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11 - Sector Theorists Should Borrow Epistemologies

from Part II - Reflections and Refinements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2024

By
Elizabeth A. Castillo
Edited by
Eva Witesman  and
Curtis Child
Eva Witesman
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Utah
Curtis Child
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Utah
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Summary

Castillo argues that one reason for the standstill in sector theorizing may be that theory-building has been too focused on anthropocentric constructs, for example, economic, organizational, and symbolic aspects of firms and societies. Instead, the author suggests moving from an egocentric to an ecocentric conceptualization of organizing by drawing from principles from biology and ecology to develop a framework to explain prosocial organizing. By shifting the analytical focus from economizing to ecologizing, the chapter offers a conceptual foundation for how a relational approach to exchange can reconcile sustainability tensions between now and later, individual and collective, and social and financial returns. The chapter concludes with a discussion of implications for research, policy, and practice, suggesting relational biology as a plausible theoretical framework to move nonprofit theory beyond description toward concrete mathematical models.

Keywords

biomimicryecologyenergyevolutionary scienceinterdisciplinaryprosocialrelational biologysustainabilitythermodynamics
Type
Chapter
Information
Reimagining Nonprofits
Sector Theory in the Twenty-First Century
 , pp. 215 - 230
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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