Exploring the Use of Outcome Measures in Human Service Nonprofits: Combining Agency, Institutional, and Organizational Capacity Perspectives

Measuring quality for human service improvement: How nonprofits meet the quality requirements of public authorities

“…It is therefore assumed—in line with a structural approach of organizational learning—that encouraging or forcing organizations to maintain an information system will be followed by routines of data usage (Moynihan, 2005). However, previous studies have provided contradictory results on the impact of external stakeholders or mandates on the actual use of performance measures (see B. Lee & Clerkin, 2017; Moynihan & Lavertu, 2012), which is why we assume that the influence of quality requirements varies under different sets of conditions.…”

“…Scholars have shown that the imposition of new reporting mandates (Thomson, 2010) and institutional funders' increasing coupling of resource provision and accountability requirements (B. Lee & Clerkin, 2017; MacIndoe & Barman, 2013) are important drivers for the adoption of outcome measurement in the nonprofit sector. Based on this, we first assume that quality management directives imposed by funders and regulators are one of the main reasons that nonprofits measure the quality of their services.…”

“…However, previous research suggests that there is considerable variance in the extent to which nonprofits respond to external demands and adopt performance measurement (B. Lee & Clerkin, 2017; Thomson, 2010). One explanation for this observation is that promoters of performance interventions often fail to take account of the organizations' resources to implement them systematically.…”

“…Assessing and improving the quality of human services is an urgent policy, practice, and research concern (Bunger & Lengnick‐Hall, 2019). Nonprofit human service organizations are increasingly being held accountable for the quality of their services and, consequently, are facing growing pressure to undertake more systematic efforts to assess the internal capacities of the organization, enhance outcomes, and report their achievements to supervisory authorities (B. Lee & Clerkin, 2017; B. R. Lee, McMillen, Knudsen, & Woods, 2007). Changing client needs and fiscal austerity also require appropriate actions to prevent service failures or a decline in service quality.…”

“…The majority of the current research on performance interventions in the nonprofit sector is focused on performance management and the use of outcome measures, and thus has a somewhat different focus. That research shows, among other things, that accountability and funding requirements from external stakeholders are one of the main reasons that nonprofits measure the performance of their organization, but that there is considerable variation in the extent to which organizations respond to those demands (B. Lee & Clerkin, 2017; MacIndoe & Barman, 2013). The present study builds on this research, but shifts the focus onto two important, hitherto largely neglected aspects.…”