Change in the making: A dynamic and relational landscape of voluntary action

《正在发生的变化》是一本关于第三部门随时间变化的激动人心的独特研究报告。据我们所知，其他地方没有这样的尝试，而第三部门经营环境的变化和挑战使其非常及时。我们的项目调查了在不同的第三部门环境中，一系列不同的利益相关者谈判、创造和竞争变革的方式。它将注意力集中在组织作为有争议的集体行动空间，涉及多个利益相关者的相互作用，如受薪员工、志愿者、服务用户和专员，所有这些人都有不同的利益。这项研究将在第三部门研究中心2010至2014年间与第三部门组织开展的开创性长期“实时”研究计划的基础上进行、扩展和加强。考虑到志愿组织目前面临的挑战，正在进行的变革是一项及时的研究。对于那些对第三部门活动如何持续以及第三部门组织如何适应时间变化感兴趣的人来说，这将是非常有价值的。《实时时报》的这项研究跟踪了一组第三部门案例研究的命运，通过一个不稳定的环境，涉及政治和制度变化的组合，以及具有挑战性的金融环境，特别是对于依靠公共资金开展工作的组织来说。因此，最初的研究描绘了适应紧缩的最初几年。在四年多的时间里，通过四个原始的案例研究，通过三次密集的实地考察，正在进行的变化使故事向前推进。根据研究的目标，我们通过扩大每个案例研究地点的研究参与者范围来深化对纵向案例研究的分析，并通过将案例研究置于更广泛的领域发展中来放置他们的经验。专注于数量较少的案例可以让我们刷新和深化我们的研究问题。纵向方法有助于从更长远的角度看待组织变革和连续性的节奏。到拟议的研究结束时，我们将与案例研究机构进行近十年的接触，从2010年到2019年，即挺过最初的紧缩时期，但未来几年的前景不确定。我们已经知道这些组织和活动如何存活到2014年，但接下来会发生什么，更具体地说，不同的影响力和利益相关者会如何影响接下来发生的事情？这项研究为关于第三部门的概念、变化和特征的学术辩论提供了信息，并推动了这一辩论。它与政策和实践辩论有很大的相关性，因为它提供了关于第三部门每天如何进行和经历变化的深刻见解。它通过与个别组织的深入接触，加深了我们对第三部门组织在实践中实际如何运作的理解。没有其他的英国研究能够做到这一点。它通过对第三部门组织生活的日常困境、压力和实践提供真实和生动的见解，为第三部门和第三部门的政策和实践的发展提供信息，从而形成比目前普遍存在的对第三部门活动更现实的描述。随着时间的推移，它扩展了对第三部门活动的研究，从而为社会科学中不断增长的质量纵向工作贡献了独特和创新的组织层面。它有可能对第三部门的政策、实践和话语产生影响：通过在第三部门内建立能力来影响实践的发展，并通过重新组织关于第三部门组织及其在社会中的作用的辩论来产生概念上的影响。

'Change in the Making' is an exciting and unique study of change in the third sector over time. To our knowledge, nothing like it has been attempted elsewhere, and the changes and challenges in the operating environment for the third sector make it extremely timely. Our project investigates the ways in which change is negotiated, created and contested by a range of different stakeholders in diverse third sector settings. It focuses attention on organisations as contested spaces of collective action, involving the interplay of multiple stakeholders, such as paid staff, volunteers, service users and commissioners, all with different interests. The study will build on, extend and enhance the Third Sector Research Centre's ground-breaking long term 'Real Times' programme of research with third sector organisations carried out between 2010 and 2014. Change in the Making is a timely study given the challenges facing voluntary organisations at the present time. It will be of great value for those interested in how third sector activities are sustained, and in how third sector organisations adapt to change over time. The 'Real Times' study followed the fortunes of a set of third sector case studies through an unsettled environment, involving a combination of political and institutional change and a challenging financial context, particularly for organisations drawing on public funds to carry out their work. Hence the original research charted the first years of adjustment to austerity. Change in the Making takes the story forward through three further intensive waves of fieldwork, over four years, with four of the original case studies. In line with the study's aims we deepen the analysis of the longitudinal case studies by broadening the range of research participants at each case study site, and we place their experience in context by situating the case studies within wider field developments. A focus on a smaller number of cases allows us to refresh and deepen our research questions. The longitudinal approach facilitates a longer term perspective on the rhythms of organisational change and continuity. By the end of the proposed study we will have engaged with the case study organisations for nearly ten years from 2010 through to 2019, i.e. surviving through an initial period of austerity, but with uncertain prospects in the years ahead. We know already how these organisations and activities have survived through to 2014, but what happens next, and more specifically how is what happens next shaped by different influences and stakeholders?The study informs and advances academic debates on conceptualisation of, change in, and the character of, the third sector. It is of great relevance to policy and practice debates because it provides great insights into how change is made and experienced in the third sector on an everyday basis. It develops our understanding of how third sector organisations really work in practice, through its in-depth engagement with individual organisations. No other British study has been able to do this. It informs the development of policy and practice for and in the third sector, by providing real and vivid insights into the everyday dilemmas, pressures and practices of third sector organisational life, and thus shaping more realistic accounts of third sector activities than currently prevail. It extends the study of third sector activities over time and it thereby contributes a unique and innovative organisational dimension to the growing body of qualitative longitudinal work in the social sciences. It has the potential to impact upon third sector policy, practice and discourse: to influence the development of practice through bulding capacity within the third sector and to create conceptual impact through reframing the debate about third sector organisations and their role in society.