Nonprofit Commercialization

Abstract

Nonprofit commercialization refers to the process of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) becoming increasingly reliant on income resulting from the profitable sale of services and goods (Brown 2018;Guo 2006), thereby becoming more like for-profit enterprises (Suykens et al. 2019b). Nonprofit commercialization is commonly viewed as a key element of both "NPOs becoming businesslike" (Dart 2004a;Maier et al. 2016) and social entrepreneurship (Defourny and Nyssens 2010;Khieng and Dahles 2015). Nonprofit commercial income is a catch-all concept for both missionrelated and mission-unrelated streams of revenue (Toepler 2006; Weisbrod 1998) as it generally includes "program service fees; the sale of products not directly associated with the charitable activity; contracts to deliver services on behalf of a third party; profits from for-profit subsidiaries; and fees for endorsing products" (McKay, Moro, Teasdale, & Clifford, McKay et al. 2015, p. 340). Typical examples of mission-related income are "services fees," while mission-unrelated income can include income generated through raffles, sale of gadgets, and renting out organizational space (Suykens et al. 2020b). Ebrahim et al. (2014) refer to organizations relying primarily on the former as "integrated hybrids" (i.e., NPOs with commercialized core activities), and to those relying on the latter as "differentiated hybrids" (i.e., NPOs with commercial ancillary activities). When operationalizing commercial income, it is important to consider the institutional particularities of the research context at hand. In contrast to Anglo-Saxon countries for instance, income generated through public service contracts is considered an integral part of the public welfare mix in corporatist welfare states, and thus is viewed as publicinstead of commercialincome (Evers and Laville 2004).

Does Digital Capabilities Foster Social Innovation Performance in Social Enterprises? Mediation by Firm-Level Entrepreneurial Orientation

“…However, in current competitive markets, SEs need to adopt an entrepreneurial "attitude" and incorporate business concepts into the provision of social goods and/or services [41,42]. Accordingly, many nonprofit entities have been found to be undergoing an incremental transformation in terms of combining multiple organizational forms [43] and merging among themselves to broaden their social service provision, as market orientation differentiates SEs from pure nonprofits [8]. In addition to helping social organizations optimize long-term market benefits, market orientation enables them to grasp customer expectations, competitive actions, and value chain dynamics [36].…”