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Although the non-profit marketization literature argues that governments’ performance-based accountability demands can hinder non-profit organizational performance, rational planning literature suggests a more positive yet indirect impact. To unravel the mechanisms at play for those steering their organization, we investigate (1) if performance-based accountability can alter how non-profit directors’ perceive organizational performance and (2) if such relationship is mediated by rational planning inspired practices. Results from structural equation modelling on two-wave survey data among 297 non-profit directors in Flemish non-profits confirm that management tool use and performance measurement are central in explaining how performance-based accountability impacts subjective performance.

Background: This paper presents the findings from a qualitative research project that explored what ten people with intellectual disabilities who receive care and support in a residential care faci...

The care for disabled people in Flanders is currently undergoing a major social policy reform under the introduction of a personal budget scheme. Disability services in Flanders are explicitly expe...

Resource competition is assumed to encourage commercial behaviour by publically funded non-profit organizations (NPOs). However, this widespread assumption falls short as empirical findings remain ...

Personal budget schemes for people with disabilities are imbued with a conception of autonomous and rational individuals. The policy objective to enlarge people’s opportunities conflicts with the p...

Neo-corporatist relations consist of a stabilized institutional exchange between government, civil society and other social spheres. Current research suggests a destabilization of this relationship...

In their recent systematic review of co-production and co-creation in this journal, Voorberg, Bekkers, and Tummers (2015) called co-creation a ‘magic concept’, to justify both its extraordinarily i...

This article explores how social workers deal with the ambiguity that arises from their ability to transform the private needs of individuals into issues of public concern. It is argued that the current shift towards joined-up working, which is epitomized by the creation of interorganizational networks, could encourage new opportunities for social work. These horizontal and nonhierarchical forms of cooperation serve as platforms for debate to ensure regular discussions about the causes of and potential solutions to complex societal problems. This article relies on a case-study of bottom-up networks in two Belgian cities where social workers from various policy fields voluntarily joined forces to look after hard-to-reach groups of homeless people. The primary data were obtained from document analysis, semi-structured interviews with network participants, and direct observations of network meetings. These data were analyzed by conducting a directed content analysis. The examination shows that the jo...

We test a typology of public–private partnerships by using survey data on the relationship between non-profit organizations (NPOs) and Flemish local governments. We found that quite strong relations occur, but this is not a uniform picture: although most NPOs are not financially dependent on local government, there is a variation in NPO–local government contacts. We observe that NPOs active in poverty fighting, or in integration of ethnic minorities, build stronger relations, compared to NPOs in elderly care or youth care. Our analysis allows to refine the original typology by adding intermediate positions on the initial dichotomous scales of ‘dependence’ and ‘nearness’.

Faced with an increasingly challenging environment, nonprofit organizations (NPOs) must behave innovatively and act in a result- or performance-oriented manner. In this article, we explore the extent to which NPOs behave innovatively (in their management and service delivery), and the factors that determine this innovative behaviour. We conducted our research in the main subsectors of the Flemish nonprofit sector (education, welfare, health and the socio-cultural sector). The results presented here are based on a survey of 170 NPO managers. We found that the organizations within our sample claim that innovations occur to a fairly large extent. We have, however, discovered differences in innovative behaviour between subsectors. In addition, we found that there are many forces at work when trying to explain innovative behaviour in NPOs and different forms of innovative behaviour also seem to have different explanations.

This article aims at contributing to the study of arm's length agencies by focusing on what are considered to be core concepts of agencification: autonomy and control of public agencies. The balance between autonomy and control is studied for a set of Flemish public agencies, from three angles: (1) To what extent can we observe the practitioner model of disaggregation, managerial freedom and results based control in Flanders?; (2) Which autonomy-control balances do we find empirically? Departing from two extreme cases – control loss and false autonomy – I conclude that there is a lot of variation amongst Flemish public agencies as to their autonomy-control balances; and (3) Based on a third set of empirical conclusions, I try to broaden the normative discussion on the accountability debate that surrounds arm's length agencies, by proposing a broader concept of steering and control. I conclude the article by proposing four directions for future research on this specific topic of agency research.

Local government plays a central but altering role in local governance. Together with the shift from a night-watchman state to a welfare state, the models of governance provision changed. Government itself became larger and more scattered throughout the local community. Moreover, government was no longer the only governance provider. Many actors were involved in governance with a diversity of steering relations. In our time, governance continues to change. What are the emerging models of local governance today? After sorting out some terminological and methodological issues, we describe four emerging ideal-type models (i.e. the holding model, the autonomous networks model, the implementation model and the reintegration model), based on four societal scenarios (i.e. triumphant markets, hundred flowers, creative societies and turbulent neighbourhoods). The models represent four possible local governance futures. Next, the models are applied on two management issues: organizational structure and financial management. Finally, some embryonic evidence is given on the emergence of the models.