This paper empirically examines how and what facets of social capital relate to one’s subjective well-being in Japan by using data from the Japan General Survey 2010. It further scrutinises whether the relationship between well-being and volunteering changes throughout one’s life course. The result reveals that social capital overall positively correlates with subjective well-being. It further suggests that trust and volunteering have a positive relation to one’s subjective well-being, whereas membership did not. It also became apparent that volunteering is associated with one’s subjective well-being differently depending on one’s life stage measured by age category such that volunteers in their 1950s are less happy than volunteers in their 1960s. The results of analysis therefore suggest that the relationship between volunteering and well-being is not straightforward, and that this issue requires even further investigation.

The research aimed to identify the structure of social capital within Christian churches in Australia. The focus is the social capital that exists within the congregation as opposed to its connections to the wider community or society, that is, to use Woolcock and Narayan (2000) terminology, the bonding rather than the bridging social capital. A total of 3363 church attendees were surveyed to identify the different ways that social capital can be generated such as through participation, informal friendships or congregational projects in any sphere of church activity including questions about both the respondents’ own actions and their perceptions of the congregation and demographic questions including denomination. The dimensions of Bonding were identified through exploratory factor analysis and then refined and confirmed through structural equation modelling. The three factors related to an underlying Bonding construct were Collective Agency, Congregational Unity and Personal Connections. A fourth factor in the model was the desire for Homogeneity, which was related to CongregationalUnity but not significantly related to Bonding.

The paper revisits Fukuyama’s (Trust: The social virtues and the creation of prosperity, 1995) work on the effect of social trust on economic development and considers further the relation between family and social entrepreneurship. Specifically focusing on social care services in Taiwan, the paper highlights the role of family in social entrepreneurship. With family as a starting point, social entrepreneurship is grounded, emerges, and evolves in distinctive contexts of each society even in a society with the paradox of ‘familism’. By exploring the evolution of a social entrepreneurship case in Taiwan, this paper, expanding on Fukuyama, concludes that it is possible for the societies traditionally characterized by the paradox of familism to become more inclusive with higher trust through social entrepreneurship.

The U.S. and the U.K. are considered as successful models of social enterprise. The Korean government benchmarked these two models in the hope of achieving similar success, without much avail. The growth of social enterprises in South Korea is attributed to the country’s characteristically strong central government and its creation of relevant institutions and provision of support services. However, this paper provides an alternate explanation by highlighting role of the third sector as the ‘policy entrepreneur’ in agenda-setting and policy implementation with regards to social enterprises in South Korea. Additionally, the decentralized local governments as well as the market structure dominated by big businesses are also examined as the main contributors to ‘policy windows’ for the third sector’s policy entrepreneurship. The paper showcases successful development of social enterprise despite the absence of a welfare state or a well-developed third sector, and argues that the phenomenon should hold numerous policy implications for other Asian countries.

The paper explores the impact of microfinance on multidimensional constructs of empowerment and the catalysts thereof. The reference point for analysis in the paper is the women microfinance borrowers’ self perception about their life transmutation as well as that of household power configuration. Unlike other recent research papers on the topic that focus on women’s economic empowerment, this paper focuses on both economic and socio-cultural empowerment. The paper is based on both primary and secondary data. Qualitative primary data were collected from women beneficiaries of microfinance in Bangladesh. This paper argues that microfinance can be a useful empowerment tool that can transmute women’s economic position and power relationships, but only when combined with financial literacy. It concludes that financial literacy is more important than access to credit and should be the focus of all future microfinance programs.

Women’s NGOs are key players in the struggle to gain gender equality around the world. Motivated by a concern about the lack of progress in achieving gender equality on a global scale, the purpose of the study was to investigate the agendas and conceptualizations of women’s NGOs for gaining gender equality, and to find out to what extent they identified with feminist strategies for social change. This paper is focused on the intersection of how women’s NGOs conceptualise and deliver action towards gender equality and why gender inequality is still a major global social problem. The key mechanism for inquiry in this paper is the interrogation of how the concept of ‘empowerment’ in contemporary gender equality policies and programs, which are largely carried out by women’s NGOs, has emerged as a possible counter force to achieving gender equality. Given that ‘empowerment’ frames contemporary gender equality policy at all levels of governance (local, national and global), the study explored its impact on the progress of achieving gender equality from the women’s NGO perspective. The survey data revealed tensions between the wide range of feminist agendas of the NGOs and the limitations of the current empowerment paradigm. These tensions are between predominantly individualised empowerment processes and the much broader structural and other feminist objectives of how the NGOs understood gender equality as a concept and about how it could be achieved in practice.

This paper uses the case of rural compulsory education promotion to explore corporate philanthropists’ involvement in long-term social development in China. By reviewing corporate donation, CSR programs, and presenting the organizational and program characteristics of 52 foundations setup by corporate elites, the paper shows that corporate philanthropy in China is at an early stage of development; corporate philanthropists participate in social development mainly through donation to government and government-organized-nongovernmental organizations; and they are more enthusiastic about supporting infrastructure projects. The paper also points out that corporate philanthropists possess the power of money, which can be used to promote the professionalization of the Chinese nonprofit sector.

This paper, using original survey data, examines the factors influencing individual giving behavior toward the organizations focusing on who gives what to which types of organizations, especially the local civil society organizations. The study finds that the variables regarding personal socio-demographic traits, experiences of local social participation, and an attachment to local society are statistically significant, but not the contextual effect such as size of city. In addition, it reveals various factors influencing giving behavior toward the neighborhood associations and incorporated NPOs. That is, it may denote there are different attributes between people who give to the neighborhood associations and people who give to the incorporated NPOs. Thus, further development of organizational forms may be considered for achieving better local governance and providing local public goods by the promotion of charitable giving from the enlightened residents.

Jones et al.’s (Acad Manag Rev 32(1):137–155, 2007) typology of stakeholder culture, representing the beliefs, values and practices that an organization has towards its stakeholders, has received widespread recognition. Yet, the literature lacks an instrument to quantify the typology. This study provides such an instrument by constructing and validating a scale of Jones et al.’s (2007) four other-regarding stakeholder cultures of corporate egoist, instrumentalist, moralist and altruist in the not-for-profit (NFP) context. Mail survey data were collected from top management of 621 Australian NFP companies limited by guarantee that were drawn from various online databases. Exploratory factor analysis produced a five-factor structure with the altruist factor split into two sub-factors. Confirmatory factor analysis supported Jones et al.’s (2007) typology by showing a satisfactory fit of a four-factor model. A major contribution of the study is that the scale may be used in future research into stakeholder culture and salience in NFPs and similar organizations.

Nonprofit sports clubs generate revenue from a variety of sources. One of the main income categories is donations. Previous research only analyzed the amount of money generated through donations, but not the influencing factors. The purpose of this study is to investigate determinants of donations for nonprofit sports clubs. The study is based on the public goods theory (Weisbrod in “The economics of nonprofit institutions.” “Studies in structure and policy.” Oxford University Press, New York, pp 21–44, 1986) and the contract failure theory (Hansmann in Yale Law J 89(5):835–902, 1980) and makes use of an unbalanced panel data set from a nationwide online survey of nonprofit sports clubs in Germany (n = 41,343). The results show that particularly the provision of elite sport and the promotion of young talents positively influence the reception of donations. Moreover, sports clubs caring for social aspects, companionship, and conviviality as core values are able to generate higher revenues from donations. The same applies to clubs employing paid staff. Contrary, a commercial orientation was found to have a negative effect.

Missing Minorities (MIMI) is a research project initiated by the European Blood Alliance that aims to develop new strategies to recruit blood donors from minority groups. This paper contributes to this larger project by analyzing data of the German Socio-Economic Panel study 2011 that questioned over 20,000 respondents about their blood donation behavior. Within this sample, the authors identify 1,726 potential blood donors from various migrant groups. Applying logistic regression analysis, the authors analyze differences between blood donors and non-donors with migration background. The results show that non-donors trust other people significantly less, use the internet less often, and have a significantly lower reading ability in German. Based on these findings, the authors discuss the current practices in minority blood donor recruitment as found in the MIMI project. Furthermore, promising recruitment tactics for blood donation managers and areas for further research are derived.

International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) are frequently criticized for failing to adequately represent or engage with grassroots stakeholders. Yet most explanations of this shortcoming have focused on factors external to the organizations, e.g., economic pressures that privilege donor interests. What has been largely lacking is an examination of the role of internal INGO characteristics. We address this by examining INGOs’ legitimacy standards: how INGOs understand themselves to be doing the right thing and seek to convey that righteousness to others. Drawing on the literature from business ethics and organizational behavior, we show that organizations’ self-selected standards of legitimacy are key drivers of behavior. Using an analysis of 57 American INGO websites, we identify 11 legitimacy types and examine their usage. We find that while most INGOs make a series of technical legitimacy claims that seem designed to attract donors, they simultaneously employ additional legitimacy standards that do not seem to be externally dictated. These additional standards generally prioritize adherence to a cause rather than stakeholder input. The findings suggest that challenges to INGO representivity or responsiveness result not only from external pressures, but also from INGOs’ own choice of values.

The relationship between environmental organizations and the corporate sector has gradually shifted toward the collaborative end, resulting in a broad array of “green alliances.” In this paper, we focus on the strategies whereby environmental organizations seek to collaborate with private companies. In particular, we explore whether the ecophilosophy of an environmental organization—i.e., a set of values, attitudes, and beliefs about the natural environment—influences the selection of collaborative strategies. To address this question, we conducted two case studies of environmental organizations with a diverse ecophilosophy—namely, Greenpeace and WWF. In the cases, we covered a broad spectrum of collaborative strategies while also taking into account contextual factors with a possible influence on strategy selection. Building on our findings, we argue that ecophilosophy drives the selection of collaborative strategies and at the same time provides the lenses through which environmental organizations make sense of their operating context. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings and by suggesting directions for future research on environmentalist-business collaboration.

Using a principal–agent approach, I seek to determine if differences exist between official US development aid (ODA) and US-funded non-governmental organizations (NGOs) development aid allocation. NGO scholars have expressed concern regarding NGOs' relationships with their government funders (Hulme and Edwards, NGOs, States, and Donors, St. Martin’s Press, New York, 1997); (Smillie, Stakeholders, Earthscan, London, 2000). Studies of European state-funded NGOs have found that need rather than political or economic interests determines state-funded NGO aid (Nancy and Yontcheva, Does NGO Aid Go to the Poor? Empirical Evidence from Europe. International Monetary Fund Working Paper 06/39, 2006; Dreher et al. 2009; World Economy 33:147–176, Kiel Working Paper No. 1486. Kiel, Germany: Kiel Institute for the World Economy, 2010) however; no study has examined US-funded NGO aid allocations. Results indicate that US-funded NGO aid mirrors US ODA allocations.

Using narrative inquiry, the purpose of this research is to explore volunteer involvement at a mega-sports event (MSE). It responds to a call for research to provide insight into the background of MSE volunteers (Baum and Lockstone, Int J Event Manag Res 3(1):29–41, 2007). This need reflects the limitations of past MSE volunteer studies that have at a large extent merely generated large lists of expectations and motivations through a predominantly survey-based approach. The context used for this study is the Frontrunner pre-event volunteer programme for the (Glasgow, Mission, vision and values, 2014) Commonwealth Games, and a narrative approach is applied allowing the volunteer experience to be considered from both the individual and group perspectives. The stories suggest that the individuals arrive at volunteering at (Glasgow, Mission, vision and values, 2014) as a result of a dynamic process informed by the pragmatist school of thought. The stories also highlight the underlying meaning of volunteers’ involvement through consideration of past lived experiences.

The objective of this paper is to analyze the factors determining volunteerism among Spanish young people and children, with a particular emphasis on the influence of voluntary and social activities performed by parents. The database used is the 2002–2003 Time User Survey from the Spanish Statistical Office. We estimated the determinants influencing young people and children to become volunteers as a two-part decision: first, whether to volunteer or not, and second, to decide the amount of time they will spend volunteering. The results show that the most influential variables for all age groups are parents volunteering as examples, and parents’ educational level. We consider this a relevant topic for identifying the role of public policies in promoting volunteerism, or organizations’ activities for encouraging youth participation.

It has been assumed that third-sector organizations attract ideologically oriented employees. Therefore, employees consider their work as more meaningful. However, employees’ ideological orientation has not been taken into account in previous studies on work engagement. With this in mind, the present study sets out to apply an extended job demand-resources (JD-R) model in a survey conducted with Finnish third-sector employees (N = 1,412). The results showed that third-sector employees report higher work engagement than employees generally in the work engagement studies. In addition to job demands and resources, work engagement is associated with public service motivation and value congruence. Thus, public service motivation theory offers more insight into third-sector employees’ work engagement than the conventionally used JD-R model.

This article assesses how strategies applied by Cambodian NGOs to reduce their dependence on external resources affect the sustainability of their mission, program and funding. At the empirical level, the findings suggest that NGO dependence on foreign aid has mixed effects on the organizations such as unpredictability of funding, goal displacement, reduced organizational autonomy, and top-down accountability. Funding from commercial activities is more predictable and potentially promotes bottom-up accountability and increases organizational autonomy but may conflict with the mission-drift of NGOs. At the theoretical level, this article contributes to resource dependence theory by introducing a perspective from developing countries, which implies large power differentials between international funding agencies and receiving local NGOs. The strategic responses employed by local NGO leaders to reduce external resource dependence entail a paradigm shift from external control to local embeddedness and increased autonomy. The findings have important policy implications regarding the regulation of NGO-related and unrelated business activities.

As a consequence of European integration and the EU’s expanded social policy, more citizens’ interests are today organized at EU level. In the case of the women’s movement, there is an umbrella organization—the European Women’s Lobby (EWL)—in place in Brussels coordinating national women’s movements. The EWL demands from its members that they be nationwide and representative umbrellas, which has structuring effects on the women’s movements at domestic level. This article proposes to study the Europeanization of civil society through the lens of meta-organization theory (Ahrne & Brunsson 2008). Europeanization can thus be understood as a process which imposes meta-organizational structures on civil society. Through a case study of the Swedish Women’s Lobby, this article analyses the consequences for the women’s movement in Sweden of the meta-organizational structure brought into being by Europeanization.