Bach, Beethoven, and benefactors: Facebook engagement between symphonies and their stakeholders

Abstract

• This study analyzes Facebook engagement among the nation's symphonies and their stakeholder publics.Factors such as reliance on donor contributions, program revenues, government grants, investment income, and total assets are proposed as contributing factors in predicting effective stakeholder relations. Public relations scholarship emphasizes the significance of relationships between the organization and its stakeholders and argues that positive relationships are integral to organizational success. Stewardship theory suggests nonprofits rely on a number of tools, including relationship nurturing, to sustain relationships with supportive publics. Scholars have increasingly identified stewardship as an effective method by which to build and maintain relationships. This study assesses one particular aspect of stewardship -relationship nurturing -and the attributes of nonprofit organizations that are successfully cultivating relationships with their stakeholders via social media. We find that benefactors matter. As dependence on stakeholder contributions increases so does stakeholder engagement via Facebook. Findings regarding program revenues and total assets are also significant.

Terms of engagement: Facebook and Twitter use among nonprofit human service organizations

“…We selected three kinds of human service organizations to represent those with stewardship goals. Each engages in the kinds of “collectivistic behaviors” with their stakeholders described by stewardship theory (Clark et al, , p. 97): organizations with members, those with a human services NTEE code (for a listing of the 10 broad NTEE coding categories see National Center for Charitable Statistics, ), and those serving a vulnerable population (i.e., any group for whom confidentiality is a primary concern such as victims of domestic violence). We created the first two dummy variables based on data from 2014 tax returns and the third using website information.…”

“…Stewardship describes situations, in which the shared goals of the two parties take precedence over each one's individual interests and make it possible for the principle and the agent to collaborate and build trust (Davis, Schoorman, & Donaldson, ; Lambright, ). Clark, Maxwell, and Anestaki () note stewardship theory also reflects an “organization's desire to operate in the interests of its constituents and to pursue collectivistic behaviors that promote the good of stakeholders” (p. 97). They make the case that nonprofit organizations' engagement with stakeholders is a form of stewardship and that social media use is a strategy for stakeholder engagement, an argument consistently made about the potential for social media by early researchers in this field (Bortree & Seltzer, ; Kim, Chun, Kwak, & Nam, ; Lovejoy et al, ; Rybalko & Seltzer, ).…”

Nonprofit External Communications: General Management, Public Relations, or Fundraising Tool?

“…Nonprofit scholars also have been increasingly considering social media as a research topic, including in terms of building relationships (Briones et al, 2011;Campbell et al, 2014;Clark et al, 2016;Svensson et al, 2015;Waters et al, 2009), fundraising (Castillo et al, 2014;Saxton & Wang, 2014;Zhong & Lin, 2018), advocacy (Guo & Saxton, 2018), and accountability (Saxton & Guo, 2011). The stream of research focusing on stakeholder relationships generally uses theoretical frameworks in public relations.…”

“…The stream of research focusing on stakeholder relationships generally uses theoretical frameworks in public relations. Furthermore, it claims that social media provides a variety of ways for organizations to encourage the public to become involved with organizations (Clark et al, 2016;Waters et al, 2009). In contrast, studies focusing on fundraising or marketing use various theories stemming from the fields of psychology and microeconomics (Hausmann, 2012;Zhong & Lin, 2018).…”

“…This paper includes several control variables. Since larger organizations are more likely to adopt advanced online practices than smaller organizations, this paper takes the natural logarithm of total assets to control for organization size, as per previous studies (Calabrese, 2013;Clark et al, 2016;Saxton & Guo, 2011;Yan et al, 2009). Organization age is the number of years since museums were granted 501(c)(3) status.…”