A Typology of Voluntary Associations

Gordon, C. Wayne; Babchuk, Nicholas

doi:10.2307/2089579

Cited by 192 publications

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“…A recent analysis notes that previous indictments regarding the absence of a compelling theory (Gordon and Babchuk, 1959;Knoke, 1986) 'still hold today … … empirical research on governance and structure of non-profit membership association is thin' (Tschirhart, 2006, pp. 534-535).…”

Section: Ownership In Membership Associationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a theory of hybrid organizations

Billis¹

2010

Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector

181

191

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LSE has developed LSE Research Online so that users may access research output of the School. Copyright © and Moral Rights for the papers on this site are retained by the individual authors and/or other copyright owners. Users may download and/or print one copy of any article(s) in LSE Research Online to facilitate their private study or for non-commercial research. You may not engage in further distribution of the material or use it for any profit-making activities or any commercial gain. You may freely distribute the URL (http://eprints.lse.ac.uk) of the LSE Research Online website. This document is the author's submitted version of the book section. There may be differences between this version and the published version. You are advised to consult the publisher's version if you wish to cite from it. Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector IntroductionHybrid organizations are ubiquitous. They are international, multi-sector phenomena and their unclear sector accountability often engenders unease and distrust. And in our area of concern we appear to have stumbled into a period of intense organizational hybridity in which we appear to be drifting up the (welfare hybrid) creek not only without a paddle, but also without a reliable map. Expressed in a somewhat more scholarly fashion the first priority in the preliminary agenda of issues laid out in Chapter 1 is the need to develop 'tentative theories' (Popper, 1972) of hybrid organizations.The objective of this chapter is therefore to begin to get to grips with the agenda of questions. It is laid out as a 'building blocks' exercise and contains five parts.1. Any study of hybridity must inevitably begin by establishing the nature of the 'nonhybrid' state of the phenomenon. This first part explores the position in the public and private sectors which are more readily understood and well established than the third sector. At the heart of the model is an approach to 'ownership' in terms of decisionmaking accountability that is intended to be applicable to all three main sectors.2. This part develops a similar model for the third sector. Reflecting on previous research it is suggested that the archetypal characteristics of the Third Sector Organization (TSO) are most closely found in the associational form of organization. A new approach to membership and ownership leads to a re-evaluation of the role of some paid staff in the association.3. The third, pivotal level proposes a 'principal sector' hypothesis which is intended to resolve the paradox of strong sectors in the midst of the growth of hybrid types. The centrepiece of this part is a model of sectors and their hybrid zones.4. The final level of analysis considers the nature of hybridity in the third sector. In order to do this, the concepts of 'shallow', 'entrenched', 'organic' and 'enacted' hybrids are introduced.5. The chapter concludes with a summary and a few thoughts as to how this approach to hybridity might prove helpful in thinking about the agenda of issues from Chapter 1. Part one: Building an ideal...

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Section: Ownership In Membership Associationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards a theory of hybrid organizations

Billis¹

2010

Hybrid Organizations and the Third Sector

181

191

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“…At a first step, we consider a set of agents who benefit uniformly from a quantity of a good. We show the existence of different symmetric and non-symmetric equilibria corresponding to the different modes of emergence of associations identified in the literature (Gordon and Babchuk, 1959;Rose, 1965;Laville and Sainsaulieu, 1997).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…Furthermore, when there are criteria for joining an association, this may limit its accessibility to potential members. Gordon and Babchuk (1959), who studied these membership criteria, identified the criteria of merit (as in the American Sociological Society, for instance) and the criteria of attributes, such as gender (e.g. feminist associations), origins or culture (for instance an association of Ukrainians), or simply certain social links between members.…”

Section: For Any Size Of the Association A We-n Symmetric Equilibriumentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Some associations may, on the contrary, prefer to restrict entry, like the so-called "status organizations" (Hansmann, 1986), which grant their participants a certain social status (Gordon and Babchuk, 1959. ) In these organizations, the decision of an individual to join depends not only on the characteristics and the price of the collective good provided, but also on the characteristics of the members.…”

Section: For Any Size Of the Association A We-n Symmetric Equilibriumentioning

confidence: 99%

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The We and the I: The Logic of Voluntary Associations

Melnik

Zimmermann

2015

SSRN Journal

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Abstract:This paper sheds new light on the economic logic of voluntary associations and the relationship between individual contribution and collective action. The aims are twofold.Firstly, we seek to explain how "team reasoning" (Bacharach et al. 2006) can deeply change the functioning of voluntary associations (which are considered to produce a public good) when some or all of the individual members group together to make collective decisions about their involvement or contribution, rather than deciding separately. Secondly, we seek to better understand the effects of heterogeneity of resources on individual involvement, in terms of both the budget constraints of individual members and their capacity to contribute differentiated non-monetary contributions to the association, in relation to the diversity of their personal abilities and preferences about the characteristics of the good produced.To this end, we use a model of voluntary association collectively producing a public good, where monetary contributions (compulsory fees plus voluntary donations) is combined with volunteering. We analyze the conditions for an association to offer profitable conditions to its members and the consequences that can be drawn in terms of its existence and size. We show that, at equilibrium, the level of voluntary contributions is ceteris paribus higher when individuals make their decisions on the basis of team-reasoning rather than individually. We analyze the role played by heterogeneity of incomes in the formation of teams within associations.We then introduce the concept of subjective quality into the basic model. The originality of the model is that we assume the public good to be characterized by at least two main components: quantity and quality. The quantity is considered here as a purely public component, insofar as all the members benefit equally from it. However, the quality of the public good is assumed to be a mixed (public and private) component. The agents can enjoy part of it in the same way, but there may be certain characteristics of quality that are difficult or impossible to measure objectively. Quality is always somewhat subjective, to the extent that perfect correspondence with the preferences of heterogeneous agents is unlikely to occur. In our model, the agents can contribute money and/or time and effort. The latter, which we call volunteering, allows them to influence the quality of the good (or service) provided according to their own preferences.

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“…For the expressively oriented, (1) their participation represents an immediate and continuing need for social and emotional gratification; (2) they tend to orient or focus their activities inward with respect to a given grouping, i.e., they value those activities which are confined or self-contained within the organization; and (3) they regard their activities in the organization as ends in themselves, i.e., these activities have a meaning and value in and of themselves. (Gordon & Babchuk, 1959) The expressive index was similarly composed of six items. Examples of these items are presented below.…”

Section: Church Participation and The Older Adult 21 Major Variables mentioning

confidence: 99%

Church participation and the older adult: An orientational approach

Bell¹

1974

Social Thought and Research

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A Typology of Voluntary Associations

Cited by 192 publications

References 0 publications

Towards a theory of hybrid organizations

Towards a theory of hybrid organizations

The We and the I: The Logic of Voluntary Associations

Church participation and the older adult: An orientational approach

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