The Founding of a Nonprofit Organization as a Teaching/Learning Experience: A Case Study in Service Learning

ABSTRACT

The present case study describes how the founding, by faculty, of a nonprofit organization has aided marketing instructors (and instructors other disciplines) in teaching students to understand and apply marketing (and other business) theories in a “real-world” environment. To that end, the case study is organized as follows. First, it offers a short discussion on the pros and cons of working with for-profit versus nonprofit organizations to add value to the learning experience for students. Second, it describes the benefits and drawbacks instructors and/or students have experienced from starting their own nonprofit organization as a teaching or learning tool to help translate marketing theory into marketing application.     

Policy Issues Raised by For-Profit Spinoffs from Professional Associations: An Evaluation of a Recent AICPA Initiative

This paper provides an evaluation of the spinoff of a for-profit company from the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), a nonprofit professional association. The evaluation is based on a review of the literature on public policy issues surrounding organizational conversions from nonprofit to for-profit legal status. Many criticisms of this for-profit spinoff were voiced by professional leaders and accounting regulators, and we demonstrate that these criticisms are grounded in widely recognized policy principles relating to nonprofit conversions. The public policy issues raised by this study have implications for the governance of professional associations in all disciplines.     

The Ethical Frameworks of Social Media Policies Among U.S. Nonprofit Organizations: Legal Expectations,Dialogic Prescriptions,and a Dialectical Model

Nonprofit organizations are experiencing a new world of fundraising, marketing, and stakeholder engagement on a scale previously unseen and due largely to social media. This study investigated the extent to which nonprofits craft social media policies using ethical frameworks to guide online activity mindful of this new reality. Assessing the top 100 U.S. nonprofits and their social media policies, this study examined the 80,000 words of text extant within the available 55 nonprofit social media policies and found emergent themes that articulate the current ethical state of nonprofit social media policies. Hand-coding processes yielded themes of engagement, responsibility, privacy, protection, transparency, and respect. Computer-coding additionally aggregated these themes into larger themes of privacy, sharing, communication, accuracy, inaccuracy, engagement, and dialogue. Further analysis explored the ways in which nonprofit social media policies imply a dialectical model of ethical frameworks between legal and dialogic dimensions.     

The theoretical foundations of nonprofit competition: a resource-advantage theory approach

Competition in the nonprofit sector has dramatically intensified in the past two decades because of (1) the increased number of nonprofit organizations (NPOs), (2) the decline and diffusion of governmental support, and (3) the entry of for-profit companies into markets that traditionally have been the domain of nonprofits. In an attempt to enhance the understanding of nonprofit competition, the authors apply resource-advantage (R-A) theory, a dynamic theory of competition adapted from the for-profit business literature, to commercial nonprofits and explain how commercial nonprofits can leverage their various resources to successfully compete and deliver social value. Contributing to the understanding of nonprofit competition and the challenge that NPOs face in balancing mission and money, this paper provides a foundation for a theory of nonprofit competition that can guide future research in the area and help NPO managers as they maneuver in today’s increasingly competitive environment.     

Information search and consideration set formation in a web-based store environment

The research reported here attempts to understand information search and consideration set formation in a web-based choice environment. A conceptual model is used to propose hypotheses that link information search and consideration set formation with two task environment influences that are typical of online settings. A study that simulates information search and consideration set formation in a web-based choice environment is conducted to test the hypotheses. The results offer insights into how the number of available alternatives and the amount of time available may have an effect on search and evaluation in a web-based store. The research has implications for understanding how consumers shop in online stores.     

出版社实施ERP任重道远

根据ERP系统在出版社实施的现状,分析出版行业使用ERP系统的起因、实施过程中的具体问题及解决方案,最终阐述了我国出版行业实施ERP任重道远的观点。     

Culture,Change, and Cascading Damage at a United Way

After a long‐standing pattern of failures, suburban United Way of McCall County (UWMC) underwent two traumatic years of market share loss, unsuccessful re‐branding, and ineffective community re‐positioning. The ensuing domino effect damage changed UWMC from an aspiring “leadership center” into a shrinking organization outsourcing central functions and abandoning new programs. Its losses of donations, cuts to partner agencies, staff reduction, and impending take‐over exemplify United Way of America's quandary as this once‐powerful monopoly breaks up into a handful of merged mega‐metropolitan areas and smaller, struggling affiliates. United Way's systemic failures have been further accelerated by its corrupt cultural allegiances and its historic refusal to advocate on behalf of its once‐removed impoverished client base.     

Public partnerships,governance and user involvement: a service user perspective

This paper explores public partnerships and governance from a service user perspective, drawing both on the author's own involvement in service user organizations and movements and on material associated with and produced by these organizations and movements. It addresses the ambivalent relationship between service user organizations and movements and the idea and practice of ‘partnerships’, and explores their preference for ideas of ‘alliance’. It charts the different approaches to and ideologies underpinning user involvement and their implications for partnership between state and service users and their organizations. It offers a set of components for improving such partnerships as well as highlighting the growing interest of service users' organizations and movements in developing and extending alliances.     

Good Morning,Vietnam! Opportunities and Challenges in a Developing Franchise Sector

Until recently the development of franchising in Vietnam was hampered by a regulatory framework that did not recognize franchising as a discrete business relationship. The introduction of Vietnam's Franchise Law in 2005 provided, for the first time, a legal foundation for franchising, which was a necessary prerequisite for sector development. Although there are currently few business format franchise systems operating in Vietnam, there is an increasing presence of established international franchise systems and increasing numbers of local systems albeit at an early “product distribution” evolutionary stage. Moreover, the commercial environment for franchising is increasingly favorable: Vietnam is the fastest growing Asian economy after China and India and is experiencing strong gross domestic product growth and annual retail growth. This article addresses the development of franchising, and the challenges and opportunities for franchisers in Vietnam.     

The Challenge of Promoting a Cohesive Institutional Identity: An Investigation of the Impact of External Audiences,Task Specialization,and the Overall Organization

ABSTRACT

Financial giving behavior of individuals to charities is analyzed, using demographic, personality and behavioral variables for explanation. Both the probability of a donation and the amount of the donation are analyzed, using data of 500 Dutch households. Donors give because they appreciate the good work of the organization, because it gives them a good feeling, or because they feel personally involved. Empathy with the final receivers influences the decision to give, but not the amount that is donated. When donations become a part of the donor's “mental accounting” system, the average amount given is greater than for ad hoc donations.     

The ‘ASEAN Way’ and ASEAN’s development gap with Cambodia,Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam: a critical view

ABSTRACT

The ‘ASEAN Way’, as an approach to interstate relations within ASEAN, is analysed in relation to the ‘reduction of the development gap’ (RDG) with Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV). It is found that convergence of income per capita and development levels of CLMV is only to a limited extend the result of RDG and its pace is too slow. With the help of the Asian Development Bank and other regional and multilateral financial institutions, the development cooperation funds thus assembled, could leverage a multitude of loans and funds from donor organizations and countries, including the EU and its member countries.     

Delight the experts,but never dissatisfy your customers! A multi-category study on the effects of online review source on intention to buy a new product

Online reviews are a pervasive form of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) that potentially accelerate—or slow down—the diffusion of recently launched services in the marketplace. While empirical research largely supports the effects of online reviews on attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, less is known about the impact the source of the review—i.e., if it comes from a peer consumer or an expert—has on the recipient. Two experiments that combine reviewer- (expert, consumer), service type- (mobile package, restaurant, car repair), consumer- (level of general innovativeness), and review-related (positive, negative) characteristics reveal a challenging interaction between the review’s source and its valence: while—compared to an established baseline—a positive expert review seems more effective in increasing the recipient's intention to purchase than a review by a peer consumer, a negative consumer review lowers the recipient's intentions to a larger extent than a negative expert review. We further find effects of the consumer's innovativeness and the service category across the experiments. Our research contributes to the topical and increasing body of empirical research on the effects of involved characteristics within online reviews across several product types.