Social Innovation for Work Inclusion – Contributions of Swedish Third Sector Organizations

The innovative contributions of third sector organizations (TSOs) to tackle work-related societal challenges are increasingly acknowledged in policy and research, but rarely in Nordic working life studies. The article helps fill this knowledge gap by an empirical mapping of efforts by Swedish TSOs to promote work inclusion among people considered disadvantaged in the regular labor market, due to age, disabilities, origin, etc. Previous studies of social innovation help distinguish their innovativeness in terms of alternative or complementary ways to perceive and promote work inclusion in regard to Swedish labor market policies. By combining various measures for providing and preparing work opportunities, addressing their participants through individualistic and holistic approaches, and managing work inclusion by varying organization, funding, and alliances, the mapped cases seem to innovatively compensate for government and market failures in the work inclusion domain to some extent, while also being limited by their own voluntary failures.

Comunicación Integral y transparencia en las organizaciones del tercer sector / Integral Communication and transparency of the third sector organizations

Third sector organizations are organizational structures that contribute to the countries social welfare. This type of organizations requires their audiences support and understanding in order to accomplish their organizational objectives and, to obtain such support, they must communicate in a transparent form with their audiences. Transparency must be understood as a third sector organizations ethical duty with a view to announce their audiences not only detailed information about the use of financial resources but also to keep them informed about their actions, decisions and daily behaviors. Third sector organizations must manage their transparency and best practices not as designed action within a logistical or merely operational plan, but as the core idea of a strategic plan that allows them to create bonds of trust with strategic audiences such as: collaborators, donors, volunteers, government, other third sector organizations and society. When the audiences notice that a third sector organization puts their transparency and best practices into practice as an ethical and voluntary attitude for making visible and explaining each one of their actions, decisions, projects, profits and results, they will not hesitate to participate with it and offer their unconditional support. Comprehensive communication plays a fundamental role in the transparency strategic management of the third sector organizations, since it is through it that the audiences are able to know in detail the organization actions. Owing to, currently, digital media own a great reach, third sector organizations transparency and best practices must be communicated using digital media in a proper form. That is, organizations must not only design strategies to strengthen their transparency, but they also must communicate them with their audiences. With that said, the objective of this research was to analyze and to compare through a content analysis the comprehensive communication level in digital media owned by the third sector organizations from Mexico and Spain with NGO certification accredited to communicate their transparency and best practices to their audiences via their website and official social media: Facebook and Twitter. The third sector organizations sample was of 104 Spanish organizations and 104 Mexican organizations. This research was performed through a quantitative content analysis. Such analysis is digital and it was carried out in the official website and in two social media: Facebook and Twitter. It is a cross-sectional research, since the information gathering was performed during the period January-August, 2020. The research stages were: definition of the sample, definition of variables, information coding and analysis and interpretation of results. The study categories were determined from the nine transparency and best practices principles of Lealtad y Confío foundation; indications based on international standards recommended by the ICFO (International Committee on Fundraising Organizations). The main findings were that the communication level in the Spanish third sector organizations was better than in the Mexican organizations; however, both organizations have the challenge to efficiently communicate their transparency using digital media. Although it is true that Spain owns a better level of transparency and best practices comprehensive communication in digital media compared to Mexico, it has merely focused in taking advantage of its website, leaving the advantages of social media, Facebook and Twitter, aside.

Dealing With Paradoxes, Manufacturing Governance: Organizational Change in European Third-Sector Organizations

Third-sector organizations (TSOs) in Europe have been confronted with profound changes to their regulatory and societal environments. By applying the concepts of “organizational paradoxes” and “governance,” we analyze how TSOs have adjusted their governance as a response to these environmental challenges. Based on organizational case studies in France, Germany, and the Netherlands, we argue that TSOs have found multiple ways to address tensions at the organizational level, for example, by mobilizing and combining resources, re-arranging their organizational governance and by adopting new legal forms. These changes have resulted in hybridization and increased organizational complexity that might translate into the emergence of new paradoxes at the organizational level. Therefore, dealing with paradoxes constitutes an ongoing process for TSOs that goes beyond incremental adjustments.

Institutionalization of management accounting rules and routines in a private educational foundation in Santa Catarina: institutional approach of the Brazilian third sector

Purpose: To verify the change of rules and routines of management accounting of a third sector organization in the light of the Old Institutional Economy (OIE). Methodology: To analyze the institutional change in management accounting, documentary, descriptive and qualitative research was carried out. The research was carried out at a private educational foundation in Santa Catarina, selected for being a member of the third sector and for its accessibility. Data collection took place through interviews and documents, between the months of September 2018 and February 2019. For data analysis, qualitative content analysis was used. Results: In the institutional approach, the change in management accounting for the Foundation was classified as formal, revolutionary and progressive. The institutionalization of management accounting rules and routines was promoted by the need for management to have more agile and secure tools to support decision making. The rules and routines of management accounting have been modified and / or abandoned, over time, with the reconfiguration of existing practices, for their innovation. The integration of the Foundation’s systems based on the standardization and sharing of accounting and tax information has provided an improvement in the quality of information, better integration with the tax authorities and faster access to information, giving rise to more efficient, safe and useful management controls. Contributions of the Study: The research contributes to the accounting literature by presenting empirical evidence on the process of institutionalization of management accounting over time, in Brazilian third sector organizations, suggesting new studies. As a practical contribution, there is the possibility of improving the management models of third sector organizations through the understanding of the dynamics used in the process of change in management accounting, by the agents involved.