organisational sustainability in the voluntary sector, as a complex and dynamic phenomena inextricably linked to capacity for survival. In taking a holistic approach to exploring the dynamics of sustainability, the study considers the influencing factors, both internal and external, that can drive strategic change within voluntary organisations through an extensive multi-method research programme incorporating exploratory focus groups, descriptive survey fieldwork and multiple-case studies. Specifically, the research outlines the major internal and external systems that are important for voluntary organisations to consider when developing strategies for sustainability and, perhaps more importantly, explores the interconnections between them. The thesis departs from much of the dedicated voluntary sector literature, which often adopts a rationalist prescriptive approach to organisation and management. In aiming to advance something of a more critical approach, which considers what may be termed the 'emotional' side of strategy, the study makes a key contribution to the voluntary sector strategy literature. Ultimately, the author argues that to study, govern and manage voluntary organisations involves thinking about philosophy, politics and ethics. In the context of developing strategies for sustainability, this equates to considering who says what the job is, how it should be done, and how people are affected by doing it one way rather than another. In this regard, it would appear that acceptance and legitimisation of certain (pluralist or unitary) approaches to strategy and change is associated with the coherence between that approach and the social values expressed in the organisation's service work. It is argued that there is potential for voluntary organisations to utilise the strategy process to surface, articulate and test assumptions across organisational functions and hierarchy. This is especially relevant because of the turbulent environment that many organisations in the voluntary sector face and the diversity of the many stakeholders who have an interest in the organisation's long-term ability to achieve its mission. In these circumstances, it is unlikely that those individuals at the apex of the organisation (be they trustees and/or senior management) will be able to 'figure it out from the top' and have everyone else 'following the orders'. The practical implication of the thesis is that if strategy is, at least partly, about collective purpose and shared visions of the future, trustees and managers of voluntary organisations must recognise this explicitly in the way they create strategy. Indeed, the study demonstrates how some voluntary organisations have deeply involved individuals throughout the organisation in the strategy process as a means of creating, raising and sustaining commitment to a cocreated future vision of the organisation

Non-conformance with regulatory codes in the non-profit sector: accountability and the discursive coupling of means and ends

The concept of means-ends decoupling has recently been suggested as one consequence of the problems organizations face in trying to comply with institutional rules in contexts of institutional complexity. Such decoupling is characterised by the adoption, implementation and scrutiny of particular codes of practice which tend not to deliver the outcomes they were developed to produce. Recent scholarship focusing on this issue has suggested that such decoupling is a consequence of the “trade-off” organizations need to make between compliance and goal achievement most especially when the latter is difficult to evaluate. While recent scholarship has suggested that this tension might be mitigated by the activities of developers of compliance rules, in this paper, we explore how actors internal to an organization, in this case, two charitable organizations mitigate this tension via non-conformance with particular codes. We focus on how the process of accounting for non-conformance results in the discursive coupling of means and ends as actors creatively develop vocabularies of motive which respond to anticipated social criticism

Nonprofit governance and accountability : broadening the theoretical perspective

Drawing on comparative case studies, this article critiques the positioning of accountability as a benign and straightforward governance function. From a critical management studies perspective, I offer a conceptualization of the relationship between governance and accountability in which issues of power, beliefs about the nature of organizing, and social relations are integral features. The article clarifies how principal-agent governance assumptions, based on a central logic of unitarism, can drive narrow compliance-based interpretations of accountability. Such an approach appears at odds with the values embedded in the social missions of many nonprofits insofar as they prioritize small sections of powerful stakeholders over sustained periods of time. Conversely, a pluralist logic appears to create space for broad accountability to multiple stakeholders. Here, expressive, values-based accountability is seen as a source of legitimacy and can produce complex relationships, which challenge the instrumental orientation to social relations that principal-agent theories assume