Corporate support for the Arts, what views are held by the corporate sector about their support for the arts in Australia? Comparison of the literature of the not-for-profit arts sector in Australia with that of the USA and Britain highlights differences in the structure of philanthropic trusts in the USA and their contribution to the not-for-profit arts and the benefit of arts funding in Britain due to support form funding from lotteries. The Australian not-for-profit arts sector does not have support from lottery funding or a long history of support from philanthropic sources. An alternate funding source is corporations, and the role they play in support for the not-for-profit arts in Australia whilst acknowledged, remains unclear. With the use of an Interpretivist approach, this has been an exploratory study. Data was generated through focused interviews with representatives from companies, agencies of government and private philanthropy. The findings from the research have lead to the formation of the view that for the participant populations, support for the arts is considered to be sponsorship (perhaps mirroring structural changes in wider society); that is becoming focussed and strategic and in some instances comes at the expense of sports funding. Competition for corporate funding is not confined to the arts, but the wider not-for-profit sector and corporate decision making has become more astute. Policies and procedures support the decision process, aligning it with corporate goals reducing any impact of internal bias.

An increasing number of students are selecting for-profit universities to pursue their education (Snyder, Tan & Hoffman, 2006). Despite this trend, little empirical research attention has focused on these institutions, and the literature that exists has been classified as rudimentary in nature (Tierney & Hentschke, 2007). The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors that differentiated students who persisted beyond the first session at a for-profit university. A mixed methods research design consisting of three strands was utilized. Utilizing the College Student Inventory, student’s self-reported perceptions of what their college experience would be like was collected during strand 1. The second strand of the study utilized a survey design focusing on the beliefs that guided participants’ decisions to attend college. Discriminant analysis was utilized to determine what factors differentiated students who persisted from those who did not. A purposeful sample and semi-structured interview guide was used during the third strand. Data from this strand were analyzed thematically. Students’ self-reported dropout proneness, predicted academic difficulty, attitudes toward educators, sense of financial security, verbal confidence, gender and number of hours worked while enrolled in school differentiated students who persisted in their studies from those who dropped out. Several themes emerged from the interview data collected. Participants noted that financial concerns, how they would balance the demands of college with the demands of their lives, and a lack of knowledge about how colleges operate were barriers to persistence faced by students. College staff and faculty support were reported to be the most significant supports reported by those interviewed. Implications for future research studies and practice are included in this study.

Higher education in the United States has a long history. Until the mid-1970's, higher education was primarily a not-for-profit industry. The rise of for-profit educational institutions (FPEIs) in the United States has created competition for traditional not-for-profit educational institutions (NFPEIs). As the growth of FPEIs continues, educational organizations are adopting businesslike approaches and quality measures to retain students. Measuring student satisfaction is one method for determining service quality, and can provide valuable insight into the students' expectations and perceived service quality. The recent introduction of an FPEI's audio production program in the Central Texas region has created competition for an already established NFPEI. In an attempt to find out whether expectation, satisfaction, or service gap differences exist between the programs, student satisfaction feedback was solicited from audio production enrollees at both institutions via the Noel-Levitz® Student Satisfaction InventoryTM. The instrument was used as a comparative tool at the program level and included 10 additional audio-production items. To aid in understanding how the local programs compare to one another, results were compared between the programs as opposed to using the national institutional-level benchmarks provided by Noel-Levitz®. Results indicate similar expectations in terms of priorities, but students at the FPEI have higher expectation levels overall. The satisfaction priorities had similarities as well, but students at the FPEI reported lower satisfaction in general. Finally, service gap measures indicated greater service gaps at the FPEI than at the NFPEI.

Specifically, this dissertation explains the rise of the for-profit university in the United States. Generally, it explains the legitimation of a new (form of) organization in an institutional environment.In this dissertation I demonstrate that organizational legitimation is a process whereby a key audience serving as an institutional gatekeeper cognitively comprehends an applicant as a member of an existing category in the audience's classification system. When this process is problematic or contested, it consists of active negotiations between the audience and the applicant (and sometimes third parties) over how to apply or interpret the rules of classification.Using a case-study framework I selected seven cases from the history of the leading for-profit university, the University of Phoenix. These cases represented episodes of successful legitimation by the three key gatekeeping audiences in the postsecondary education environment. I assembled the documentary record for each of these cases and supplemented them with informant interviews. With this evidence I compiled a narrative for each episode which I then analyzed using comparative and historical methods.I found that audiences' classification systems varied according to their category configurations and their classification rules, and that these variations may affect how legitimation proceeds. I further found that audiences and applicants draw from their own tool kits of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral strategies. Finally, I found that legitimation may proceed according to one of several different temporal models.

Background: Non-for-profit organizations’ presence has increased worldwide during the last decades. This type of organizations develop their activities in a complex and dynamic environment. Furthermore, for non-for-profit organizations (NPO) the fit between strategy and environment is a key determinant of success. For NPOs, strategy practices and models need adaptation due to its key differences with for-profit organizations. Aim: Bring an understanding on what are the unique aspects of strategic planning in an NPO. Methodology: This paper involves a qualitative case study of a non-for-profit organization, LHC Ungdom, which is an ice-hockey club for the youth in the city of Linköping, Sweden. The study involved 10 semi-structured interviews with the organization’s full-time employees (management and administration) and volunteers (coaches and team managers). The interviews explored areas such as strategy, planning, mission, results measurement, communication and success. Findings: This study identifies the main and unique aspects of strategic planning in NPOs. Furthermore, by the addition of new lenses to strategic planning, such as the Stakeholder theory and the Agency Theory, it has led to develop a conceptual framework, which reflects the connections between the unique main aspects of strategic planning on NPOs, but also, highlights in which areas different stakeholders are relevant and how different relationship conflicts arise. Concepts: -Non-for-profit organization: Organizations having a distinct mandate to be good stewards of the resources they receive towards the pursuit of their mission. -Strategy: A plan of action designed to achieve a long-term or overall aim. -Strategic Planning: A systematic process of envisioning a desired future and translating this vision into broadly defined goals or objectives and a sequence of steps to achieve them.

This dissertation offers insight into the organizational lives of small and new not-for-profits. The first essay used three different estimation strategies to model the role of revenue type in the growth in young and small not-for-profits. We find that increases in the percentage of a not-for-profit’s revenue portfolio going to dues, indirect support, or non-mission income will suppress growth and that there is no “optimal” model across subsectors. The second essay uses over twenty years of panel data to predict which factors indicate the impending recovery of a financially vulnerable small and young nonprofit. Support for hypotheses based in the literature is mixed, but the key insight is that nonprofits need to save if they want to get healthy: bringing in revenues is not enough. Finally, the third essay uses a qualitative approach on young and new mental health not-for-profits in the state of New York. Using comparative case studies, this study analyzes the internal and external factors surrounding the demise of small and young mental health nonprofits. This study finds support for several of the potential causes of nonprofit demise in a newly proposed typology.

Directors in not-for-profit organizations are not only monitors who ensure that financial reports are free from misreporting but also often act as fundraisers. This paper examines the intensity of directors’ monitoring when management misallocates expenses to solicit donations; especially whether the directors’ oversight is influenced by the organization’s expense disclosure transparency and the donors’ evaluation focus. The results from two experiments indicate that directors play a monitoring role to not allow management’s expense misallocation. Further, the enhanced transparency of expense disclosures increases directors’ tendency not to endorse management’s expense misallocation. However, the donors’ adoption of a balanced evaluation process (i.e., considering both financial and nonfinancial performance metrics) reduces directors’ monitoring compared to the donors’ adoption of an expense-focused evaluation process (i.e., focusing solely on financial metrics). This effect of the donors’ adoption of a balanced evaluation process occurs when directors anticipate donors will not donate to the not-for-profit organization, but not when directors anticipate donors will donate. This paper contributes to a richer understanding of directors’ role in not-for-profit organizations’ expense misallocations. Implications for nonprofit governance are discussed. / Thesis (Ph.D, Management) -- Queen's University, 2011-08-29 14:29:22.41

ABSTRACT This thesis studies the background of the largest single farmer organisation in Australia and its role in influencing practice change. The study seeks to address a number of questions starting with: how did a small Western Australian farmer group reach national prominence over a relatively short period and become a major influence on agriculture in Australia? This research uses quantitative and qualitative methods and is informed by a constructionist philosophy. The research process involved five phases. Phase one consisted of examining the possibilities of the research and its value. It also addressed the research problem and questions. Phase two involved a survey of Kondinin Group members and negotiating with the Kondinin Group for access to its database. The survey was faxed to 1501 members in the northern region of Australia and the data from 272 responses was entered and reported. From this, the researcher could validate that the study had merit and the Kondinin Group was making a substantial difference to its members. Phase three revolved around a literature review to see what information was available on the Kondinin Group and other farm organisations. The study also examined how the group related to management and organizational theory, social trends and the body of work on extension and farmer capacity building. Phase four sought to further examine the organisation through interviews with key informants including people from the Kondinin Group and other farm organisations. Phase five of the research involved bringing information and data together to more comprehensively address the research questions and draw conclusions from the study. It also examined the challenges facing the Kondinin Group and lessons that can be drawn for other organisations along with identifying further research that may be worthwhile.

Microfinance for-profit organizations flooded the market in the early 2000's when microcredit demonstrated profitability. Ever since, an intense debate arose contesting the morality of profiting from the poor. Many for-profit micro finance institutions were accused of predatory lending through high interest rates and aggressive marketing and payment collection. In this paper, I examine the validity of the arguments for and against for-profits by extensively comparing the different target audiences of the charity sector and the private sector and the main arguments of each side. I conclude that, although the ability to serve the poor is compromised by profit motives, for-profit micro finance organizations are serving a different market - and a much needed one - than nonprofits. Therefore, for-profits serve a function that, as of right now, nonprofits are not able to.

The U.S. higher education market grew substantially between 2005 and 2015, with an increase in the number of programs offered of 13% and an increase in annual graduations of nearly 30%. Can government policy significantly impact student and college decisions? Does this market respond to occupation-specific growth? Are for-profit colleges more responsive to changes in demand? I shed light on these questions in this dissertation. In Chapter 1, I estimate the impact of federal oversight on enrollment and completions at for-profit colleges. For-profit colleges experienced a 33% enrollment decline between 2010 and 2015 following an increase in federal oversight. Did oversight cause this decline? I assess the causal effect of two policies on for-profit enrollment: a significant report on misleading for-profit recruiting, and threatened federal student aid sanctions on under-performing colleges. I use a difference-in-difference framework that exploits the differential exposure of a treatment group to each policy. For the report, treatment is based on the presence of a local alternative; for sanctions, it is based on a debt-to-income threshold. Both policies significantly contributed to the enrollment decline: The report caused a 45% enrollment decline over 5 years at for-profit colleges with a nearby alternative, while the threat of sanctions led to a 121% greater enrollment decline at for-profit colleges below the performance threshold. In Chapter 2, I estimate the causal response of graduations and programs offered to new licensing requirements. Using a difference-in-difference framework, I exploit state-level variation in new licensing statutes. I find that new licenses cause increases in both the number of graduations and programs offered in fields related to the licensed occupations. I further show that new licenses cause employment increases in college-level occupations and employment declines in low-education occupations. In Chapter 3, I estimate program entry and exit due to labor demand shocks across college sectors. I find that the number of public and private non-profit Bachelor's degree programs offered increases following an employment increase in related occupations. However, I find no evidence of a similar response in the for-profit sector.