Can Collaboration between Nonprofit Organizations Save the Sustainability Crisis? : Analysis of Collaboration in the Japanese Social Services Fields

• In Event: Surviving crisis

Abstract

This paper focuses on collaboration among nonprofit organizations in Japan to promote sustainable activities and keep their businesses sustainable for people and communities.
Generally, nonprofit organizations provide an enormous range of services to improve the quality of life and prevent deterioration as their primary purposes(Ott and Dicke 2012).
However, the third sector faces challenging circumstances that affect sustainability because of the pandemic, lack of finances, etc. Hence, they sense the need to consider new strategies. Collaboration between nonprofit organizations is attracting more attention to their practical work to keep their sustainability. In Japan, most nonprofit organizations are small business entities struggling with low income and insufficient management, even if they are essential suppliers of social services that the government supports under the guarantee of the Constitution law. Collaboration between these organizations is a significant function for contributing to the third sector development.
I ask, how can collaboration improve management stability and sustainability? First, the interpretation of collaboration between organizations is through a literature review. Collaboration matters in an institutional context where nonprofit organizations are increasingly expected to respond to social problems, such as continuously delivering welfare services (Head and Alford, 2015; Prahalad, 2019). Also, collaboration has been recognized as a practical approach to coping with complex social problems (Bryson et al. 2006; Guo and Acar 2005). Even if nonprofit organizations might encourage their businesses to accomplish their mission for different purposes, they arguably underlie one goal: to enhance sustainability for communities(Elkington ＆Fennell 2000; Den Hond et al. 2012). Thus, this paper researches the effect of collaboration among nonprofit organizations from the Japanese cases.
I examine the impact of collaboration from the financial and non-financial aspects as follows.
First, I explore management figures using financial statements data to verify the change in management indicators between before and after collaboration. Second, from the non-financial aspects, I analyze how the changes occur through case studies and interviews with managers. Then, I clarify management characteristics of collaborations through how and what effect appears from the real business experiences.
Both aspects of examinations implicate different tendencies. Identifying significant factors for financial elements is challenging, but diminishing costs through collaboration, such as joint procurement, are likely to occur. Conversely, for non-financial factors, new business activities arise to enhance the quality and quantity of social service after the collaborations, such as shared human management, job training cooperation, and risk management. It implicates the positive synergy effect of collaborative organizations compared with the non-collaborative ones. Hence, this research shows that collaboration enhances sustainability for future development.
Public and mutual assistance are increasingly critical in societies, but they are gradually running out of time. That means the role of the third sector is essential for the communities. Collaboration is necessary to keep management stable and enhance organizational sustainability. It improves the quality and quantity of social services for non-financial management. Therefore, collaboration could be regarded as creating benefits for each sector and society to pursue sustainability of social service.

References

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Author

• Mariko Kunimi, Den-En Chofu University