What matters for clients’ experiences? The case of for-profit and nonprofit adult daycare institutions

• In Event: Embracing New Public Management at the organizational premises

Abstract

Scholars have raised concerns about the consequences of what has been termed marketization of the nonprofit sector, where nonprofit organizations and the nonprofit sector in general looks more like the business sector (Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004; Maier, Meyer, & Steinbereithner, 2016; Suykens, Maier, Meyer, & Verschuere, 2022). This trend is not confined to one country or one region of the world. Nonprofit marketization is a global phenomenon (Kerlin & Pollak, 2011; Maier et al., 2016), including the emergence of Taiwanese adult daycare institutions. Since the government’s long-term care policy in 2014, more for-profit adult daycare providers have competed with nonprofit adult daycare providers for government contracts.
Empirical studies have defined nonprofit marketization in different ways and argued the consequences. However, few studies have considered clients’ perspectives and how these trends may affect how clients experience services. Often, the argument for nonprofits adopting market-like strategies is to better serve individual clients' needs and have the potential for greater efficiency and impact (Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004). We do not know what clients experience when nonprofits apply market-like strategies or whether this experience might significantly differ in a nonprofit versus a for-profit social service organization. Since marketization is likely to continue, we need to understand the impact on clients and their experiences when human service organizations apply market strategies to social services, such as clients' experiences at for-profit or non-profit service providers that apply business management.
The study draws on one of Eikenberry and Kluver’s (2004) conceptualizations of marketization, where one indicator is the increasing competition between for-profit and nonprofit organizations for government contracts. Against this backdrop of marketization in the nonprofit sector, the purpose of the study is to investigate how the experiences of clients who receive social services from nonprofits might be different from the experiences of those who receive the same type of social services from for-profits. It also examines whether different dilemmas emerge in these two types of organizations that matter for clients’ experiences.
Understanding these organizations from clients’ eyes, separate from organizational outcomes, is important since their experiences have consequences for the organizational outcomes and other outcomes, like self-efficacy and physical and mental health (Benjamin, 2021). Even beyond intended and unintended outcomes, understanding clients’ experiences of nonprofit organizations, beyond measuring intended program outcomes or customer satisfaction, is a perspective that has received limited attention in nonprofit studies (Benjamin, 2021, 2022).
Using comparative case studies of six Taiwanese for-profit and nonprofit adult daycare institutions providing senior services, e.g., respite services, transportation, and food services, the study aims to identify whether there are differences in the way the organization is managed and how they might affect the client experience. According to our information interviews, compared to nonprofits, our informants had concerns about for-profit adult daycare institutions aiming to earn profits instead of providing good quality services. We plan to interview government officers, executive directors, frontline workers, and clients in these adult daycare institutions to understand clients’ experiences and how organizational management impacts their experiences differently in for-profit and nonprofit organizations.

References

Benjamin, L. M. (2021). Bringing beneficiaries more centrally into nonprofit management education and research. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 50(1), 5-26.
Benjamin, L. M. (2022). How Helping Can Reinforce or Attenuate Status Inequalities: The Case of Nonprofit Organizations. RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences, 8(7), 210-227.
Eikenberry, A. M., & Kluver, J. D. (2004). The marketization of the nonprofit sector: Civil society at risk?. Public administration review, 64(2), 132-140.
Kerlin, J. A., & Pollak, T. H. (2011). Nonprofit commercial revenue: A replacement for declining government grants and private contributions?. The American Review of Public Administration, 41(6), 686-704.
Maier, F., Meyer, M., & Steinbereithner, M. (2016). Nonprofit organizations becoming business-like: A systematic review. Nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 45(1), 64-86.
Suykens, B., Maier, F., Meyer, M., & Verschuere, B. (2022). Business-Like and Still Serving Society? Investigating the Relationship Between NPOs Being Business-Like and Their Societal Roles. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 08997640221106979.

Authors

• Li-Chiu Ho, Tajen University

• Meng-Han Ho, National Central University, Taiwan