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

《形成中的变化》是对第三部门随时间变化的一项令人兴奋和独特的研究。据我们所知，在其他地方没有这样的尝试，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、创造和争论变革的方式。它把注意力集中在组织作为集体行动的竞争空间上，涉及多个利益相关者的相互作用，比如有薪员工、志愿者、服务使用者和委员，他们都有不同的利益。该研究将建立、扩展和加强第三部门研究中心在2010年至2014年期间与第三部门组织开展的开创性的长期“真实时代”研究计划。鉴于目前志愿组织所面临的挑战，《变革正在形成》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变化感兴趣的人来说，这将是非常有价值的。“Real Times”的研究跟踪了一系列第三部门案例研究的命运，这些案例研究经历了一个不稳定的环境，包括政治和制度变革以及具有挑战性的金融环境，特别是对那些利用公共资金开展工作的组织来说。因此，最初的研究绘制了向紧缩调整的头几年的图表。在四年的时间里，通过三个进一步密集的实地调查，以及四个原始案例研究，将故事向前推进。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的范围来深化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将他们的经验置于背景中。对少数案例的关注使我们能够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。在拟议的研究结束时，我们将与案例研究组织进行近十年的合作，从2010年到2019年，即在最初的紧缩时期幸存下来，但未来几年的前景不确定。我们已经知道这些组织和活动是如何存活到2014年的，但接下来会发生什么，更具体地说，接下来会发生什么，是如何受到不同影响和利益相关者的影响的？该研究为第三部门的概念化、变化和特征提供了信息并推动了学术辩论。它与政策和实践辩论非常相关，因为它提供了对第三部门如何在日常基础上进行变革和经历变革的深刻见解。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实际运作方式的理解。没有其他英国研究能够做到这一点。它通过对第三部门组织生活中的日常困境、压力和实践提供真实而生动的见解，从而为第三部门的政策和实践的发展提供信息，从而形成比目前流行的更现实的第三部门活动描述。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定性纵向工作提供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：通过在第三部门内部建立能力来影响实践的发展，并通过重新构建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.