Innovation In Nonprofit Organizations Research Articles

Nonprofit Innovation and Optimization Summit

Nonprofit Innovation and Optimization Summit

Public Values as Catalysts for Innovation: How Feedback Sources Shape Nonprofit Innovation

Public Values as Catalysts for Innovation: How Feedback Sources Shape Nonprofit Innovation

‘Whose Story is it?’: Co-production and Psychological Ownership of Narrative Reports

The paper examines the co-production of narrative reports in the context of a non-profit innovation network. Prior research on narrative reporting suggests that corporate reports and similar organizational narratives are likely the product of collective efforts of different actors in the backstage. The actual process of (re-)writing such narratives has received little attention, however. In our paper, we examine how the inputs of different individual actors are translated into an organizational narrative. Mobilizing Goffman’s dramaturgical sociology as our main lens of analysis, we highlight different mechanisms of dramaturgical guidance in backstage interactions, and we show how such guidance can have repercussions on the original authors of narratives when they feel like they are losing ownership of ‘their’ stories. Overall, our paper adds to our understanding of the backstage-frontstage dynamics in narrative reporting.

Social innovation in non-profit organizations: a measurement scale

Social innovation has emerged as an outstanding topic in a situation in which industrial economies are translating into knowledge and service-based societies. Research efforts have been focused on identifying the different theoretical approaches of this fragmented concept, but comprehensive instruments for measuring it are noticeably lacking. Combining a literature review and a quantitative-based research with 201 non-profit organizations (NPO), this study develops and tests a measurement scale for assessing the extent to which a particular initiative undertaken by the NPO (a project, program, process, product or any other activity) is a social innovation. A thorough revision of the diverse streams that have approached this construct allowed us to define the domain specification, as well as to generate a pool of items and assure the content validity of the scale. Different statistical analyses were used to assess its dimensionality, reliability and validity. This scale can be employed by practitioners and policymakers to verify the extent to which NPO initiatives satisfy a social problem, in a new and sustainable way, and with the improvement of social behaviors or relationships, as well as to identify relevant gaps that need to be addressed to effectively set priorities and implement SI strategies and policies.

Nonprofit Boards in Pursuit of Innovation for Growth: Views From the Frontline

Conventional thinking holds that for-profits need to innovate for growth to be financially viable. Nevertheless, to date, we have not recognized the importance of nonprofit growth and innovation’s function here. Yet despite “innovation for growth” being an even greater imperative for nonprofits in their quest to resolve societal challenges, prior sector research has, at most, only superficially investigated this construct new to nonprofits. In this first-in-field conceptual project, we weave together a comprehensive literature review with findings from 26 interviews with nonprofit directors. In doing so, we advance the scattered nonprofit-innovation and organization-performance research by describing nonprofit innovation for growth and why it matters. And we originally conceptualize that nonprofit boards seem to prioritize particular factorial determinants new to nonprofit-innovation research in their effective pursuit of innovation for growth.

Corrigendum to “Are we innovative? Increasing perceptions of nonprofit innovation through leadership, inclusion, and commitment”

Corrigendum to “Are we innovative? Increasing perceptions of nonprofit innovation through leadership, inclusion, and commitment”

How can nonprofit boards innovate for growth? An integrative‐systematic review

AbstractDespite the nonprofit sector's significance in economic contribution, workforce, and social impact, it faces unique innovation hurdles and is not well positioned for sustainability, growth, and prosperity. However, with only a partial, disconnected view from the extant research, we do not understand the relationship between boards and nonprofit innovation for growth. To address this problem, we conducted a systematic literature review drawing on 27 studies published since 2000 to provide a first‐in‐field and comprehensive integration of disparate, mono‐factorial research. We conceptualize a new, multifactorial model that depicts a blend of board composition, relations and practice factors, and organizational and environmental characteristics that influence nonprofit innovation for growth.

Motivations for and barriers to innovation in non-profit organizations: The case of nursing homes in Northern Portugal

To contribute to the empirical literature on innovation in non-profit organizations, this study examines innovation in Private Social Solidarity Institutions with social responses for the elderly in Northern Portugal. It enriches the literature by clarifying the concept of innovation applied to non-profit organizations, which represents a perspective different from the business context. Moreover, it is important to support the innovation decision-making process in similar non-profit organizations.For this study, the population was surveyed through questionnaires based on the PUBLIN research project, which has already been applied in different countries, and the targets were employees of organizations with social responses for the elderly. Our sample is small, with 28 respondent institutions and 51 employees, but it is representative, as it includes institutions from all districts in Northern Portugal. The study employed a quantitative approach, particularly factor analysis, multiple linear regression, and correlation analyses, using scales already applied in other dimensions of the social sector, to understand the effect of each innovation dimension/determinant on creativity and innovation in non-profit organizations. The results show that in these organizations with social responses for the elderly, learning orientation, risk-taking, and job satisfaction have a positive impact on innovation.

Hackathons as Instruments for Settlement Sector Innovation

In Canada, the non-profit organizations (NPO) and settlement sectors are increasingly re-examining their responsibility for service delivery and service design. With a growing interest in understanding how to include design principles and an “innovation” mindset in addressing the long-term outcomes of social services, new instruments are introduced as a way to experiment with different modes of engagement among the various stakeholders. The aim of community hackathons or civic hacks—a derivative of tech gatherings customized to fit public engagement—is to collaboratively rethink, redesign, and resolve a range of social and policy issues that communities are facing, from settlement, the environment, health, or legal services. Although hackathons and civic hacks aspire to be democratic, relationship-driven instruments, aligned with non-profit principles of inclusion and diversity, they are also risky propositions from the perspective of the non-profit organizational culture in Canada in that they tend to lack solid structure, clear rules, and fixed outcomes. Despite the challenges, the promise of innovation is too attractive to be disregarded, and some non-profits are embarking (with or without the government’s help) on incorporating hackathons into their toolkits. This case study will present a practitioner’s perspective on the outcomes of two community hackathons, one exploring migration data sets and the other on language policy innovation, co-developed between 2016 and 2019 by MCIS Language Solutions, a Toronto based not-for-profit social enterprise, in partnership with various partners. The case study examines how the hackathon as an instrument can aid settlement sectors and governments in fostering non-profit innovation to rethinking the trajectory of taking solutions to scale.

An Exploratory Study of Types of Innovation in US Foundations

While foundations contribute in significant ways to the United States’ social, economic, and political life, they are experiencing increasing demands placed upon them by their own sector and need to respond to the major changes in their external environment. In order to create breakthrough solutions to long-standing problems, foundations have to become more innovative and seek to experiment and find new approaches. Unfortunately, innovation discourse within foundations has received little attention. This paper fills the gap in the literature as it describes the results of a study that explored different types of innovations implemented in foundations. More specifically, staff members of 17 US foundations that are known for supporting innovation in nonprofit organizations, were asked to describe programmatic and administrative innovations implemented in their own foundations. The results showed that foundations that support innovation are in fact innovative themselves. They implemented numerous innovations in programmatic and administrative, financial, and structural areas. This paper provides a rich description of a broad range of innovations implemented within each of those areas. The contribution of this study and insights are significant at this particular time when foundations’ roles and impact on social change are questioned. The results can enrich our discussion of where foundations can go from here in terms of becoming innovative themselves in order to be able to support and enhance innovation in the nonprofit sector.

What Does Innovation Mean to Nonprofit Practitioners? International Insights From Development and Peace-Building Nonprofits

Charitable nonprofits strive to meet their organization’s goals, address external demands, and secure resources to pursue their missions. Management scholars have recommended that nonprofits promote innovation and innovative practices to maximize profits and gain a competitive advantage. However, the voices of nonprofit practitioners who implement this strategy have not been heard. We used data from interviews and focus groups with 47 practitioners representing development and peace-building nonprofits across six continents to probe what innovation means to them. Five themes emerged: (a) experimentation and social transformation, (b) financial sustainability, (c) collective solutions, (d) new means for achieving missions, and (e) adaptations to local contexts. These findings reveal discrepancies in the meaning of innovation between theory and practice. The findings from this study suggests innovation and innovative practices can have different meanings in different sectors. Perspectives on nonprofit innovation are multifaceted, yet the overarching emphasis is finding transformative ways to attain organizational goal(s) for social change.

Are We Innovative? Increasing Perceptions of Nonprofit Innovation Through Leadership, Inclusion, and Commitment

Innovation is particularly important for the sustainability, functioning, and improvement of public and nonprofit organizations. Researchers have called for the examination of how leaders can foster innovation in the nonprofit context. This study examined whether climate for inclusion and affective commitment were key mechanisms by which transformational leadership increased perceptions of innovation in a diverse nonprofit health care organization. Data were collected at three points in 6-month intervals from a U.S. nonprofit hospital. Longitudinal multilevel path analysis revealed transformational leaders increase perceptions of nonprofit innovation through helping every organizational member feel valued as an important member of the group and appreciated for their unique personal characteristics (fostering a climate for inclusion). Inclusion increases organizational members’ emotional attachment to the organization (affective commitment), which then enhances favorable perceptions of innovation wherein members feel comfortable sharing their ideas and perspectives with one another (critical to workplace innovation).

Drucker Prize for nonprofit innovation

Drucker Prize for nonprofit innovation

Building Capacity for Innovation: The Case of an Academic–Nonprofit Partnership

Universities often look to create deep partnerships with nonprofit organizations in their local communities. These collaborations serve the combined purpose of providing opportunities for research and education around the nonprofit setting and of enhancing community capacity. This case presents the successful partnership of the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and Merrimack Valley and the Boston College School of Social Work. The collaboration, called IF: Innovating With Families, was based in a co-located space within the United Way offices and developed a multifaceted approach of supporting research, teaching, and practice. Activities included student internships, a nonprofit innovation leadership series, a community innovation competition, a nonprofit accelerator, and several research projects. This case study, appropriate for students who are preparing to work in the nonprofit sector and for faculty and practitioners who are looking to build successful university-community partnerships, presents best practices and recommendations from this experience. Implications for practice and the classroom are discussed.Subscribe to JNEL

Branching Out: How Canada’s Forestry Products Sector is Reshaping its Future

The external forces buffeting Canada’s forest sector – price swings, US trade protectionism, and shifting market demand for its core products – have challenged the sector to become an innovation leader. As a natural resource-based sector, it also has had the come to terms with the challenges of sustainability and associated changes in the regulatory environment. Today, Canada’s forest sector shows potential as a leader in innovation, environmental sustainability and international trade. Among key exporters of forest products, Canada has been more exposed to the dwindling demand for newsprint than many of its key competitors, who have been able to expand more rapidly their exports of other types of paper and related products. More generally, investments in new capacity have languished in Canada, while expansion (including by Canadian companies seeking to diversify and jump over protectionist barriers) has proceeded in the United States, Europe and elsewhere. However, wood products are now being used as the base materials for tall buildings, such as condo towers, and as an important component to the nation’s fuel supply. Meanwhile, bioplastics made from wood are being turned into everything from airplanes to product packaging. While many of these applications are in a somewhat nascent phase of development, they are fast evolving and show significant potential. Even though the forest sector is already a leader in many parts of the emerging bio-economy and accounts for 12 percent of Canada’s manufacturing sector GDP, it has the potential to do even better. Given the rapid growth in applications for wood products, supporting the forest sector directly reinforces Canada’s desire to provide world-leading opportunities to its citizens in STEM professions. Moreover, sound forest management practices lead to better environmental and economic outcomes, including greater levels of carbon sequestration and increased biodiversity. Key recommendations include: • Scale up the government contributions to FPInnovations, a non-profit innovation hub for the forestry industry, and other vehicles with a successful track record of commercialization. • Consolidate the early product and process innovations supported by the federal government in partnership with the industry to make Canada a global leader in the emerging “tall wooden building space.” • Endeavour to ensure “regulatory neutrality” for the use of emerging wood and wood-based products. • Create a window supported by carbon tax revenues to drive innovative local solutions to forest management, adaption and utilization; and • Develop a sectoral arrangement on trade in forest products with China, focused on the construction sector.

Donating funds and ideas to long-term innovation in non-profit organizations

We examine how donors influence long-term product innovation in non-profit organizations by estimating a fixed-effects model using longitudinal data on a sample of nonprofit organizations. Innovation requires multiyear funding, but donors to nonprofit organizations are an unreliable source of funding. Consistently, we find that when a nonprofit organization is increasingly supported by external donor funds, it reduces long-term innovation. However, as the nonprofit becomes more dependent on stable sources of earned revenue, such as subscriber and member revenue, concern associated with donor funding support is attenuated. Moreover, in contrast to donor funding support deterring innovation, when a nonprofit attracts more individual donors it increasingly emphasizes long- term innovation because donors have long-term aspirations for the non-profit and offer non-financial resources and ideas to the innovative process.

Foundations and innovation in the nonprofit sector

Using a sample of 17 foundations that are at the forefront of encouraging innovation this study explored foundations' motivations behind funding innovation, their perceived ability to impact the levels of innovation in nonprofit organizations, and strategies that foundations are using or can use to encourage innovation in nonprofit organizations. The results showed that among the major motives behind funding innovation were leveraging the capital, honoring the foundations' core identity (mission and values), and desiring to encourage innovation in nonprofit organizations. Five strategies/mechanisms that foundations are using/can use to encourage innovation in nonprofit organizations were identified: (a) offering innovation awards/grants as catalysts for innovation, (b) providing risk capital and supporting early stage idea development, (c) educating other foundations on the value of innovation and serving in a convener role, (d) serving as thought leaders, and (e) increasing nonprofit organizations' capacity for innovation. Implications for practice are discussed along with recommendations for future research.

Institutional legitimacy of non-profit innovation facilitators: Strategic postures in regulated environments

Sustainable production and consumption is a hot topic in innovation policies. Most European producers of electrical and electronic equipment have joined collective compliance schemes - generally called Producer Responsibility Organizations (PROs) - to guarantee compliance with the mandatory requirements that enforce the Extended Producer Responsibility principle. The role of PROs is to: (1) reduce the environmental impact of the end-of-life of products, and (2) stimulate innovation pathways in the activities conducted in the supply chain (collecting, sorting, dismantling and recycling). The paper makes use of data collected with a questionnaire investigated with a Latent Cluster Analysis (LCA) and the data emerging from the grey literature to present an analysis of European PROs operating in the e-waste sector. Results highlight that regulation introducing policy targets in terms of supply chain performance without organizational prescriptions lead to three different strategic postures. Relational rents and institutional rents emerge as the main determinants of those forms. The lack of correlation between the level of strategy proactivity and environmental performances underlines the immaturity of the implementation of the EPR principle that failed to stimulate innovation in the supply chain.

Board Attributes and Processes, Board Effectiveness, and Organizational Innovation: Evidence from Nonprofit Organizations

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between boards of directors and innovation in nonprofit organizations. The results showed that not only board attribute variables and board process variables were directly related to innovation, but they also had a potential to affect innovation and capacity for innovation indirectly—through board effectiveness. Board culture (critical questioning), social capital (structural and cognitive), human capital, and diversity in industrial background were significantly related to innovation, accounting for 29.8% of its variance. Board culture (decision-making process and critical questioning), social capital (structural and cognitive), cohesiveness, and human capital were significantly related to capacity for innovation, accounting for 49.8% of its variance. The mediating effect of board effectiveness was partially confirmed. The effects of board culture (critical questioning), cognitive social capital, and human capital on innovation and capacity for innovation were either partially or fully transmitted through board effectiveness. Based on the results of this study, practice implications are discussed. The author wants to thank three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback and suggestions for improving the manuscript and Jinn Jonp (JJ) Bau, Ph.D. from OIBR at the University of Georgia for helping with statistical analyses.

Obstacles to management innovation in nonprofit organizations: the case of an international nongovernmental organization

The emerging literature on management innovation has principally focused on firms, thereby neglecting nonprofit organizations (NPOs). Yet NPOs have also adopted management innovations to support the strong growth and professionalization of the nonprofit sector. Arguing that NPOs represent, theoretically, a specific management framework, this study aims to identify the specific obstacles faced by NPOs when they implement a management innovation. Hence we have conducted an in-depth case study in an international nongovernmental organization. Our results show that the specific internal obstacles in NPOs are their complex human resource management and their lack of financial resources. Moreover, a negative internal perception of management innovation due to a lack of clarity, accuracy and a real systemic scope could be a source of problems. Externally, the high accountability towards stakeholders could slow down the implementation of management innovation. These results contribute to the literature on both management innovation and nonprofit management.JEL Codes: L31, O32, G3