Stewardship as an Organizational Response: Understanding the Interaction of Institutional and Task Environments and Organizational Contexts on Fund Raising in Professional Schools and Colleges at the University of Michigan

Abstract

Stewardship, defined in terms of shared beliefs, social structure, and organizational routines, was explored using a comparative case study approach to determine how conditions in the institutional and task environments and internal organizational characteristics influence the nature of the stewardship process in five professional schools at the University of Michigan. Data were collected through interviews, documents, and archival records. Informants in each case study unit included the dean of the school, as well as senior development administrators, major gift officers, and development staff. As theorized, the analysis revealed that resource dependence, uncertainty regarding donor behavior, and interconnectedness are the major influences on stewardship from the task environment. Pressures for legitimacy, efficiency, external legal coercion, and the voluntary diffusion of norms were influential on stewardship from the institutional environment. Organizational factors including centralization, configuration, design and management of tasks, interactions, political process, reputation, and competition were also influential on stewardship. Unanticipated factors that emerged from the data suggesting their influence on stewardship included internal pressures from the institutional environment, diversification and stockpiling from the task environment, and institutional commitment to fund raising through staff and monetary resources from the organizational context.