Collaborative Research: Understanding the Creation and Mission Content of Non-Governmental Organizations

本项目将考察设在美国的非政府组织的创建和使命内容。该项目将加强对企业家何时、为何以及如何做出进入非营利市场的战略决策，以及这些选择对社会福利结果的影响的基本理解。该项目将通过帮助当前和潜在的非营利组织领导人在何时以及如何创建新组织方面做出更好的决策，从而产生更广泛的影响。该项目的研究将通过有针对性的出版物、公共网站和讲习班进行传播。这项研究还将有助于教育和研究基础设施。具体而言，它将开发美国非政府组织的数据集，包括来自几个非政府组织部门的大量定性材料，供其他研究人员使用。通过培养本科生和研究生以及产生课堂资源，它将具有重要的教育效益。这个项目的目标是发展和检验关于非政府组织创建和使命内容变化的理论。它提出了这样的问题：非政府组织是什么时候、为什么成立的，目的是什么？尽管非政府组织具有重要的实践意义和理论意义，但学者们很少系统地关注非政府组织成立的时间和目的。这个项目结合了多学科的理论来提高组织创造的知识，考察了不同时期和不同部门的非政府组织。拟议的项目提供了两个关键进展。在方法上，该项目采用实验和定性方法来补充传统的观察和定量方法来进行组织创建。从理论上讲，本项目在之前研究新的结果变量的基础上，考察了NGO创建中的使命内容和创新。拟议的研究涉及三种主要类型的原始数据收集和分析。首先，对编码的非政府组织使命宣言进行统计分析，将有助于研究大量现实世界的非政府组织之间的动态，从而提高外部有效性。其次，对非政府组织从业人员的调查将通过整合实验成分来增强研究的内部效度。此外，它将使测试的理论框架的个人层面的可观察的影响。第三，对几个非政府组织部门演变的定性案例研究将探讨部门发展和变化的过程。这种多管齐下的研究策略是基于这样一种认识，即对组织的研究受益于多层次的分析和使用多种方法。贯穿整个研究设计的是致力于研究非政府组织在不同领域的活动，以促进研究的普遍性。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will examine the creation and mission content of non-governmental organizations [NGOs] based in the United States. The project will enhance basic understanding about when, why, and how entrepreneurs make strategic decisions to enter the non-profit market, and the consequences of these choices for social welfare outcomes. The project will have a broader impact by assisting current and potential non-profit leaders to make better decisions regarding when and how to create new organizations. The research from this project will be disseminated through targeted publications, a public website, and a workshop. The study will also contribute to education and research infrastructure. Specifically, it will develop datasets about NGOs based in the United States that will be made available to other researchers, including extensive qualitative materials from several NGO sectors. It will have an important educational benefit by training undergraduate and graduate students and generating classroom resources.The goal of this project is to develop and test theory about variation in NGO creation and mission content. It asks questions such as: when and why are NGOs created, and for what purposes? Despite the practical and theoretical importance of non-governmental organizations, scholars have given little systematic attention to when NGOs are founded and the purposes for which NGOs are created. This project combines theory from multiple disciplines to enhance knowledge of organizational creation, examining NGOs over time and across different sectors. The proposed project offers two key advances. Methodologically, the project employs experimental and qualitative methods to complement traditional observational, quantitative approaches to organizational creation. Theoretically, the project examines mission content and innovation in NGO creation, building on previous work to examine new outcome variables. The proposed research involves three principal types of original data collection and analysis. First, a statistical analysis of coded NGO mission statements will enable the study of dynamics among a large number of real-world INGOs, promoting external validity. Second, a survey of NGO practitioners will enhance the study's internal validity by integrating an experimental component. Moreover, it will enable the testing of the individual-level observable implications of the theoretical framework. And third, qualitative case studies of the evolution of several INGO sectors will explore the processes by which sectors develop and change. This multi-pronged research strategy is guided by a recognition that the study of organizations benefits from analyses at multiple levels and using multiple methodologies. Cutting across all prongs of the research design is a commitment to studying NGOs in diverse sectors of activity to promote the study's generalizability.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.