This study reviews the influence of revenue stream diversification on financial health. It is a meta-analysis of previous studies that have studied the relationship. This literature variously demonstrates that nonprofit financial health is improved, not influenced or harmed by diversifying reliance on different revenue streams. Our analysis of 40 original studies reporting 296 statistical effects demonstrates a small, positive, yet statistically significant association between revenue diversification and nonprofit financial health. In addition, we show that granularity of measurement of revenue diversification influences effect size, that this effect has shifted over time, and that studies on U.S. nonprofits demonstrate weaker (or more negative) effects. However, few other prominent suspects, including diversity of financial health measure or methodology choices, explain variations in effects across the literature on revenue diversification. Overall, the study supports the contention that both analysts and practitioners should make strategic considerations that have generally escaped scholarship on revenue diversification or shift attention to revenue optimization considerations that have been raised by portfolio theory.
Commercialization is a primary interest within the nonprofit sector. Previous studies have investigated the relationship between commercialization and nonprofit donations in a wide variety of contexts. This meta-analysis synthesizes the research on the relationship by using 295 effects from 25 primary studies and explains variations in effects within and across the studies by including a series of moderators in random-effects meta-regression models. The results indicate that commercialization crowds out donations. The crowding-out effect is small. Moreover, the results indicate that mission-driven commercial revenues return a more negative effect; international development and public benefit nonprofits return a more negative effect; and studies using longitudinal data demonstrate a more positive effect. This study suggests that nonprofit commercialization is more a question of how rather than whether. Devoting more scholarly attention to underlying mechanisms between commercial revenues and nonprofit donations is desirable.
Technology companies have widely used corporate social responsibility (CSR) as a strategy to attract more consumers. However, little is known about which specific CSR practices work best to shape consumers' purchasing behavior. This study adopts a between-subject lab experiment to investigate the effects of four different kinds of CSR practices on consumers' purchasing behavior and to understand their underlying mechanisms. The results indicate that CSR in the domain of environmental protection is most influential for a high-tech company when it comes to attracting consumers and driving purchasing behavior. Additionally, the results indicate a mediating role of consumers' trust in the CSR purchasing relationship. This study suggests that hightech companies seeking to maximize sales should consider focusing their CSR practices on the environmental domain and should view consumers' trust as a critical end rather than a means to greater profits.
Donors' overhead aversion leads to a starvation cycle that hampers the ability of nonprofits to fulfill their missions. This study provides new evidence and suggests possible solutions to break the starvation cycle. Drawing on agency theory, this study adopts a between-subject experimental design to test two strategies for nonprofits with high overhead that seek to overcome donors' overhead aversion. The results suggest that donors are indeed troubled by high overhead ratios. However, charitable contributions to high-overhead nonprofits could be significantly increased if the nonprofits provide information regarding their organization’s performance and transparency. The study contributes to the literature in two ways: It analyzes the starvation cycle from the donors' perspective rather than nonprofits' perspective, and it tests proactive strategies in response to overhead aversion. This study concludes that breaking the nonprofit starvation cycle could begin with nonprofits taking a more open and direct stance when confronting the issue of overhead aversion.
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