The Global Historical and Contemporary Impacts of Voluntary Membership Associations on Human Societies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Horton Smith
Keyword(s):  
Voluntary Membership ◽  
Membership Associations

scholarly journals The Global Historical and Contemporary Impacts of Voluntary Membership Associations on Human Societies

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (5-6) ◽  
pp. 1-125 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Horton Smith
Keyword(s):  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Third Sector ◽  
Organizational Outcomes ◽  
Top Down ◽  
The Past ◽  
Voluntary Membership ◽  
Global Impacts ◽  
Micro Level ◽  
Membership Associations ◽  
The Universe

AbstractReviewed here is global research on how 13 types of Voluntary Membership Associations (MAs) have significantly or substantially had global impacts on human history, societies, and life. Such outcomes have occurred especially in the past 200+ years since the Industrial Revolution circa 1800 CE, and its accompanying Organizational Revolution. Emphasized are longer-term, historical, and societal or multinational impacts of MAs, rather than more micro-level (individual) or meso-level (organizational) outcomes. MAs are distinctively structured, with power coming from the membership, not top-down. The author has characterized MAs as the dark matter of the nonprofit/third sector, using an astrophysical metaphor. Astrophysicists have shown that most physical matter in the universe is dark in the sense of being unseen, not stars or planets.

Nonprofit Organization Governance

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stijn Van Puyvelde
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Group Dynamics ◽  
Nonprofit Organization ◽  
Nonprofit Sector ◽  
Organizational Governance ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
Research Themes ◽  
Voluntary Membership ◽  
Governance Challenges ◽  
Membership Associations

Organizational governance has become a popular and important topic in the nonprofit sector literature. This review focuses on the governance of non-membership, paid-staff nonprofit organizations (also called nonprofit agencies), which are characterized by a hierarchical structure, where the board has the ultimate power and the responsibility to ensure that governance functions are carried out. Such agency boards are usually self-perpetuating, unlike the situation in voluntary membership associations, where the members usually elect the board. We contribute to the literature on the governance of nonprofit organizations in three major ways. First, we discuss research themes identified by previous review articles, analyze empirical and conceptual contributions from the recent nonprofit organization governance literature, and identify a number of governance challenges for nonprofit organizations. Second, we present a wide array of theoretical perspectives from different disciplines that may be useful when studying the governance of nonprofit organizations. From a practical viewpoint this is important, as it may assist researchers in the theoretical framing of their papers and help them in the formulation of theory-based hypotheses. Third, we integrate a number of theoretical perspectives by using a paradox perspective. We focus on four important contemporary governance challenges in nonprofit organizations: (1) stakeholder accountability, (2) environmental dependence, (3) volunteer reliability, and (4) board group dynamics. By using a multi-theoretical approach to analyze the ambiguities, paradoxes, and dilemmas associated with these governance challenges, we provide more general theory-based frameworks for the governance of nonprofit organizations than currently available in the literature.

The ‘Ecosystem’ Approach to Managing Human Uses and Abuses of Natural Resources in the Great Lakes Basin

1988 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Vallentyne ◽  
Alfred M. Beeton
Keyword(s):  
Great Lakes ◽  
Ecosystem Approach ◽  
Institutional Arrangements ◽  
Water Diversion ◽  
Great Lakes Basin ◽  
Shared Resources ◽  
Operational Capabilities ◽  
Voluntary Membership ◽  
Membership Associations ◽  
Economic Ties

An approach to planning, research, and management, that relates people to ecosystems of which they are part, is described and related to the Canada-United States Great Lakes Water Quality Agreements of 1972, 1978, and 1987. Factors favouring the development of an ‘ecosystem approach’ in the Great Lakes Basin include: a shared, highly valued resource; the long residence-times of ‘conservative’ pollutants in the Lakes; use of the Lakes for drinking-water supplies by c. 23 million people; threats to the integrity of the Lakes (pollution, water diversion); advances in ecosystem theory; the rise of voluntary membership associations with interests in the resource; institutional arrangements for managing nationally shared resources; and common economic ties and cultural heritages.The principal obstacle to implementation of an ‘ecosystem’ approach in the Great Lakes Basin is the lack of policies for comparable approaches in the political jurisdictions surrounding the Great Lakes. The principal obstacle to global implementation of an ‘ecosystem’ approach is the lack of international institutional arrangements for joint advice and operational capabilities in respect of the management of nationally shared resources. Another impediment is the widespread egocentricity of governments, corporations, individuals, and the general public.

Institutional Specifics of Business Self-regulation

2003 ◽  
pp. 88-98 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Obydenov
Keyword(s):  
Economic Activity ◽  
Self Regulation ◽  
Institutional Arrangement ◽  
Voluntary Membership ◽  
Sufficient Set ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Necessary And Sufficient ◽  
Object Of Control ◽  
Self Enforcement

Self-regulation appears to be a special institution where economic actors establish their own rules of economic activity for themselves in a specific business field. At the same time they are the object of control within these rules and the subject of legal management of the controller. Self-regulation contains necessary prerequisites for fundamental resolution of the problem of "controlling the controller". The necessary and sufficient set of five self-regulation organization functions provides efficiency of self-regulation as the institutional arrangement. The voluntary membership in a self-regulation organization is essential for ensuring self-enforcement of institutional arrangement of self-regulation.

scholarly journals A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States

2000 ◽  
Vol 94 (3) ◽  
pp. 527-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theda Skocpol ◽  
Marshall Ganz ◽  
Ziad Munson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Civic Engagement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Institutional Form ◽  
Current Discussion ◽  
Institutional Origins ◽  
Membership Associations

We challenge the widely held view that classic American voluntary groups were tiny, local, and disconnected from government. Using newly collected data to develop a theoretically framed account, we show that membership associations emerged early in U.S. history and converged toward the institutional form of the representatively governed federation. This form enabled leaders and members to spread interconnected groups across an expanding nation. At the height of local proliferation, most voluntary groups were part of regional or national federations that mirrored the structure of U.S. government. Institutionalist theories suggest reasons for this parallelism, which belies the rigid dichotomy between state and civil society that informs much current discussion of civic engagement in the United States and elsewhere.

How to Measure Performance in Cooperatives?

2017 ◽  
pp. 2118-2136
Author(s):  
Davide Giacomini ◽  
Elisa Chiaf ◽  
Mario Benito Mazzoleni
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Model ◽  
Performance Measure ◽  
Economic Effectiveness ◽  
The Social ◽  
External Variables ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation Model ◽  
Voluntary Membership ◽  
Cooperative Principles

The cooperatives produce around 10% of Italian GDP. They should face two aims: the respect of the cooperative principles and their pursuit in line with the economic effectiveness principle. Cooperatives operate on the principles of the International Cooperative Alliance: one member-one vote, free and voluntary membership, and limited remuneration of the underwritten capital. In order to represent the social and the economic impact of the cooperatives actions, the evaluations of the outcome produced should bear in mind both dimensions above-mentioned. Unfortunately, no single performance measure is appropriate for all the purposes. The aim of the paper is to hypothesize a comprehensive evaluation model that allows to estimate the cooperative excellence. The emerging model will be made up of two parts representing the social and the economic excellence in turn divided in “internal” and “external” variables depending on the stakeholder considered. In the second part of the paper, the model will be tested on eight Italian cooperatives.

How to Measure Performance in Cooperatives?

2017 ◽  
pp. 343-361
Author(s):  
Davide Giacomini ◽  
Elisa Chiaf ◽  
Mario Benito Mazzoleni
Keyword(s):  
Economic Impact ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation ◽  
Evaluation Model ◽  
Performance Measure ◽  
Economic Effectiveness ◽  
The Social ◽  
External Variables ◽  
Comprehensive Evaluation Model ◽  
Voluntary Membership ◽  
Cooperative Principles

The cooperatives produce around 10% of Italian GDP. They should face two aims: the respect of the cooperative principles and their pursuit in line with the economic effectiveness principle. Cooperatives operate on the principles of the International Cooperative Alliance: one member-one vote, free and voluntary membership, and limited remuneration of the underwritten capital. In order to represent the social and the economic impact of the cooperatives actions, the evaluations of the outcome produced should bear in mind both dimensions above-mentioned. Unfortunately, no single performance measure is appropriate for all the purposes. The aim of the paper is to hypothesize a comprehensive evaluation model that allows to estimate the cooperative excellence. The emerging model will be made up of two parts representing the social and the economic excellence in turn divided in “internal” and “external” variables depending on the stakeholder considered. In the second part of the paper, the model will be tested on eight Italian cooperatives.

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