A Review of Deviant Nonprofit Groups: Seeking Method in Their Alleged 'Madness-Treason-Immorality'

Erscheinungsjahr 2019
ISBN: 978-90-04-40014-6
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 16, 206 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 231 mm, Gewicht: 272 g

Reihe: Brill Research Perspectives in

This book studies the deviant form of Nonprofit Groups (NPGs), mainly volunteer-based associations, but occasionally paid-staff-based nonprofit agencies. A Deviant Nonprofit Group (DNG) is defined as “a Nonprofit group that deviates significantly from certain moral norms of the society” (Smith, Stebbins, & Dover, 2006, p. 68). The aim is to develop and present an empirically grounded theory with eighty-three hypotheses about many of the key analytical features or operational and structural characteristics of DNGs. Such DNGs were usually voluntary associations with memberships and usually run by volunteers, not nonprofit agencies without memberships and usually run by paid staff (Smith, 2017a).

The total theory may be termed a Grounded General Theory of DNG Operation-Structure. The book is based on an extensive review and qualitative content analysis of about 260 published research documents representing twenty-five common-language (vernacular) purposive-goal types of DNGs (vs. analytical-theoretical types, which do not exist in detail). Moral norms are the broad, emotionally charged, customary directives concerning what is right and wrong, by which members of a community or society implement their institutionalized solutions to problems significantly affecting their valued way of life (Stebbins, 1996, pp. 2–3).

All the grounded hypotheses reported here were supported by empirical evidence for at least one (often two) of the two or three specific DNGs studied for all DNG types in source documents. Indeed, all reported hypotheses were supported by most of the twenty-five DNG types studied, giving significant qualitative validity to the author’s Grounded General Theory of DNG Operation-Structure. Such support suggests these hypotheses are valid at least sometimes for most DNG types and deserve further investigation. Collectively, the hypotheses of the present theory can be seen as a new theoretical paradigm for studying NPGs that helps bring analytical order to a previously chaotic realm of nonprofit sector deviant (rule-breaking) phenomena.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, David Horton

Fachgebiete

• Wirtschaftswissenschaften Wirtschaftssektoren & Branchen Non-Profit-Organisationen, Verbände
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Klubs, Vereine, Geheimgesellschaften

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Contents

A Review of Deviant Nonprofit Groups: Seeking Method in their Alleged ‘Madness-Treason-Immorality’

David Horton Smith

Abstract

Keywords

Editor’s Introduction: The Neglected Dark Side of Voluntarism and the Nonprofit Sector: Larger Context of the General Theory of Deviant Nonprofit Groups

1 Introduction and Research Background

2 Five Broader Analytical Categories of DNGs and Twenty-Five DNG Purposive-Goal Types

3 Study Procedure and Methodology

4 Why Do DNGs Begin to Exist? The Origins Phase

5 Why Do People Usually Join and Participate in DNGs as Members?

6 What Is the Usual Internal Structure and Leadership of DNGs?

7 What Is the Usual Ideology of DNGs?

8 What Are Usual Nonmember Reactions to DNGs and What Life Cycle Changes and Impacts Tend to Occur?

9 Conclusions and Needed Future Research

Appendix: Illustrations of Alleged Madness-Treason-Immorality for Twenty-Five DNG Types

Author Biography

Über Autor(innen)

David Horton Smith (Ph.D. Harvard University, 1965) is Research and Emeritus Professor of Sociology, Boston College, USA. Founder (1971) of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action/ARNOVA (www.arnova.org) and NVSQ, he is founding editor of this journal.