Towards an Organizational Theory of Philanthropy: A Systematic Review

• In Event: Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (90 minute): Table 28: State, market, civil society

Abstract

Philanthropy shapes organizational fields, mediates between private resources and public goods, and increasingly rivals the state as a governance actor, yet organization theory lacks a coherent framework for understanding how it is organized. Drawing on a systematic review across management, sociology, public policy and field journals, we develop an integrative framework built around two perspectives on philanthropic organizing. The activity perspective examines philanthropic exchange from supply and demand sides, capturing instrumental, expressive, and power-oriented logics of giving alongside beneficiaries' navigation of worthiness and resource dependency. The organizing paradigm perspective situates philanthropic organizations within broader institutional systems, examining their distinctive accountability structures and resource logics, and their positioning within state-civil society configurations as contributors, substitutes, or disruptors of public governance. We argue that the most generative theoretical frontier lies in the micro-macro linkages between these perspectives: how discrete philanthropic exchanges aggregate into field-structuring paradigms, and how paradigm-level governance arrangements in turn enable and constrain individual action. By theorizing these dynamics, our framework moves scholarship beyond fragmented, single-level analyses and lays the foundations for a multilevel organizational theory of philanthropy.

Authors

• Konstantin Scheuermann, UCL School of Management

• Jane Bjørn Vedel, Copenhagen Business School