Understanding How Public Funding Influences Organizational Behavior: The Case of Community Colleges

Abstract

Public management, policy implementation scholars, and political economists have continued to make progress on understanding the ways in which public ownership and funding of an organization influences its behavior and performance. Higher education presents an attractive area of study due to the use of definable outcomes regarding student achievement, consistent collection of data, and substantial variation in institutional context. This article studies the ways in which the use of multiple funding streams in public and non-profit organizations creates multiple, potentially conflicting rule structures within organizations. I propose that these rule structures explain previous, related findings concerning the appearance of goal ambiguity and other institutional changes in organizations that use multiple sources of public and private funding. I argue that funding and organizational behavior are linked through the implementation and enforcement of rules which organizations accept as part of receiving funding.