Most economic analyses, in line with received opinion, assume that nonprofit organisations are intrinsically different from private (for-profit) or public organisations. A substantial proportion of the literature has sought to characterise these differences. Nevertheless, a smaller number of studies champion the idea that there are factors that may influence the behaviour of nonprofit organisations and cause them to lose their specificity. The aim of our paper is empirically to assess the impact of these factors. Our analysis differs from existing studies in three ways: (1) we seek to measure the influence of all these factors and not that of one of them considered in isolation, as is generally the case; (2) we do so by analysing an original database rather than drawing on case studies as much existing research does; and (3) we base it on an investigation of a key sector in knowledge-based economies—namely, the continuing training sector.
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