Managing the Magic: Conditions of Decoupling in the U.S. Nonprofit Sector

• In Event: 413 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Refereed Roundtable Session. Table 01. Culture and Organizations
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 10. Institutions: Action and Practice

Abstract

Organizations exposed to controversial reform trends may have to present inconsistent accounts of their commitment to reform. Neo-institutional theory highlights varying degrees of decoupling in response to external reform pressures, but I argue that the direction of decoupling also matters: facing complex institutional environments, many organizations in fact underemphasize compliance vis-à-vis audiences. I investigate decoupling of accounts given the burgeoning rationalization of U.S. charities using a random sample of nonprofit organizations incorporated in the San Francisco Bay Area. In light of the magic that motivates volunteers, staff, and supporters in the nonprofit sector, disenchanting managerial reform is a contentious issue. Comparing repeated survey data with website text, I find that inconsistency between the adoption of rational practices and rational discourse is hence frequent, especially if an organization faces commercial audiences and has tangible goals. Environmental factors, such as being rated externally or having abstract constituencies, are better predictors of the direction of decoupling than such internal features as leadership and workforce professionalism. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the conditions of decoupling in complex environments, the reliability of publicly available text data for predicting organizational behavior, and the interaction of disenchanted and enchanted elements in formal organizations.

Author

• Christof Brandtner, Stanford University