Improving Relationship Quality with Stakeholders to Increase Nonprofit Organizations’ Impact: The Mediating Role of Students’ Contributions

ABSTRACT

French “associations” continue to grow in importance in society and the economy, while their financing is increasingly turning to private funds. New requirements in terms of governance are also being imposed on them. In order to support grassroots volunteer organizations in their evaluation, this research proposes to understand the role of the relationship with stakeholders in shaping the impact of an organization. This approach has been mostly theoretical until now and this study is one of the first of its kind to make an empirical contribution. Stakeholder theory and theoretical frameworks led to a questionnaire study and analysis using a structural equation model. The impact perceived by the stakeholders (in this case, the students) is explained both by the relationship quality with the organization and by the degree of their contribution to its success. This research proposes a reciprocal definition of relationship quality, and is about individual stakeholders little studied as members. This article remains exploratory given some of the difficulties with the measurement model and future researches should look into enhancing the measurement of the constructs.

KEYWORDS:

• governance
• performance
• impact
• law 1901 associations
• organization-public relationships
• stakeholders

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Pascal Barneto and Elisabeth Bertin, his supervisors, for their support.

Disclosure statement

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

Data availability statement

Derived data supporting the findings of this study are available from the author on request.

Additional information

Funding

The author was supported by a thesis scholarship from the French Ministère de l'enseignement supérieur de la recherche et de l'innovation.