A Review of Deviant Nonprofit Groups

A Review of Deviant Nonprofit Groups
Author: David Horton Smith
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 216
Release: 2019-10-07
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 900440015X

This book studies the deviant form of Nonprofit Groups (NPGs), mainly volunteer-based associations, but occasionally paid-staff-based nonprofit agencies. A Deviant Nonprofit Group (DNG) is defined as “a Nonprofit group that deviates significantly from certain moral norms of the society” (Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2006, p. 68). The aim is to develop and present an empirically grounded theory with eighty-three hypotheses about many of the key analytical features or operational and structural characteristics of DNGs. Such DNGs were usually voluntary associations with memberships and usually run by volunteers, not nonprofit agencies without memberships and usually run by paid staff (Smith, 2017a).The total theory may be termed a Grounded General Theory of DNG Operation-Structure. The book is based on an extensive review and qualitative content analysis of about 260 published research documents representing twenty-five common-language (vernacular) purposive-goal types of DNGs (vs. analytical-theoretical types, which do not exist in detail). Moral norms are the broad, emotionally charged, customary directives concerning what is right and wrong, by which members of a community or society implement their institutionalized solutions to problems significantly affecting their valued way of life (Stebbins, 1996, pp. 2–3).All the grounded hypotheses reported here were supported by empirical evidence for at least one (often two) of the two or three specific DNGs studied for all DNG types in source documents. Indeed, all reported hypotheses were supported by most of the twenty-five DNG types studied, giving significant qualitative validity to the author’s Grounded General Theory of DNG Operation-Structure. Such support suggests these hypotheses are valid at least sometimes for most DNG types and deserve further investigation. Collectively, the hypotheses of the present theory can be seen as a new theoretical paradigm for studying NPGs that helps bring analytical order to a previously chaotic realm of nonprofit sector deviant (rule-breaking) phenomena.

Nonprofits Daring to Be Different as Moral Dark Energy Improving the World

Nonprofits Daring to Be Different as Moral Dark Energy Improving the World
Author: David Horton Smith
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 73
Release: 2020-10-12
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004446486

Reviews historical impacts of some Deviant Voluntary Associations (DVAs) as moral dark energy. Dissenting DVAs, like the American Anti-Slavery Society (mid-1800s) and National Woman’s Party (early 1900s), worked effectively fostering U.S. socio-cultural progress and ethical evolution in global rights revolution.

Handbook of Critical Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizing and Voluntary Action

Handbook of Critical Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizing and Voluntary Action
Author: Roseanne M. Mirabella
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2024-08-06
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1800371810

This insightful Handbook brings together leading and emerging scholars within the field of nonprofit organization, serving as a call to action for academics to interrogate key contemporary issues such as backsliding and authoritarianism. It meticulously distinguishes traditional, often marginalist perspectives from nuanced counterarguments to balance out the field.

The Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations

The Palgrave Handbook of Volunteering, Civic Participation, and Nonprofit Associations
Author: David Horton Smith
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 1505
Release: 2017-01-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1137263172

Written by over 200 leading experts from over seventy countries, this handbook provides a comprehensive, state-of-the-art overview of the latest theory and research on volunteering, civic participation and nonprofit membership associations. The first handbook on the subject to be truly multinational and interdisciplinary in its authorship, it represents a major milestone for the discipline. Each chapter follows a rigorous theoretical structure examining definitions, historical background, key analytical issues, usable knowledge, and future trends and required research. The nine parts of the handbook cover the historical and conceptual background of the discipline; special types of volunteering; the major activity areas of volunteering and associations; influences on volunteering and association participation; the internal structures of associations; the internal processes of associations; the external environments of associations; the scope and impacts of volunteering and associations; and conclusions and future prospects. This handbook provides an essential reference work for third-sector research and practice, including a valuable glossary of terms defining over eighty key concepts. Sponsored by the International Council of Voluntarism, Civil Society, and Social Economy Researcher Associations (ICSERA; www.icsera.org), it will appeal to scholars, policymakers and practitioners, and helps to define the emergent academic discipline of voluntaristics.

International Encyclopedia of Civil Society

International Encyclopedia of Civil Society
Author: Helmut K. Anheier
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Total Pages: 1722
Release: 2009-11-24
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0387939962

Recently the topic of civil society has generated a wave of interest, and a wealth of new information. Until now no publication has attempted to organize and consolidate this knowledge. The International Encyclopedia of Civil Society fills this gap, establishing a common set of understandings and terminology, and an analytical starting point for future research. Global in scope and authoritative in content, the Encyclopedia offers succinct summaries of core concepts and theories; definitions of terms; biographical entries on important figures and organizational profiles. In addition, it serves as a reliable and up-to-date guide to additional sources of information. In sum, the Encyclopedia provides an overview of the contours of civil society, social capital, philanthropy and nonprofits across cultures and historical periods. For researchers in nonprofit and civil society studies, political science, economics, management and social enterprise, this is the most systematic appraisal of a rapidly growing field.

Volunteer Involvement

Volunteer Involvement
Author: Jurgen Grotz
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 190
Release: 2022-11-30
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 3031192214

This book provides a comprehensive overview of the latest theory and practice for volunteer involvement. It represents a milestone for knowledge of how and why volunteers become involved and will be essential reading for practitioners, policy makers and funders. Offering exercises and examples from practice, it introduces concepts for understanding volunteers’ agency and for critically assessing ways in which those who seek to involve volunteers can respond to rapidly changing environments. The authors draw on a combination of theoretical perspectives and practical experiences to develop approaches based on individuals and community strengths and assets, underlining the need for conviviality, respect and enjoyment in volunteer involvement.

Volunteer Involvement in UK Universities

Volunteer Involvement in UK Universities
Author: Jurgen Grotz
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2023
Genre: Community and college
ISBN: 3031450582

Providing a comprehensive overview of volunteer involvement in UK universities, this book addresses a distinct and substantive policy and management issue. Offering examples of volunteer involvement with students, staff, alumni and communities from 148 UK Higher Education Institutions, it provides important background to understanding volunteer involvement. It also introduces key concepts for critically assessing ways in which those who seek to involve volunteers can respond to rapidly changing environments. Drawing on a combination of theoretical perspectives and practical experiences the book systematically explores approaches based on the current structures of volunteer involvement in UK universities, which provides accessible insights for Higher Education Institutions into how they can effectively organise volunteer involvement and maximise its societal impact. Developing 10 indicators with measures to evidence universities strategic approaches and achievements in community-university relations, the book offers practical ways to plan, enable, monitor, and assess the impact of volunteer involvement in universities. Jurgen Grotz is a Senior Research Fellow, and the Director of the Institute for Volunteering Research at the University of East Anglia, UK.

A Dictionary of Nonprofit Terms and Concepts

A Dictionary of Nonprofit Terms and Concepts
Author: David Horton Smith
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 360
Release: 2006-11-08
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0253112222

This reference work defines more than 1,200 terms and concepts that have been found useful in past research and theory on the nonprofit sector. The entries reflect the importance of associations, citizen participation, philanthropy, voluntary action, nonprofit management, volunteer administration, leisure, and political activities of nonprofits. They also reflect a concern for the wider range of useful general concepts in theory and research that bear on the nonprofit sector and its manifestations in the United States and elsewhere. This dictionary supplies some of the necessary foundational work on the road toward a general theory of the nonprofit sector.

The Global Historical and Contemporary Impacts of Voluntary Membership Associations on Human Societies

The Global Historical and Contemporary Impacts of Voluntary Membership Associations on Human Societies
Author: David Horton Smith
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 139
Release: 2018-07-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9004371893

"Reviewed here is global research on how 13 types of Voluntary Membership Associations (MAs) have significantly or substantially had global impacts on human history, societies, and life. Such outcomes have occurred especially in the past 200+ years since the Industrial Revolution circa 1800 CE, and its accompanying Organizational Revolution. Emphasized are longer-term, historical, and societal or multinational impacts of MAs, rather than more micro-level (individual) or meso-level (organizational) outcomes. MAs are distinctively structured, with power coming from the membership, not top-down. The author has characterized MAs as the dark matter of the nonprofit/third sector, using an astrophysical metaphor. Astrophysicists have shown that most physical matter in the universe is dark in the sense of being unseen, not stars or planets."--Page 4 of cover