The Global Emergence of NGO & Nonprofit Voluntary Regulation

在这个项目中，研究小组将检验一项重要的制度创新--自愿监管--如何很好地解决非营利组织面临的信息和声誉挑战。非营利组织应该是服务于公共利益的受信任的代理人。因此，政府、国际组织、基金会和公民向非营利部门提供了大量资金。不幸的是，这笔资金加上较低的准入门槛，吸引了一些“坏苹果”和合法组织，由此引发的公共丑闻给所有非营利组织带来了负面的声誉溢出效应。自愿监管是预防此类问题的一种拟议机制。该项目将提供有关非营利性自愿监管计划出现和结构的第一个全面和系统的数据，涉及两个领域，包括发展中国家和转型国家，以及美国几个非营利性部门。这些数据将被用来调查哪些国家和行业的非营利组织建立和加入了自愿监管计划，以及这些计划对参与者施加的义务的范围和严格程度的不同因素。在更广泛的影响方面，本项目将开发的关于自愿监管计划的出现、结构和有效性的系统证据和发现可用于制定更好的公共政策以及改善组织治理。

In this project the research team will examine how well an important institutional innovation -- voluntary regulation - addresses the information and reputation challenges faced by nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits are supposed to be trusted agents that serve the public interest. As a result, governments, international organizations, foundations, and citizens have channeled large amounts of funding to the nonprofit sector. Unfortunately, this funding, coupled with low entry barriers, has attracted some "bad apples" as well as legitimate organizations and the resulting public scandals have imposed negative reputational spillovers on all nonprofits. Voluntary regulation is one proposed mechanism to forestall this sort of problem. This project will provide the first comprehensive and systematic data on nonprofit voluntary regulation program emergence and structure across two domains, in developing and transition nations and also within several nonprofit sectors in the United States. The data will be used to investigate which countries' and sectors' nonprofit organizations establish and join voluntary regulatory programs, as well as factors that account for variations in the scope and stringency of obligations such programs impose on their participants. In terms of broader impacts, the systematic evidence and findings about the emergence, structure, and effectiveness of voluntary regulation programs that will be developed in this project can be used to build better public policy as well as to improve organizational governance.