Collective Reputations Affect Donations to Nonprofits

Maintaining their organization's reputation is an important challenge for nonprofit managers. Organizations are often linked via a common reputation within their industry or sector such that publicity about one organization can spill over to affect how stakeholders view its peers. The linkages of common reputations may be particularly pronounced among nonprofits because important dimensions of their quality are difficult to observe directly. In this paper, we show that when the third‐party evaluator Charity Navigator rates nonprofits and displays ratings of their peers, it creates a collective reputation among groups of nonprofits performing similar functions in the same region. Through an analysis of 3,413 charities from 1993 through 2008, we find that donations to nonprofits rated by Charity Navigator rise and fall with the published Charity Navigator ratings of their peers. The effect appears to be due to the charity updating fundraising choices in response to the ratings rather than donor reactions. The presence of collective reputations has important implications for nonprofit management, such as collective self‐regulation programs.     

Strategic planning through a participatory learning and action framework: a Kenyan study

This paper reflects on the use of a participatory learning and action (PLA) framework in a strategic planning process (SPP) at a primary school in rural Kenya. Successes and challenges are discussed, focusing on the barriers to fully implementing the PLA framework. Additionally, lessons learnt and ways forward for participatory SPPs are outlined. The PLA framework allowed the project stakeholders to engage in a planning process that gave participants a voice in the process. Although PLA methodology faces shortcomings, the application of this model is a step towards making community development more sustainable.     

Company level localization and public affairs officers' educational background in Switzerland

As corporate public affairs officers have only rarely been researched in Switzerland, this study contributes a situation analysis of Swiss public affairs officers, their work processes, and biographical background to further fill this empirical gap. First, the existing public affairs research regarding Switzerland is reviewed, and research questions are derived. The research was conducted by sending out a survey to the members of the Swiss Association for Public Affairs, followed by personal in‐depth interviews with 11 public affairs officers. The findings show that respondents work in organizations that employ 1 to 82,100 people are all Swiss nationals, and their departments are mostly called ‘public affairs’. The responsibility of public affairs is predominantly for senior or top management level, and the majority of public affairs officers report to the director of their department. The respondents are highly educated. Moreover, the paper asks whether public affairs is conducted in a strategic way by taking Fleisher's 10 elements as a conceptual basis. Results show that strategic involvement of their activities is rather low. Recommendations are discussed in order to increase the strategic involvement and advance professionalization of public affairs in Switzerland with specific regard for the political system. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Financial crisis and capital controls: Latin America

Over two decades Chile has moved from an inward‐looking model of development based on industrialisation through import‐substitution to an outward‐looking model opening the economy to the outside world and based on export‐led development. This shift has brought about a profound change in the country's trade policies, entailing the adoption of neutral tariffs and tax policies, non‐discriminatory policies, and low level of protection. As a consequence, there has been a drastic improvement in the resource allocation process. Diversification of the country's foreign markets is a key component in the success of the new strategy, which has been reflected in the country's rapid economic growth of the last 12 years.     

Discursive Exit

Some women did not participate in the Women's March, rejecting its claims of unity and solidarity because white women mobilize only in their self‐interest. This is a form of exit with three features: (1) rejecting a political claim; (2) providing reasons to the power wielder and the broader public; and (3) demanding accountability both as sanction and as deliberation, which requires a discussion about the claim—in this case, the meaning of the group and the terms on which it understands itself. This combination of exit, voice, and deliberative accountability might accurately be called “discursive exit.” Discursive exit addresses conceptual and normative limitations of standard accounts of exit, voice, and loyalty, in particular, when exit and voice are imperfect—because exit can be seen as disapproval of an entire cause—and morally problematic—because voice “from within” implies that cause trumps disagreement, leaving people morally complicit in an unwelcome exercise of power.     

GHB free acid: I. Solution formation studies and spectroscopic characterization by 1HNMR and FT-IR

In forensic evidence, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid (GHB) has frequently been encountered in one of its salt forms (gamma-hydroxybutyrate), but has also been encountered in its free acid form (GHB). Owing to the physical properties, encounters of the free acid have been largely restricted to forensic exhibits comprising aqueous solutions, such as acidic beverages that have been "spiked" or formulated with GHB salts or gamma-butyrolactone (GBL). The analysis of GHB free acid presents particular difficulties including the potential for altering the original proportions of GHB free acid, GHB carboxylate, and GBL in the course of analysis, and discrimination between GHB free acid and carboxylate forms. In this work, the formation of GHB free acid in aqueous solutions (water and/or D2O) was studied as a function of solution pH. Proton nuclear magnetic resonance (1HNMR) and Fourier-transform infrared spectrometry (FT-IR) measurements were obtained on freshly prepared mixtures of NaGHB and HCl stock solutions representing a series of points along the GHB titration curve. Both 1HNMR and FT-IR were shown to track the changing proportions of GHB free acid and carboxylate forms as a function of pH, while simultaneously monitoring for the formation of the lactone (GBL). The results were consistent with acid-base conversion behavior for a carboxylic acid. 1HNMR was shown to provide an ideal means for analysis of aqueous-based GHB/GBL forensic exhibits based on simple dilution of the neat liquid exhibit, without altering the original proportions of GHB free acid, carboxylate, and GBL in the samples.