Intersectoral Experiences: Nonprofit Managers and Sector Influences in Child Welfare Agencies

ABSTRACT

Theory supports the notion that the societal sectors are blurring and blending and therefore questions the usefulness of employing the sectors as a theoretical construct. This paper grapples with this critique of the sectors as theoretically beneficial by using nonprofit, child-welfare administrators’ perspectives on how normative institutions and values espoused by and through government, for-profit, and nonprofit organizations inform decision-making priorities. Through examining data from approximately 147 managers, this paper will show how administrators identify with and may be compelled to conform to pressures that result from their relation to government, for-profit, and other nonprofit organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Intersectorality
• management
• nonprofits

Notes

¹ “Accountable to funders or donors” is placed with mission-based decision making for two reasons: Donors help hold NPOs accountable for mission achievement and exploratory factor analysis suggests this measure is more similar to pursuing mission and agency goals than other priorities.

² By standardizing the variable, the scores are rescaled to have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. Pearson’s correlation coefficients between these dependent variables are as follows: client focused and mission focused (r = .52), client focused and financially focused (r = .29), and mission focused and financially focused (r = .45). The positive correlation indicates that these priorities are not necessarily competing priorities.