UCLA

Research on nonprofit organizations becoming more business-like in their structure and function has garnered considerable academic interest in recent years. This trend, also referred to as managerialism, has traditionally been explored from organizational or management perspectives, and much of the research on the topic has focused on examining the motivation behind for nonprofits embracing approaches and practices more commonly found in the for-profit sector. The purpose of this dissertation research was to expand the study of managerialism, specifically within social justice nonprofit organizations, by examining the environmental context within which these organizations exist to better understand how the organizational environment contributes to the emergence and operationalization of managerialist approaches and practices.

With this goal in mind, a case study of three social justice nonprofits in a large, metropolitan city in the United States was conducted. Interviews took place with 43 staff members whose positions ranged from frontline employees to CEOs. The data was analyzed using Constructivist Grounded Theory Analytic Techniques.

From the data emerged a conceptual model illuminating how organizations are affected by their internal and external environments, and the mechanisms that staff employ to manage these impacts. Specifically, the model shows how organizations exist in a relationship of dependency with external stakeholders, and that staff members engage in several response processes in order to manage this relationship. Furthermore, the data indicate that not only does managerialism emerge as a result of this relationship, it is also used as a way to respond to the challenges organizations face as a result of being dependent on external stakeholders. Implications of these findings on both research and practice are explored.