Developing a vulnerability-based conceptual model for managing risk in non-profit projects: a multicase study in a European country

Abstract

This study examined theories and concepts related to the enactment of strategic project risk management in non-profit organizations. A vulnerability-based conceptual model VBCM was developed that shows how risk management behaviours can help non-profit managers deal with complex interorganizational factors and uncertainty in projects’ contexts for ensuring the desired social impacts stakeholders expect. Three main vulnerabilities – finances, human relationships and alliances – arise from the challenges non-profits face when attracting and retaining human and material resources and building cooperative relationships within local contexts in order to achieve projects’ social goals.

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© 2021 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Francis Group, LLC.

KEYWORDS:

• Non-Profit
• vulnerability
• social impact
• strategy
• project
• risk
• COVID-19
• VBCM

Disclosure statements

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/14719037.2021.1972685.

Additional information

Funding

This publication/researh was partially supported by Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia throught project grant FCT UIDB/04466/2020, UIDP/04466/2020 and UID/GES/00315/2020, by Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal [RAADRI program], and by IMA Research Foundation [Incubator program].

Notes on contributors

Márcia R. C. Santos

Márcia R. C. Santos (PhD, [email protected]) is an Assistant Professor at the Escola Superior de Ciências Empresariais at Instituto Politécnico de Setúbal (ESCE-IPS) and a researcher at the Information Sciences and Technologies and Architecture Research Center (ISTAR-IUL) at Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal, with interests in the fields of non-profit management, accounting and business intelligence & analytics. She is author of scientific publications (see http://ciencia.iscte-iul.pt/mrcss/en).

Raul M. S. Laureano

Raul M. S. Laureano (PhD, [email protected]) is a researcher at the Business Research Unit (BRU-IUL) and at the Information Sciences and Technologies and Architecture Research Center (ISTAR-IUL) at the Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE-IUL), Portugal, with interests in the fields of business analytics, non-profit management and tourism. He is also an Associate Professor at the Business School of the ISCTE-IUL, where he teaches undergraduate and graduate classes of statistics and data analysis, and the Director of the Master in Business Analytics at ISCTE-IUL. He is the co-author of books about financial mathematics and statistics with IBM SPSS Statistics and of more than 50 scientific publications (see http://ciencia.iscte-iul.pt/rml/en).