Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Lawrence H. Summers, (ed.) Tax Policy and the Economy
U.S. Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations, Fiscal Discipline in the Federal System: National Reform and the Experience of the States
Volume 3,1987, Part A, James L. Chan, (ed.) Research in Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting
Volume 3,1987, Part B, James L. Chan, (ed.) Research in Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting
Leon E. Hay and John H. Engstrom, Essentials of Accounting for Governmental and Not-For-Profit Organizations     

Morality and diversity

His recent articles include "Voluntary Donations and Public Expenditures in a Federalist System," "The Revealed Objective Functions of Nonprofit Firms," "Economic Perspectives on Regulation of Charitable Solicitation," and "Profits as Incentives within Nonprofit firms." He is currently working on a book entitled Regulating the Nonprofit Sectorand has begun research on perceptual models of choice that integrate psychology and economics.     

Can Agencies Work Together? Collaboration in Public and Nonprofit Organizations

Books reviewed:
Jane Arsenault, Forging Nonprofit Alliances .
Eugene Bardach, Getting Agencies to Work Together: The Practice and Theory of Managerial Craftsmanship .
Seymour B. Sarason and Elizabeth M. Lorentz, Crossing Boundaries: Collaboration, Coordination, and the Redefinition of Resources .     

Managing in the Nonprofit Sector

Books reviewed in this article:
Paul C. Light, Making Nonprofits Work
Steven J. Ott (ed.), Understanding Nonprofit Organizations
William B. Werther, Jr. and Evan M. Berman, Third Sector Management     

That Old-Time Religion: Efficiency, Benchmarking, and Productivity

Books Reviewed:
M. Berman, Productivity in Public and Nonprofit Organizations: Strategies and Techniques
Patricia Keehley, Steven Medlin, Sue MacBride, and Laura Longmire, Benchmarking for Best Practices in the Public Sector: Achieving Performance Breakthroughs in Federal, State and Local Agencies
David N. Ammons, Municipal Benchmarks: Assessing Local Performance and Establishing Community Standards     

Book Reviews

Books Reviewed in this article:
James Chan, Research in Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting
George W. Downs and Patrick D. Larkey, The Search for Government Efficiency, From Hubris to Helplessness
Carolyn Webber and Aaron Wildavsky, A History of Taxation and Expenditure in the Western World     

The politics of minority statistics

Harold Orlans, of Chevy Chase, Maryland, was formerly on the staff of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. His books include The Nonprofit Research Institute, Contracting for Knowledge, Private Accreditation and Public Eligibility,and Nonprofit Organizations.Philip Lyons helped to gather the information in this article.     

中国情景下的非营利组织市场导向结构研究

在文献回顾的基础上,通过访谈、预试和大样本调查,对我国非营利组织市场导向的结构进行了实证研究.根据访谈内容的编码分析和预试,初步确定非营利组织市场导向量表的题项.采用探索性因子分析、验证性因子分析和结构方程模型.对来自223家非营利组织的问卷调查数据进行了分析.结果表明,我国非营利组织市场导向是一个五因子的结构模型:顾客导向、内部协调、信息收集、行动反应、强调生存.所发展出的非营利组织市场导向量表具有良好的信度水平、收敛效度和区别效度;法理效度的检验还同时表明了非营利组织市场导向对组织的顾客绩效和财务绩效均具有显著正向影响.测量结果显示,样本非营利组织的总体市场导向程度偏低,另外从各组成维度来看,样本非营利组织在实施市场导向活动时,一般较为关注顾客导向、行动反应和内部协调.但是对信息收集和强调生存等方面尚未给予足够的重视.     

Contrasting Visions of Global Civil Society for Organization and Policy

Books reviewed in this article: Mary Kaldor, Helmut Anheier, and Marlies Glasius, eds., Global Civil Society Yearbook 2003 John Keane, Global Civil Society? Lester M. Salamon, Helmut K. Anheier, Regina List, Stefan Toepler, S. Wojcieh Sokolowski, and associates, Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed:
Richard Goode, Government Finance in Developing Countries
A. Premchand, Government Budgeting and Expenditure Tools
A. Premchand and Jesse Burkhead, (eds.) Comparative International Budgeting and Finance
Robert W. Burchell, James H. Carr, Richard L. Florida, James Nemeth with Michael Pawlick and Felix R. Barreto, The New Reality of Municipal Finance
James Chan, (ed.) Research in Governmental and Nonprofit Accounting, Volume 1     

Book Reviews

Books reviewed: Edward J. Clyncu and Thomas P. Lauth, (eds.) Governors, Legislatures, and Budget Across the American States C. William Garner, Accounting and Budgeting in Public and Nonprofit Organizations: A Manager's Guide Herman B. Leonard, Checks Unbalanced: The Quiet Side of Public Spending David M. Lawrence, Local Government Finance in North Carolina Timpthy J. Conlan, Margaret T. Wrightson, and David R. Beam, Taxing Choices: The Politics of Tax Reform     

Progressivism and the arts

He has written extensively on the sociology of organizations and of culture and is editor of Nonprofit Enterprise in the Arts.He is writing a book on the social organization of the high-culture arts in the United States from 1860 to the present.     

Charity,Philanthropy, Public Service,or Enterprise: What Are the Big Questions of Nonprofit Management Today?

"Nonprofit sector" issues, both in public discourse and pedagogy, are too narrowly cast as problems confronting public-serving nonprofits and grant-making foundations. Consisting also of membership organizations, educational institutions, and political pressure groups, the sector constitutes a major force in society which, in its interactive entirety, might better be termed a "social economy." This social economy both influences and is shaped by public administration, and it is now very much under public scrutiny. The author raises seminal questions that challenge the mission, management, and resources of this critical sector of society.     

The nonprofit advantage: Producing quality in thick and thin child care markets

Nonprofit child care centers are frequently observed to produce child care which is, on average, of higher quality than care provided in commercial child care centers. In part, this nonprofit advantage is due to different input choices made by nonprofit centers—lower child‐staff ratios, better‐educated staff and directors, higher rates of professional development for staff. Nonprofit centers may have an additional productivity advantage, due to unmeasured staff motivation and abilities or to better management of the production of good‐quality child care. However, where nonprofit and for‐profit child care firms compete in the same local markets, we speculate that this extra advantage should only appear where demand is sufficiently “thick” to permit a quality differentiation strategy to be financially viable for nonprofits. We estimate the effect of nonprofit status on quality, controlling for differences in financial resources available to the center, differences in the clientele served, and differences in staff and center inputs. In this conventional examination, nonprofit status has a moderately positive impact on quality. However, when we account for the unobserved heterogeneity and separate markets into “thick” and “thin,” a particularly strong nonprofit advantage is found in thick markets, but no productivity advantage for nonprofits is found in thin markets. This finding suggests a clear role for nonprofit organizations in improving the cost‐quality trade‐off faced by parents, but also identifies the market conditions that affect the ability of nonprofit managers to employ this advantage. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The Role of Philanthropy in Local Government Finance

Nonprofit organizations thrive on the altruism of citizens, and actively court donors for major gifts. Yet individual gifts to government agencies are often unexpected, sporadic, and initiated by the donor. This article introduces the phenomenon of private giving to local governments and tests hypotheses regarding the expected forms of giving to public agencies. Results indicate that philanthropy is and will likely remain a minor and highly variable source of revenue, making it an ill‐suited replacement for broad‐based tax revenue. However, deliberate government efforts to provide a suitable environment for private donations appear to succeed in attracting more gifts per capita.     

Do Donors Penalize Nonprofit Organizations with Accumulated Wealth?

Does current accumulated wealth by nonprofit organizations influence contributions from individuals? Existing research demonstrates that financial reserves aid program continuity during economic downturns. Yet donors, charity watchdogs, and policy makers voice concern about accumulated wealth in nonprofits. This empirical analysis examines whether the expected negative relationship occurs when donors perceive accumulated wealth as excessive. The results support the conclusion that future contributions are negatively affected when wealth levels are deemed excessive. Nonprofit managers concerned that accumulated wealth will diminish donations should consider financial strategies that will allow their organizations to build modest—but not excessive—reserves.     

Measuring the Growth of the Nonprofit Sector: A Longitudinal Analysis

Scholars have examined the effects of various environmental factors on the nonprofit sector to elucidate the role of nonprofits in modern society. However, researchers report a paucity of information on nonprofit growth using longitudinal data, especially outside the United States. This article analyzes 40 years of political, economic, and sociodemographic data in South Korea to test theories of nonprofit growth and to determine whether the concepts and theories developed for Western societies can be successfully applied in South Korea. The results show that demand‐ and supply‐side economic theories account for variations in nonprofit growth, but the existing socioeconomic explanations fail to recognize the political influences on nonprofit development. Nonprofit organizations have emerged from social and economic necessity but have also been nurtured within a political framework.     

Local Officials’ Support for PILOTs/SILOTs: Nonprofit Engagement,Economic Stress,and Politics

Nonprofit property tax exemption has become a major policy issue as the collapse of the housing market, the Great Recession, and property tax caps have threatened local tax collections. Consequently, many local governments have sought to obtain payments in lieu of taxes (PILOTs) from charities that are formally exempt from property taxes. Using a 2010 survey of local government officials in Indiana, this article examines whether support for PILOT policies is related to officials’ personal involvement with nonprofits, their views on government–nonprofit relationships, the type of position they hold, the level of economic distress in the county, local political conditions, and local nonprofit wealth. The findings support most of these hypotheses but also show that attitudes toward PILOTs appear to be shaped by somewhat different concerns than attitudes toward services in lieu of taxes (SILOTs).     

Financial Reporting by Australian Nonprofit Organisations: Dilemmas Posed by Government Funders

Nonprofit organisations comprise a growing and important sector of the Australian economy. This sector is being used by governments to an increasing extent for the delivery of services. The most common manner in which nonprofit organisations are funded by government is through the provision of grants, contracts or service agreements. Nonprofits discharge their accountability for these funds through reporting guidelines issued by the government funders. This article examines the financial accountability requirements of government funders, in one jurisdiction in Australia to support the central argument that the emphasis on ‘upward and external’ accountabilities serve as a functional and control tool on the sector. This emphasis detracts from the development of the ‘downward and internal’ mechanisms of accountability which are the essential building blocks for the strategic development of the capacity of the sector to respond to calls for greater accountability.     

Entrepreneurship among Nonprofit Arts Organizations: Substituting between Wage and Flexible Labor

Nonprofit entrepreneurship is largely viewed through the lens of commercialization, overshadowing other ways that entrepreneurship manifests within the sector. One such way involves nonprofits' tendency to meet workforce needs by substituting flexible for wage labor, which may be especially attractive to arts organizations given the proclivity of workers in this sector to be self-employed. The authors examine the use of flexible versus wage labor by nonprofit arts organizations, relying on panel data to account for changes in organizational size over time. The results provide evidence of a substitution effect, in which the use of wage labor by arts organizations declines in response to greater reliance on flexible labor. The findings suggest that nonprofit arts organizations are innovative employers, responding to changes in their resource environments by adjusting their mix of wage and flexible labor while also providing outlets for freelance arts workers to pursue their chosen line of work.