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12 - Nonprofits as Organizational Actors

from Part III - New Directions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2024

By
Patricia Bromley  and
Heitor Santos
Edited by
Eva Witesman  and
Curtis Child
Eva Witesman
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Utah
Curtis Child
Affiliation:
Brigham Young University, Utah
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Summary

Bromley and Santos make a cultural argument that situates nonprofit organizations within the broader context of organization itself. Due to the ascendancy of organization as an emergent category of social structure, the authors suggest that all types of organizations (government, business, nonprofit) are becoming increasingly similar. As the divisions between them (e.g., for-profit organization vs. nonprofit organization, etc.) become less prominent, the sector in need of explanation is the organizational one, writ large. Thus, rather than explaining the nonprofit sector, per se, the authors argue that the nonprofit sector is just one manifestation of organization and that it is organization that deserves our attention. In this sense, sector theory as traditionally understood (as narrow attention to the nonprofit sector in comparison to other sectors) diverts attention from more fundamental sociocultural developments. The authors argue that one can only understand nonprofit organizations vis-à-vis government and for-profit organizations by first understanding this broader context.

Keywords

nonprofit sectororganizationneo-institutional theoryactorhoodassociationrationalizationformal organizationsector blurringsociology
Type
Chapter
Information
Reimagining Nonprofits
Sector Theory in the Twenty-First Century
 , pp. 233 - 250
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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