Still hold aloft the banner of social change? Nonprofit advocacy in the wave of commercialization

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations worldwide are increasingly seeking commercial means of financing. Would commercialization compromise the civic functions of nonprofit organizations, especially their policy advocacy efforts for social change? In this article, we address this profound concern by examining policy advocacy by commercialized nonprofits in Singapore. Applying a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis approach in theory building, this study identifies multiple causal configurations of organizational and environmental conditions under which nonprofit organizations can still maintain a high level of advocacy activities in the wave of commercialization. The configurational theory that this study develops sheds new light on our understanding of the causal complexity underlying nonprofit advocacy and informs decision-making on how to uphold nonprofit civic functions in the commercializing context.

Points for practitioners

This study shows that the level of nonprofit participation in policy advocacy is caused by the conjunctural effect of multiple conditions. Therefore, to maintain a high level of civic-oriented functions in the worldwide wave of commercialization, nonprofit organizations should combine and align multiple environmental factors and organizational attributes into configurations to create the needed synergistic effects for active engagement in advocacy. In particular, incorporating high levels of collaboration between nonprofits, representation, board leadership, and service commitment into these causal configurations is the key mechanism that would enable commercialized nonprofits to still hold aloft the banner of social change through advocacy efforts.

Keywords

commercialization configurational approach fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis nonprofit advocacy Singapore

Introduction

Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) worldwide have been undergoing a remarkable transformation of commercialization (Maier et al., 2016; Weisbrod, 1998). Facing fiscal pressures, NPOs are increasingly seeking commercial means of financing, as reflected in the substantial increase of program service fees and sales income as a source of revenue. There are growing concerns about this overall trend. Some scholars warn that commercialization might put NPOs in heightened danger of losing touch with their citizen base (Salamon et al., 1999; Young et al., 2012).

Would commercialization compromise the civic-oriented functions of the nonprofit sector? In particular, would the increasing reliance on commercial income undermine policy advocacy, an essential civic function of NPOs? Little scholarly attention has been paid to answer these significant questions. This research aims to fill this gap by examining nonprofit advocacy activities in the context of NPO commercialization in Singapore. We follow a configurational approach in theory building to explain how configurations of various environmental conditions and organizational characteristics would enable NPOs to still maintain high advocacy efforts after commercialization. The configurational approach or qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is a set-theoretic method to identify causal pathways that lead to a specific outcome (Fiss, 2007; Misangyi et al., 2017; Ragin, 2008). In this research, we will use the QCA to capture multiple causal configurations contributing to a high level of nonprofit advocacy.

The rest of this article is organized as follows. The second section presents a brief background description of nonprofit commercialization in Singapore. The third section comprises a comprehensive literature review on nonprofit advocacy, with a special focus on the impact of commercialization on nonprofit civic functions, which informs our research propositions. The fourth section outlines the research methods and describes the calibration of raw data into fuzzy sets. The fifth section reports the results of the fuzzy-set analysis and discusses the implications. Finally, the sixth section concludes.

Nonprofit commercialization in Singapore

To meet increasing demands for social services, the Singapore government, ruled by the authoritarian People’s Action Party, started to loosen controls over the nonprofit sector in the 1990s. Consequently, the number of registered charities increased by more than 60% in the first 15 years of the 21st century. However, driven by a “self-reliance” mentality in social policy, the Singapore government adopted an entrepreneurial approach toward nonprofit development, exposing NPOs to the marketplace to become financially self-sustainable. Embracing the model of social enterprise, for example, the Singapore government set up a Social Enterprise Fund in 2003 and a Social Enterprise Committee in 2006 to encourage NPOs to engage in business activities as an alternative avenue of funding. Here, “social enterprise”, for the Singapore government, refers to a business model rather than an organizational form for NPOs to generate commercial revenue for financial sustainability. Commercial income has become an increasingly important source of revenue for Singapore NPOs. From 2008 to 2015, commercial revenues from the program and services rendered by NPOs doubled from 3.1 billion to 6.2 billion Singapore dollars (SGD) (Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth, 2017). In sum, Singapore offers a good example of nonprofit commercialization, and of how nonprofit civic functions, especially advocacy efforts, adapt in commercialized settings.

Literature review and propositions

Nonprofit advocacy

Nonprofit advocacy, defined as efforts by NPOs to influence government policies (Reid, 1999), is widely regarded as one of the quintessential civic functions of the nonprofit sector (Salamon, 2002). Prior literature usually applies two indicators—advocacy intensity and advocacy scope—to measure the levels of advocacy activities. Advocacy intensity is measured as the proportion of organizational resources spent on advocacy activities (Guo and Zhang, 2014; Zhang and Guo, 2012). Advocacy scope refers to the areas of advocacy activities, usually defined as advocacy tactics, which NPOs adopt to influence government policy (Guo and Saxton, 2010).

Mainly drawing upon resource dependency theory and institutional theory, prior research primarily focuses on environmental and organizational factors to explain nonprofit advocacy scope and intensity (Almog-Bar and Schmid, 2014). One major issue of interest is the association between the political or policy environment, including the government funding environment, and nonprofit advocacy. The arguments and findings are mixed. Operating in an adverse environment has been proposed as a primary motivator for nonprofit advocacy (Berry and Arons, 2003). However, political opportunity theory suggests that NPOs are more active in advocacy in favorable political environments (Meyer and Imig, 1993) due to perceptions of better chances of success, and of lower costs and risks associated with advocacy. Both arguments find support in empirical evidence. Nicholson-Crotty (2007), for instance, reports that NPOs are motivated to engage in advocacy when they perceive a high probability of success. Gormley and Cymrot (2006) find that political threats motivate nonprofit advocacy more than political opportunities. Some studies also point to a negative impact of government funding on advocacy (Bass et al., 2007); however, others find a positive association between government funding and advocacy (Berry and Arons, 2003; Zhang and Guo, 2012).

The other line of research focuses on the relationship between various organizational characteristics and advocacy. Resource mobilization theory (McCarthy and Zald, 1977; Salamon, 2002) suggests that organizational size matters as larger size allows more resources to be mobilized to support advocacy. Many studies do find a positive association between organizational size and advocacy (Bass et al., 2007; Child and Grønbjerg, 2007). By contrast, however, institutional theory suggests that when an organization grows, its own maintenance and enhancement needs may dominate organizational behavior (DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Consequently, the goals of organization maintenance and leaders’ concerns about career advancement could displace broad social change goals and democratic participation. Under this theory, larger NPOs are therefore less likely to engage in advocacy activities (Salamon, 2002).

The mixed and even conflicting theoretical arguments and empirical findings in the literature suggest that nonprofit advocacy tends to depend on alignment or even conflict among multiple interdependent environmental and organizational attributes. That is, the causality underlying nonprofit advocacy is complex. Viewed from a configurational perspective, this causal complexity is characterized by at least two features (Misangyi et al., 2017): (1) conjunctural causation, where nonprofit advocacy results from a configuration of multiple interdependent conditions rather than one single cause; and (2) equifinality, where several different causal configurations lead to the same specific outcome of nonprofit advocacy.

The impact of nonprofit commercialization

The burgeoning literature on nonprofit commercialization suggests that nonprofit advocacy is driven by multiple causes. Many scholars point to the negative impact of commercialization on nonprofit civic functions because, they argue, commercial and advocacy interests are often in conflict (Grønbjerg and Salamon, 2012; Young et al., 2012). Whether commercialization compromises nonprofit civic functions depends on how it interacts with other conditions. Using network theory, Backman and Smith (2000) argue that commercialization would only reduce nonprofit civic functions if it damaged the organization’s networking capacity. That is, when commercialization occurs in a less stable network of relations, reduced size, diversity, or the involvement of its governing board, as well as a reduced level of voluntary participation, then the conjunctural effect of these factors could undermine nonprofit civic functions. Eikenberry and Kluver (2004) also argue that after commercialization, if the mission of the NPOs to represent the public interest is distorted, or capacity with respect to service delivery and network building are weakened, then the organization’s civic function of creating and maintaining a strong civil society would be compromised. Some empirical studies extend indirect support to this networking or social capital argument. Kim (2016 ), for instance, finds that the network variety of nonprofit arts organizations is positively associated with their civic roles.

Frumkin (2002) argues that if commercialization is combined with reduced capacity, NPOs may find it more difficult to pursue missions involving social change. Reduced capacity is largely the result of a profound cultural change in the nonprofit workforce after commercialization as new generations of leaders are more driven by commercial considerations, and demand salaries on a par with those in the commercial sector in order to enter the nonprofit sector (Young et al., 2012).

Grønbjerg and Salamon (2012) argue that even though they are more market-like in operation, NPOs will not necessarily depart from their charitable mission and could still carry out their civic functions if governments invest to improve the capacity of NPOs and ensure a level playing field in order to allow NPOs to directly compete with for-profit firms. In other words, after commercialization, strong government support can help NPOs maintain their distinctive civic functions such as advocacy activities. Empirical findings on the positive association between nonprofit advocacy and government funding in the context of a favorable policy environment and political opportunity structure lend indirect support to this argument.

Research propositions

The literature reviewed earlier suggests that the configuration of commercialization with conditions such as high networking capacity and a favorable policy environment may enable NPOs to still actively engage in advocacy. The literature suggests nine conditions grouped into three categories as possible elements of causal configurations that allow NPOs to maintain a high level of advocacy in the context of increased commercialization: (1) environmental conditions, including policy, the environment, and political opportunity structure; (2) organizational resources and capacities, primarily referring to revenue resources and networking capacities, including collaboration and partnership; (3) organizational orientation and governance, containing service commitment, a voluntarism culture, representation, and board governance. Following the configurational approach of theory building (Fiss, 2007, 2011; Ragin, 2008), we propose that the configuration of these conditions together with commercialization can still maintain high nonprofit advocacy:

Proposition 1: After commercialization, the configuration of multiple environmental and organizational conditions can still enable NPOs to maintain a high level of advocacy.

The literature suggests that multiple causal configurations can produce the same outcome. That is, the same level of advocacy may follow from several equifinal causal configurations (Misangyi et al., 2017; Ragin, 2008). In contrast to conventional linear regression methods that estimate a single path—an optimal configuration toward an outcome—a configurational approach assumes multiple configurations to be equally effective in achieving the outcome (Fiss, 2007):

Proposition 2: After commercialization, there are equifinal configurations of environmental and organizational conditions that produce the same high level of advocacy.

To examine these two propositions, we apply the technique of fuzzy-set QCA (fsQCA), which allows for a detailed analysis of causal configurations for a specific outcome.

Research methods

Sample and data

Data for this study are from a random sample of 123 institutions of a public character (IPCs), the most established NPOs in Singapore. The data were collected in 2012 based on a mail survey sent to the executives of IPCs. A total of 400 IPCs were randomly selected for mailing. Completed questionnaires were returned by 125 (response rate: 31.25%); however, two responses were deleted due to serious missing data, leaving a final sample of 123 cases. Although the response rate is not high, sample representativeness is not an issue in fuzzy-set methods. As Fiss (2011) indicates, unlike linear regression methods, fsQCA does not rest on an assumption that data are drawn from a given probability distribution. It uses calibrated sets to measure the construct of causal conditions and outcomes, which further reduces sample dependence.

According to Singapore’s nonprofit regulatory regime, NPOs are categorized into six major sectors according to their charitable purpose: sports, community, arts & heritage, education, health, social & welfare, and religious. In the year of 2012 when this sample was drawn, the sector distribution was 2.9%, 4.1%, 5.3%, 5.2%, 5.9%, and 76.6%, respectively. Our sample sector distribution was slightly different, with 0%, 6%, 1%, 14%, 7%, and 72%, respectively, in each sector. On average, each IPC in this sample has an age of 37.16 years, hires 64.5 employees, and generates 40.6% of revenue from government funding.

Measures and calibration

Outcome measures and calibration

The primary outcomes of interest in this study are twofold: first, the scope of nonprofit advocacy; and, second, the intensity of nonprofit advocacy. Scope is measured as the number of advocacy tactics adopted by an NPO. Intensity is measured as the proportion of organizational resources spent on advocacy activities.

The fsQCA requires transforming all ratio and interval scale variables into fuzzy sets through calibration with three thresholds: full membership (fuzzy score = 0.95), full non-membership (fuzzy score = 0.05), and crossover point (fuzzy score = 0.5) (Fiss, 2011; Ragin, 2008). This research applies the current fsQCA software package (3.0), using transformations based on the log odds of full membership.

In light of the rules suggested by Fiss (2007), Ragin (2008), and Misangyi et al. (2017), calibration should be based on theoretical and substantive knowledge where possible. Hence, we calibrated high advocacy intensity by “benchmarking” that in the US, which arguably has active nonprofit advocacy. According to Guo and Saxton (2010), the average advocacy intensity is 9% for US charities. In the fuzzy set of IPCs with a high level of advocacy intensity, membership was therefore coded as fully in if an IPC showed an advocacy intensity of 20%, which is more than double the US average. In soft-authoritarian Singapore with a burgeoning nonprofit sector, this calibration is well justified. Without benchmarks for full non-membership and the crossover point, we used points from cumulative distribution to code membership, as Misangyi et al. (2017) suggested, using the 5th percentile and 50th percentile, or those closest to these two percentiles where available, for full non-membership and crossover point, respectively. Thus, an IPC with 0% of advocacy intensity (15th percentile in the sample) was coded as fully out. The crossover point chosen was 2% advocacy intensity (45th percentile).

Meanwhile, in the fuzzy set of IPCs with high advocacy scope, since there is no theory suggesting calibration thresholds, we also used points from the cumulative data distribution to code an IPC as fully in if it adopted seven advocacy tactics (94th percentile), and as fully out for zero tactics (41st percentile). The crossover point chosen was 1 advocacy tactic (54th percentile).

Independent measures and calibration

Two variables are used to assess the environmental conditions for nonprofit advocacy: policy environment and political opportunity structure. Policy environment is critical for nonprofits to sustain their democratic roles in the policymaking process (Grønbjerg and Salamon, 2012). The measure is based on a summative index of an organization’s response to five items asking whether policies became more relaxed or stricter in contract procurement, client eligibility, professional licensing, health and safety, and personnel regulation over the past three years.

Some literature refers to political opportunity structure as a stable institutional environment, which could facilitate the predictive calculation underlying social movements and political advocacy (Eisinger, 1973; Kitschetl, 1986). Yet, other literature emphasizes political changes characterized with uncertainty and complexity as important political opportunities (Meyer and Imig, 1993). Drawing upon these theories, the variable of political opportunity structure is derived from the organization’s response to four survey items on the stability, uncertainty, complexity, and unfavorability of political opportunity.

Three variables are used to measure organizational resources and capacities. The first, resource, captures revenue size. Following Singapore’s standards of revenue size, we coded membership as fully in for an IPC with more than 10 million SGD annual revenue and fully out for an IPC with less than 250,000 SGD. The crossover point was coded as at 5 million SGD.

The second and third measures of resources and capacities—collaboration and partnership—are included to gauge nonprofit network-building capacities. Collaboration is derived from responses to a survey question asking “In the past three years, did your organization participate in collaborations, alliances and integration with other nonprofit organizations? Please review the following activities and check all that apply to your organization.” Eight types of activities are listed: information sharing, referral of clients, sharing of office space, joint program, management service organization, parent subsidiary, joint venture, and merger. Thus, collaboration is a summary variable that counts the scope of collaboration activities that an NPO engages in with other NPOs. Partnership is derived from responses to the statement: “My organization relies upon partnerships with others in order to accomplish organizational mission and goals.” This is rated on a scale scored from 1 (“strongly disagree”) to 5 (“strongly agree”). This item assesses the general capacity of an NPO to engage in network building with a variety of partners.

Four variables are used to measure organizational orientation and governance. The first—service commitment—is based on responses to the survey question “How have demands for your organization’s services or programs changed over the last three years?” This is rated on a scale from 1 (“decreased significantly”) to 5 (“increased significantly”). Eikenberry and Kluver (2004) document several studies contending that commercialization may shift NPOs’ commitment from serving the poor to serving those able to pay, which, in turn, is detrimental to nonprofit advocacy. Therefore, the change of demands is a good proxy measure for assessing an organization’s shift in service commitment.

The second measure—voluntarism culture—is based on the share of work in the NPO that was done by volunteers. Both Frumkin (2002) and Young et al. (2012) highlight the damaging impact of the commercialism culture on nonprofit civic functions. By contrast, a voluntarism culture is more prevalent in NPOs with stronger civic functions, including advocacy (Salamon, 2012).

The third measure—representation—is included to assess how effectively NPOs represent the interests of their constituents. Representation is particularly important for nonprofit advocacy (Guo and Zhang, 2013). This measure is based on a summative index of the organization’s responses to seven representation-communication items, including the adequacy of communication with constituents, feedback from constituents in determining their needs, program design, decision-making, and so on.

The fourth measure—board governance—is used to assess the strength of the board relative to the chief executive. Prescriptive research argues that the superordinate position of the board over the chief executive in governance is critical for the democratic functioning of NPOs in society (Axelrod, 1994). This is supported with empirical evidence (Guo, 2007). The measure of board governance is therefore based on the organization’s responses to survey questions regarding relations between the board and the chief executive. Membership in the set of board-dominant governance was coded as fully in if the organization’s board plays a central role in governance and as fully out if the chief executive is most influential. The crossover point chosen was that both the board and chief executive share power in governance. Lastly, commercialization is measured by the share of commercial income in total revenue.

The calibration of all independent variables is either based on points of cumulative distribution or scale. All measurements, detailed calibration methods, and anchors are summarized in Table 1.

Table 1.

Measurement and calibration.

Type	Variable	Measurement	Calibration method	Calibration anchors			Obs	Mean	SD
Type	Variable	Measurement	Calibration method	Fully in (.95)	Crossover (.5)	Fully out (.05)	Obs	Mean	SD
Outcome	Advocacy scope	Number of tactics employed	Cumulative distribution	7 (94th)*	1 (54th)	0 (41st)	123	2.20	2.65
Outcome	Advocacy intensity	Proportion of resources spent in advocacy	Benchmark US average	0.20	0.02	0	123	0.08	0.12
Environment	Policy environment	Summative index of policy environment	Cumulative distribution	1.90 (95th)	.29 (51st)	–2.78 (10th)	123	0	1.45
Environment	Political opportunity structure	Summative index of political opportunity structure	Cumulative distribution	2.22 (95th)	0 (50th)	–2.47 (5th)	123	0	1.28
Capacity and resource	Resource	Amount of annual revenue	Singapore standards	10 m	5 m	250 k	123	5.0 m	8.30 m
	Collaboration	Number of collaboration activities	Cumulative distribution	3 (94th)	1 (35th)	0 (6th)	123	1.96	1.00
	Partnership	Scale of partnership	Scale	5	3	1	123	3.50	1.15
Governance and orientation	Service commitment	Scale of service demands changed	Scale	5	3	1	123	3.89	.78
	Voluntarism culture	Proportion of work done by volunteers	Cumulative distribution	0.7 (94th)	0.15 (51st)	0 (8th)	123	0.24	0.24
	Representation	Summative index of representation	Cumulative distribution	3.39 (95th)	0.34 (50th)	–3.88 (6th)	123	0	2.26
	Board governance	Scale of board governance	Scale	3	2	0	123	2.02	0.81
Commercialization	Commercialization	Percentage of commercial income in total revenue	Cumulative distribution	.88 (95th)	.22 (50th)	0 (10th)	123	0.29	0.28

Note: * All ordinal numbers in brackets are the percentiles when points from the cumulative data distribution are used as calibration thresholds.

Results and discussion

We followed the notation suggested by Ragin and Fiss (2008) to present the solution tables, in which black circles (•) indicate the presence of a condition, and circles with a cross (⨂) indicate its absence. A blank space indicates that the condition may either be present or absent; it is a “don’t care” situation. We only reported the intermediate solutions because they have stronger empirical plausibility, which is of greatest interest (Ragin, 2008). In the intermediate solutions, we particularly specified the condition of “commercialization” to be present because of our research interest. Solutions are grouped by different configurations of environmental conditions: the absence or presence of a favorable policy environment and political opportunity structure. Two measures of model fit—consistency and coverage—were reported. Consistency measures how closely a perfect subset relation is approximated and coverage indicates the degree to which the configuration solutions explain instances of an outcome (Ragin, 2008). The fsQCA analysis results in both solutions of scope and intensity showing acceptable consistency (≥.80).

Nonprofit advocacy scope

Table 2 shows the results of the fsQCA of high advocacy scope in commercialized IPCs. Solution 1 indicates that when a relaxed policy environment and a high political opportunity structure are present, strong networking capacities (including high collaboration and high partnership) together with strong governance practices (including high representation and board dominance) are sufficient for commercialized NPOs to maintain a high advocacy scope, despite the absence of rich resources, a strong commitment to service, and a voluntarism culture.

Table 2.

Configurations for maintaining a high level of advocacy scope.

Configuration	Solution
Configuration	1	2a	2b
Environment
Policy environment	•	⨂	⨂
Political opportunity structure	•	⨂	⨂
Resources and capacities
Resource	⨂	⨂	•
Collaboration	•	•	•
Partnership	•	⨂	⨂
Orientation and governance
Service commitment	⨂	•	•
Voluntarism culture	⨂	•	⨂
Representation	•	•	•
Board governance	•	•	•
Commercialization
Commercialization	•	•	•
Consistency	0.88	0.87	0.85
Raw coverage	0.15	0.13	0.12
Unique coverage	0.06	0.04	0.03
Overall solution consistency	0.82
Overall solution coverage	0.23

Notes: A black circle (•) indicates the presence of a condition, and a circle with a cross (⨂) indicates its absence. Blank space indicates “don’t care.”

Solutions 2a and 2b indicate other pathways to a high advocacy scope when both a relaxed policy environment and a high political opportunity structure are absent. Solution 2a indicates that within such a seemly unfavorable environment, a very strong organizational orientation and governance (including strong service commitment, a voluntarism culture, high representation, and board-dominant governance) combined with high collaboration are sufficient to maintain a high advocacy scope, regardless of the absence of rich resource and high partnership. Solution 2b shows that when both rich resources and high collaboration are present, this is sufficient to maintain a high advocacy scope when combined with a slightly reduced organizational orientation and governance with only three conditions (strong service commitment, high representation, and board-dominant governance).

Comparing solutions 2a and 2b indicates that there are trade-offs between rich resources and a voluntarism culture; they can actually be treated as substitutes. Specifically, with other conditions remaining the same, solution 2a indicates that a voluntarism culture allows for a high advocacy scope when rich resources are absent. In contrast, solution 2b shows that when a voluntarism culture is absent, the presence of rich resources would allow a high advocacy scope.

Nonprofit advocacy intensity

Table 3 shows the results of the fsQCA of high nonprofit advocacy intensity. Solutions 1a and 1b indicate causal pathways toward high advocacy intensity when both a relaxed policy environment and a high political opportunity structure are absent. Solution 1a shows that within such an environment, rich resources and high collaboration, combined with strong service commitment and high representation, are sufficient for high advocacy intensity, despite the absence of high partnership, a voluntarism culture, and board-dominant governance. Solution 1b indicates that when only one condition in the category of resources and capacities, namely, high collaboration, is present, it requires all four conditions in the category of orientation and governance to be present for high advocacy intensity.

Table 3.

Configurations for maintaining a high level of advocacy intensity.

Configuration	Solution
Configuration	1a	1b	2	3	4a	4b
Environment
Policy environment	⨂	⨂		⨂	•	•
Political opportunity structure	⨂	⨂	⨂	•	•	•
Resources and capacities
Resource	•	⨂	⨂	⨂	⨂
Collaboration	•	•	•	•	•	⨂
Partnership	⨂	⨂	•	•	•	⨂
Orientation and governance
Service commitment	•	•	•	•	⨂	•
Voluntarism culture	⨂	•	⨂		⨂	•
Representation	•	•		⨂	•	⨂
Board governance	⨂	•	•	⨂	•	⨂
Commercialization
Commercialization	•	•	•	•	•	•
Consistency	0.90	0.97	0.89	0.88	0.97	0.90
Raw coverage	0.11	0.13	0.20	0.16	0.14	0.11
Unique coverage	0.02	0.02	0.02	0.01	0.02	0.01
Overall solution consistency	0.83
Overall solution coverage	0.48

Notes: A black circle (•) indicates the presence of a condition, and a circle with a cross (⨂) indicates its absence. Blank space indicates “don’t care.”

Solution 2 shows that the causal configuration allows more environment and governance options, as indicated by the blank spaces of “policy environment” and “representation,” which denote a “don’t care” situation for that configuration. In this situation, high collaboration and partnership, combined with strong service commitment and board-dominant governance, are sufficient for high advocacy intensity, regardless of the absence of rich resources and a voluntarism culture.

Solution 3 indicates another configuration toward high advocacy intensity where a relaxed policy environment is absent but a high political opportunity structure is present. In such an environment, high collaboration and high partnership, together with strong service commitment, are sufficient for high advocacy intensity, despite the absence of rich resources, high representation, and board-dominant governance. This causal configuration also allows more voluntarism culture options, as indicated by its “don’t care” situation.

Solutions 4a and 4b indicate additional important pathways for high advocacy intensity where both a relaxed policy environment and a high political opportunity structure are present. Solution 4a indicates that high collaboration and partnership, as well as high representation and board dominance, are sufficient to maintain high advocacy intensity, despite the absence of rich resources, strong service commitment, and a voluntarism culture. Solution 4b allows more resource options, indicating that when high collaboration and high partnership, as well as high representation and board-dominant governance, are all absent, namely, being weak in capacities and governance, strong service commitment and voluntarism would still maintain high advocacy intensity in a supportive environment.

In sum, the overall consistency scores in both scope and intensity models clearly indicate a set-theoretic relationship. All solutions demonstrate conjunctural causations of environmental and organizational conditions together with commercialization toward high advocacy. Hence, proposition 1 is supported. Moreover, we identified multiple configurational pathways for maintaining the same high level of advocacy scope and intensity, indicating an equifinality of solutions. Proposition 2 is therefore supported as well.

To synthesize, the fsQCA analysis suggests that two pairs of solutions can achieve both high advocacy scope and intensity, namely, solution 2a for high scope and solution 1b for high intensity, as well as solution 1 for high scope and solution 4a for high intensity. Second, in most causal configurations, the high level of resources is simply absent, suggesting that rich resources do not combine with other conditions for high advocacy. It confirms the explanation from institutional theory that large NPOs tend to displace their social mission with their own needs. Third, a favorable policy environment and a high political opportunity structure are absent in the majority of causal configurations, indicating that a challenging environment entails greater nonprofit advocacy.

Finally, we conducted sensitivity analysis using alternative specifications of causal conditions to check the robustness of the calibrations described in the methods section. For some conditions such as collaboration and service commitment, we changed to use upper and lower quintiles as thresholds for full membership and full non-membership. For other conditions like commercialization, instead of using cumulative distributions in the calibration, we used substantive knowledge to calibrate the fuzzy set, coding membership in the fuzzy set of commercialized IPCs as fully in if commercial income exceeds 50% of total revenue. This analysis does not indicate any change to the configurational solutions for high advocacy scope. Although minor changes are observed in the configurational pathways to high advocacy intensity, the interpretation of the results remains basically unchanged.

One more possible sensitivity test is to compare the results of fsQCAs with results of traditional linear regression analyses, which has increasingly been adopted for large-N QCA applications (Fiss, 2011; Misangyi et al., 2017). In the present study, the sample size is not large enough to produce a sufficient number of cases in each causal configuration for meaningful statistical testing. Furthermore, due to our research questions of interest, we purposively specified commercialization to be present in the intermediate solutions. In fact, after removing this specification, we also identified additional causal configurations leading to high nonprofit advocacy, which may inform the other side of the story about nonprofit advocacy and require more interpretation.

Conclusion

Despite the limitations, this study developed a configurational theory explaining the conditions under which commercialized NPOs would still uphold their civic functions to pursue social change. The results of the fsQCAs clearly demonstrated that after commercialization, there are equifinal configurations of environmental and organizational conditions that enable NPOs to continue active participation in policy advocacy. Linking resource dependency theory, institutional theory, and conflict theory while, at the same time, overcoming their limitations, this study has thus contributed to the ongoing debate concerning the possible impact of commercialization on the nonprofit sector, adding a fresh theoretical perspective and a novel methodology for understanding the causal complexity underlying nonprofit policy advocacy in a commercializing context.

Supporters of nonprofit commercialization primarily resort to resource dependency theory or institutional theory to defend the effect of commercialization on nonprofit civic functions. Arguments derived from resource dependency theory stress that commercialization brings about resource self-sufficiency for NPOs to sustain mission-related political activities in hostile environments (Dees and Anderson, 2003), while views based on institutional theory emphasize that the strengthening of autonomy through commercialization empowers nonprofits to more independently define and seek social change (Vaceková et al., 2016). However, centering justifications of commercialization on self-sustainability or self-determination overlooks a fact that increased resources or enhanced autonomy alone may not translate into civic-oriented efforts by NPOs. This study shows that, for example, in most configurational solutions toward high advocacy, rich resources as a causal condition are absent. That is, in most cases, rich resources play no role in the causal pathways towards high levels of advocacy activities.

Drawing upon conflict theory, critics of commercialization highlight its incompatibility with the distinctive values that NPOs hold (Eikenberry and Kluver, 2004; Weisbrod, 1998). They caution that commercialization would potentially result in mission drift, lower-quality services, a decline in advocacy, and the loss of social capital, undermining the unique contributions of NPOs to society. Nevertheless, little empirical data are available to confirm these concerns (Dees and Anderson, 2003). Moreover, located in the contested arena of the state and the market in the first place, the nonprofit sector always has a contradictory function, with an inherent tension between financial imperatives and social mission (Sanders, 2012). In other words, commercialization and social mission, though in conflict, may not necessarily cancel each other out to void nonprofit civic functions. In fact, the key theme of the configurational perspective is that the alignment or conflict of multiple attributes may lead to unexpected outcomes (Misangyi et al., 2017). Indeed, as demonstrated in the causal configurations toward high advocacy, for example, both solution 1 for high scope and solution 4a for high intensity show that when high commercialization is present, high service commitment and a voluntarism culture are absent, as critics warned. Yet, in spite of this, when combined with other environmental and organizational characteristics, commercialized nonprofits can still maintain a high level of advocacy activities.

The fundamental value of this configurational theory, with conjunctural and equifinal causations as its basic building blocks, lies in its power to account for causal complexity toward active advocacy behaviors by commercialized NPOs. Complementing resource dependency theory, institutional theory, and conflict theory, this configurational theory reveals that the prior theoretical explanations may be too generalizing to argue for or against commercialization from the standpoint of nonprofit civic functions. Essentially, it is the constellation of multiple environmental and organizational attributes, rather than the net effect of independent factors of either resources or autonomy, interacting with even seemingly conflicting commercialization that maintains NPOs’ active engagement in mission-related advocacy activities. In addition, this theory further allows the derivation of basic mechanisms that enable NPOs to hold aloft the banner of social change in the wave of commercialization.

Specifically, collaboration and good governance practices, especially high representation and board leadership, are present across all causal configurations for high advocacy scope. This finding extends previous studies focusing on collaboration (Bass et al., 2007) or representation (Berry and Arons, 2003) in explaining nonprofit advocacy, highlighting the combinatory effect of collaboration and governance as key mechanisms motivating NPOs to explore a wide range of tactics in advocacy. Similarly, collaboration and service commitment are present across most of the causal configurations for high advocacy intensity, suggesting that a service commitment for those in need and networking with other nonprofits are crucial for NPOs to dedicate more in advocating social change. It thus furthers prior arguments emphasizing the importance of responsiveness to demands in influencing nonprofit advocacy (Salamon, 1993). Most importantly, a core mechanism that emerges from this study is the collaboration between nonprofits. In the profound transformation of social welfare and care toward devolution, privatization, competition, and marketization (Lee, 2012), this current research finds that nonprofit commercialization and collaboration are concomitants as thesis and antithesis—when commercialization is present, so is collaboration. In other words, accompanying the wave of commercialization is the increased collaboration that provides needed resources, coalitions, capabilities, and knowledge for NPOs to uphold their civic functions, balancing the possibly destructive shock of the market with the unique values and contributions inherent in the nonprofit sector.

The theoretical significance also points to substantial practical implications for NPO leaders and policymakers. It demonstrates that to maintain active nonprofit advocacy, the conjunctural effect of multiple environmental and organizational conditions is the solution. After commercialization, therefore, for NPO leaders committed to civic functions, they must adopt a holistic approach to combine and arrange multiple conditions to fulfill that commitment. Particularly, in order to achieve high advocacy scope, the combination of high collaboration and good governance, together with other conditions, is critical. For high advocacy intensity, the key is to integrate high collaboration and high service commitment with others. The equifinal results imply that NPOs have multiple pathways toward high advocacy, leaving room for choice according to specific situations. The substitution effects identified further suggest one more avenue toward high advocacy: an organization’s weakest link (the absence of certain conditions) in the causal configuration can be substituted with another existing strength. For policymakers, our study suggests that the capacities of NPOs, especially their collaboration ability, are more important mechanisms than a favorable policy environment in encouraging them to stay politically active. Government investment and policies facilitating strong networking capacities and sound governance should therefore be the focus of nonprofit regulation to sustain the charitable and civic nature of NPOs.

NPO commercialization has become a prevailing global trend. How to maintain the distinctiveness of the nonprofit sector in such a new setting remains a challenge. Based on the Singapore experience, this study offers a convincing answer from a configurational perspective for NPOs to continue their active pursuit of social change. It directs research and managerial attention in other countries to develop their own context-dependent causal configurations toward high nonprofit civic functions in this commercializing era.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

We thank Gerry Redmond and Cassandra Star at Flinders University for their invaluable inputs and suggestions throughout the entire process of this study. Gerry even painstakingly helped edit the whole manuscript. We also thank three anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Zhibin Zhang

Zhibin Zhang is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Public Administration at the College of Business, Government and Law at Flinders University, Australia. His research focuses on government and nonprofit relations. Specifically, his research investigates nonprofit advocacy and nonprofit organizational behavior in authoritarian settings.

Chao Guo is an Associate Professor at the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, USA, and Editor-in-Chief of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. His research interests focus on the intersection between nonprofit and voluntary action and government. More specifically, he conducts research on the contributions of nonprofit organizations to democratic governance, collaboration within and across sectors, social entrepreneurship, and the role and effects of new media on nonprofit organizations.

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