Nonprofit-Organizations and Society: An Organization-Theoretical View
Journal
ZögU
Type
journal article
Date Issued
2006
Author(s)
Beyes, Timon
;
Jaeger, Urs
Abstract
Departing from the assumption that nonprofit-organizations are inherently complex and ambiguous, our paper explores an alternative organization-theoretical approach to the study of NPOs. A systems-sociological perspective is introduced which allows to observe the relations between organizations and society without reducing the analysis to either an outside-in- or an inside-out-perspective. Specifically, the paper discusses how systems-sociology conceptualizes "organization" and "society". These findings are then related to the analysis of nonprofit-organizations, resulting in a promising perspective on NPOs and their environments. A major challenge for researching the management of nonprofits is formulated, namely to reconstruct how NPO-managers deal with organizations that are heterogeneous.
Language
English
Keywords
Functional differentiation
Luhmann
NPO
organization theory
systems sociology
third sector
HSG Classification
contribution to scientific community
Refereed
Yes
Publisher
Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft
Volume
34
Start page
101
End page
114
Pages
14
Subject(s)
Division(s)
Eprints ID
49833