Capacity Allocation
and Yield Management in Nonprofit Firms
CASE Research
CASE Faculty Director Greg Dees is currently focusing
his research on how business ideas are transforming the ways
we tackle social problems and serve social needs. He wants to
identify not only the potential benefits of this kind of cross-fertilization,
but also the challenges, risks, and limits of using business-inspired
approaches. His goal is to develop a set of principles to guide
anyone interested in using business ideas in appropriate and
effective ways to make the world a better place.
CASE has also teamed up with Leslie Crutchfield, Research Grantee
of The Aspen Institute, and Heather McLeod-Grant, CASE Research
Fellow, to support their research into nonprofits based in the
United States that have been able to achieve significant, widespread
impact in the last 30 years. Through a peer survey of nonprofit
Executive Directors and CEOs, they are identifying up to a dozen
nonprofits to be subjects of in-depth case study research exploring
the unique strategy, leadership and organizational approaches
that have fueled their success. The end product will be a book
that will be engaging, provocative, and educational to a broad
audience of nonprofit practitioners, donors, volunteers, board
members, and students of innovation and management excellence
in every sector.
Research Resources
Research Initiatives
Several other leading business schools and institutions have
research initiatives related to social entrepreneurship, including
the following:
Center
for Nonprofit Management at Northwestern’s Kellogg
School of Management
Center
for Social Innovation at Stanford Graduate School of Business
Initiative
on Social Enterprise at Harvard Business School
National Center on Nonprofit
Enterprise
Research
Initiative on Social Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business
School
Skoll
Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford’s Said
Business School
Resources for Researchers
Two of the biggest obstacles to engaging faculty in
research related to the social sector are access to data and
outlets for publication. There is a wealth of relatively easily
accessible data for scholars conducting research into traditional
business and management issues. Additionally, there are a significant
number of well-respected journals for each discipline, most
of which have not historically published much related to the
social sector. Good social sector data is more difficult to
find, and the outlets for publishing are limited. However, progress
is being made in each of these arenas, and this section provides
a list of data sources as well as publications, associations,
and sources of funds that are relevant to social entrepreneurship
research. If you know of any resources you think we should add
to this list, please contact
us. (For a more comprehensive list of resources on social
entrepreneurship see the Social
Sector Leaders page)
Data on the Nonprofit Sector
The American Behavioral Scientist; Jun 2002; 45, 10.
Resources for Scholarship in the Nonprofit Sector: Studies in
the Political Economy of Information, Part 1: Data on Nonprofit
Industries. Available through ABI/INFORM
Global.
The American Behavioral Scientist; Jul 2002; 45, 11.
Resources for Scholarship in the Nonprofit Sector: Studies in
the Political Economy of Information, Part 2: Resources for
Comparative Institutional Research. Available through ABI/INFORM
Global.
These two special issues of The American Behavioral Scientist
present papers on data resources in the study of philanthropy
and the nonprofit sector. The research focuses attention on
philanthropic and nonprofit institutions to strengthen the contribution
of the social and behavioral sciences to the understandings
of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector and to deepen the presence
of this sector as a site for innovative research in the disciplines.
National
Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS). The national clearinghouse
of data on the nonprofit sector in the United States, NCCS develops
and disseminates high quality data on nonprofit organizations
and their activities for use in research on the relationships
between the nonprofit sector, government, the commercial sector,
and the broader civil society. NCCS provides data on nonprofit
organizations and charitable activities, at no cost, to noncommercial
research purposes.
Guidestar.
GuideStar generates and distributes extensive programmatic and
financial information about more than 850,000 American charitable
nonprofit organizations. Guidestar has digitized most of the
data from IRS Form 990, the annual reporting document filed
by approximately 250,000 nonprofits with revenue exceeding $25,000.
Associations, Publications, and Sources of Funds
ARNOVA.
Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary
Action (ARNOVA) is an international membership organization
dedicated to fostering through research an understanding of
the nonprofit sector, philanthropy and volunteerism. ARNOVA
publishes Nonprofit
and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ).
The
Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector Research Fund awards
research grants and organizes convenings to expand knowledge
of the nonprofit sector and philanthropy, improve nonprofit
practices, and inform public policy related to nonprofits.
The
Jossey-Boss Nonprofit Management Series is specifically
designed for the information needs of nonprofit professionals
in all types of organizations. In addition to books, Jossey-Bass
publishes Nonprofit Management and Leadership (NML), a journal
that brings together the best thinking and most advanced knowledge
about the special needs, challenges, and opportunities of nonprofit
organizations.
Stanford
Social Innovation Review , published by the Stanford Graduate
School of Business, promotes innovative solutions to social
problems. Each issue aims to advance strategy and leadership
in nonprofit management, corporate social responsibility, social
entrepreneurship and philanthropy by offering provocative insights
from world-class faculty, cutting-edge research, real-life case
studies, and commentaries by leading executives.
