Loss or Gain? Unpacking Nonprofit Autonomy-Interdependence Paradox in Collaborations

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations interested in collaborating with other entities find it difficult to strike a balance between keeping their autonomy and reaping the benefits from collaborating with other organizations. Although interorganizational collaborations come with various benefits, such as reducing competition over limited resources, participating in collaborative relationships can also damage the autonomy of individual nonprofits. Using an original survey of 275 nonprofits, we examine how various dimensions of collaborative relationships affect an individual nonprofit’s autonomy. Our findings suggest that having highly specified administrative arrangements and stronger trust as well as reciprocity among partner organizations serve as critical factors to secure the autonomy of individual organizations. We also find that nonprofit organizations engaged in mostly informal relationships and in partnerships across sectors feel less threatened about maintaining their autonomy. Our post hoc analysis further suggests that organizational autonomy is a significant antecedent for seeking more collaborations. To this end, we discuss how nonprofits can keep their organizational autonomy without giving up collaborating with other entities by strategically managing several aspects of the collaborative relationships.

Keywords

cross-sector collaboration organizational autonomy trust reciprocity

Introduction

A large volume of public and nonprofit literature has celebrated the benefits of interorganizational collaborations. Namely, collaborations benefit organizations by expanding access to more resources, building reliable networks for long-term endeavors, and reducing competition over limited resources (AbouAssi & Jo, 2017; O’Leary & Vij, 2012; Suárez & Esparza, 2017). However, there could be unintended negative consequences from collaborations depending on how the relationships evolve, especially when participating nonprofits have to compromise their autonomy while collaborating with other institutions (Gazley, 2010). Conflicts between a participating organizations’ own interest and the collective interest that collaborating organizations share as well as different levels of power among participating organizations can infringe upon an individual nonprofit’s autonomy. Organizational autonomy is critical for nonprofits in terms of an organization’s ability to achieve its mission. Although yielding to external control may bring in more resources that enhance organizational capacity and efficiency, losing autonomy will restrict nonprofits’ capacity to survive in the environment with uncertainties. In particular, a nonprofit keeping its autonomy also creates important normative value for the civil society. As such, prior studies discussed the risk of infringement on organizational autonomy when nonprofits collaborate with other organizations (Gazley & Brudney, 2007; Guo & Acar, 2005). Still, there is little understanding of why and how nonprofits simultaneously experience the benefits and risks of collaboration.

Nonprofit literature based on the resource dependency theory suggests that one possible solution for nonprofits to sustain organizational autonomy is to diversify resource channels by establishing multiple interorganizational connections (Khieng & Dahles, 2015; Mitchell, 2014a). Drees and Heugens’ (2013) meta-analysis shows that forming interorganizational relations, such as alliances or joint ventures, helps organizations sustain stronger organizational autonomy. Even though collaborating with other institutions can benefit nonprofits by expanding their service capacity and reducing their dependency on single or few resource providers, doing so means being part of multiple relationships that could compromise an organization’s autonomy. In other words, nonprofits could face a dilemma in which they initiate collaborations with other entities to reduce the influence of external resource providers and end up compromising their overall autonomy because one or more of the collaborative relationships limit their individual decision-making power. As such, the potential benefits of keeping one’s autonomy and the threats of autonomy infringement can make it challenging for nonprofits to decide whether to be a part of collaborations and navigate through dynamic relationships. Public management studies have reported that one of the fundamental challenges for public managers engaged in collaborations is how to balance organizational autonomy (O’Leary & Vij, 2012). Yet, this dilemma has not been fully explored in the nonprofit context. As such, we explore how interorganizational collaborations influence organizational autonomy by dissecting the multidimensional aspects of the collaborative process as well as the characteristics of collaboration.

In this study, we define nonprofit organizational autonomy as follows: how nonprofit leaders perceive the extent to which their organizations can make decisions and act based on organizations’ own interest. Given the theoretical expectation that the level of a nonprofit’s autonomy may both improve and decline while engaged in collaborations, we argue that the net outcome of organizational autonomy comprises of autonomy enhancement due to the diversification of resource dependence minus infringement due to the conflicting managerial practice during the collaborative process. To be more specific, we examine a theoretical framework for collaborations in which the enhancement and infringement of autonomy are a function of (a) dimensions of collaborative processes, including governance, administration, mutuality, and norm, through which partner organizations work toward a shared interest through negotiation, joint decision-making, and collective implementation (Thomson et al., 2007; Thomson & Perry, 2006); and (b) the characteristics of collaborative relationships an organization has in general such as the number and type of collaborations. Including both sets of variables allows us to capture the dynamic influence that collaborating with other entities brings to a nonprofit’s autonomy. We focus on both the collaborative process and characteristics of collaborative relationship because the former allows us to understand the effect of collaboration from a managerial perspective while the latter helps us understand its effect from an institutional perspective. Our study draws data from the results of an original survey of U.S. nonprofits combined with the corresponding organizations’ Form 990 tax returns.

In the next section, we discuss previous studies on interorganizational collaboration and organizational autonomy in the nonprofit context. Then, building on the previous literature about collaborations and resource dependence theory, we develop a theoretical framework that help explain how a nonprofit’s autonomy creates different relationships with each dimension of the collaborative processes. The empirical methods and findings are presented next. We conclude by discussing the implications for nonprofit scholars and practitioners.

Theoretical Framework

Benefits of Interorganizational Collaboration

A large volume of public and nonprofit management literature has celebrated the benefits of interorganizational collaborations, such as sharing organizational resources, knowledge, and expertise as well as building reliable networks for long-term endeavors (Jang et al., 2016). Organizations that participate in collaborations can expand resources in addition to improving service quality, organizational legitimacy, and professionalism (AbouAssi & Jo, 2017; Kim & Peng, 2018; Sowa, 2009). Collaborations also benefit the entire sector since they attenuate the competition over limited resources, reduce transaction costs among organizations, and create synergies to achieve common goals (Williamson, 2002). However, interorganizational collaborations also create tension between the self-interests of individual organizations and the collective interest of participating organizations (Huxham, 1993; Malatesta & Smith, 2014; Thomson & Perry, 2006; Wood & Gray, 1991). For nonprofits, such tension could be exacerbated due to their need to rely on external resource providers and their limited self-sustainable capacity (Froelich, 1999).

Organizational Autonomy

There have been multiple ways to define or operationalize organizational autonomy with no consensus on such a definition thus far. Oliver (1991) defined organizational autonomy as “[the] freedom to make its own decisions about the use and allocation of its internal resources without reference or regard to the demands or expectations of potential linkage partners” (p. 944–945). Verhoest et al. (2004), on the contrary, emphasized the multiple dimensions of organizational autonomy and defined it as “the level of decision-making competencies of the agency” and “the exemption of constraints on the actual use of decision-making competencies of the agency” (p. 104). Toepler (2010) defined the organizational autonomy of nonprofits as a mixture of financial autonomy, mission autonomy, and program autonomy. Taken all together, the current literature suggests that the level of organizational autonomy influences organizational leaders’ decision-making process which determines how the organization behaves. Therefore, in this study, we focus on nonprofit leaders’ perceived organization autonomy.

Despite the differences in definition, previous studies generally agree on the value of organizational autonomy for public and nonprofit organizations. First, for nonprofit organizations, organizational autonomy has not only practical value but also normative value. For the nonprofit sector, which has been built on voluntary associations, maintaining organizational autonomy means that nonprofits can continue to serve as a foundation for American democracy (de Tocqueville, 1835). Maintaining organizational autonomy allows nonprofits to set an important boundary for the civil society, even if they might yield some controls to external resource providers (Moore, 2000). Furthermore, nonprofits may not be able to fully represent the interest of the people they serve if they lose organizational autonomy (Chavesc et al., 2004).

Early theoretical discussions on the instrumental value of nonprofits’ organizational autonomy, such as agency theory and property right theory, highlight its benefits in “the sense of specialization and the consequent superior performance (economy, efficiency, and effectiveness)” (Verhoest et al., 2004, p. 102). Furthermore, nonprofits “must guard against becoming passive vessels for the accomplishment of neutral public purposes. They must find ways to attract funds while guarding their charitable missions simultaneously” (Frumkin, 2002, p. 77).

From a managerial perspective, losing organizational autonomy means facing uncertainties in decision-making processes, which then threatens organizational effectiveness (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003). The infringement of organizational autonomy can result in organizational goal displacement, causing nonprofits to retreat from their stated mission (Knutsen, 2017). For nonprofits, organizational autonomy is neither absolute nor static. Nonprofits need to be accountable to their stakeholders, and their autonomy can vary in response to different forces and potential controls in the environment. Thus, nonprofit managers should carefully consider how autonomy infringement may affect their organizations.

According to the resource dependency approach, organizational autonomy can be compromised depending on the types of relationships and resource interdependence with other parties. Studies have shown that nonprofits strive to sustain their autonomy because they must work with different stakeholders, including individuals (Yermack, 2017), various levels of governments (Amirkhanyan et al., 2012), and other institutions (AbouAssi, 2015; Biermann, 2008). In particular, nonprofits that carry out government-contracted work often end up compromising their organizational autonomy to a certain degree because of their dependency on the government for resources and the need to follow accountability regulations set by the government (Bies, 2010; Gazley, 2010).

There are two contradictory theoretical perspectives on this issue. On one hand, the resource dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003) suggests that nonprofits should form allies to reduce their dependency on a single or few resource providers to protect their autonomy. On the other hand, building alliances and collaborative relationships comes with a cost: working with other institutions means the increasing need to compromise one’s own decision-making because collaborating organizations should make co-decisions on how to use their resources for the shared goals. The end results are the net gain (or loss) of organizational autonomy, calculated based on autonomy gain versus infringement through interorganizational collaborative relationships. In other words, nonprofits can simultaneously face threats to their autonomy and the protection of their autonomy as they collaborate with other institutions.

Mechanisms of Interorganizational Collaboration

The lack of understanding for the multilayered mechanism of interorganizational collaboration in relation to an organization’s autonomy makes it difficult for nonprofit managers to strategically navigate their collaborative relationships. Guo and Acar (2005) defined collaboration as organizations “work[ing] together to address problems through joint effort, resources, and decision making and shar[ing] ownership of the final product or service” (p. 342). Yet, this definition fails to capture the inevitable infringement on organizational autonomy during collaboration, which refers to losing “independent decision-making powers even when they agree to abide by shared rules within the collaborative alliance” (Wood & Gray, 1991).

Other studies of interorganizational collaboration highlight the inevitable conflicts between participating organizations’ self-interests and the collective interests and norms shared by all parties (Ostrom, 1998; Thomson et al., 2007; Thomson & Perry, 2006). To be specific, Thomson et al., (2007) define collaboration as

a process in which autonomous or semi-autonomous actors interact through formal and informal negotiation, jointly creating rules and structures governing their relationships and ways to act or decide on the issues that brought them together; it is a process involving shared norms and mutually beneficial interactions. (p. 25)

Thomson et al. (2007) provide a foundational model that conceptualizes collaboration, and it is one of the few studies that systematically analyze organizational autonomy in the context of collaborations. Thomson et al. (2007) categorize collaboration into five conceptual dimensions: governance, administration, organizational autonomy, mutuality, and norms. They suggest operationalizing the level of organizational autonomy in terms of the level of tension between individual organizations’ self-interests and the collective interests of partners in collaboration. Their analytic results indicate that autonomy is closely related to other dimensions of collaboration as well as other factors that are not fully captured in their model.¹ This study tests how the infringement on organizational autonomy relates to other dimensions in collaboration as well as other relevant factors such as the characteristics of collaboration. To that end, we expand Thomson et al.’s (2007) study by focusing on nonprofits’ autonomy dilemma when collaborating with other institutions.

Hypotheses

Our study conceptualizes the organizational autonomy infringement as an outcome influenced by other dimensions of the collaborative process and the characteristics of collaborative relationship. We then propose a theoretical framework that explains the complex relationships between collaboration and organizational autonomy infringement. We theorize that the four conceptual dimensions of the collaborative process—governance, administration, mutuality, and norm—and the characteristics of collaboration—formality, types of partners, and the number of partners—generate separate influences on organizational autonomy as perceived by the leaders of nonprofits engaged in collaborations. Our model implies that although autonomy is an important conceptual component of the collaborative process, the extent to which collaborating nonprofits experience autonomy infringement depends on how it interacts with other dimensions and characteristics of collaboration. Figure 1 illustrates our theoretical framework with a set of hypotheses that we explain below.

Figure 1.

Theoretical framework with proposed hypotheses.

Multidimensional of Collaborative Process

First, the governance dimension can influence the perceived infringement on autonomy by articulating conflicts of interests. The governance dimension in the collaborative process refers to making joint decisions to create and oversee rules for participating organizations and mutual working relationships. It requires conscious awareness of the “jointness” as the governing process includes jointly making rules and creating structures to reach consensus and build shared goals (Thomson & Perry, 2006). Since collaborative governance lacks a formal authoritative structure or hierarchical division of labor (Huxham, 1993), the effectiveness of collaboration depends largely on the extent to which all participating organizations agree with and support collective governance.

Reaching agreements in joint decision-making, however, does not mean groupthink (Thomson & Perry, 2006). Instead, it requires participating organizations to solve problems together through a series of interactive deliberations. During such interactions, conflicts between the organizations’ self-interests and the collaborative collective interest can become more salient. That is, to facilitate the collective action, participating organizations must confront the “autonomy-accountability dilemma” (Huxham, 1993) and address the conflicts by jointly developing rules for decision-making, allowable actions, and the distribution of costs and benefits. While doing so, organizations participating in collaboration might be forced to sacrifice their individual autonomy. The stronger and more active the joint governance is, the more infringement on autonomy individual nonprofits might perceive. Therefore, we propose:

Hypothesis 1: A strongly defined governance dimension of the collaboration process is negatively associated with a participating nonprofit’s autonomy.

Second, the administration dimension of collaboration reflects the implementation of collaborative actions. This dimension highlights key administrative behaviors such as the presence of clear roles and responsibilities, boundary setting, achievable goals, and communication between partner organizations (Emerson et al., 2011; Thomson et al., 2007). Collective decision-making processes between the participating organizations in addition to an individual organization’s internal adjustment to the collaborative work determine these administrative arrangements. In other words, successful administrative behaviors could include the combined impact of collaborative governance and compromises within individual organizations.

Due to joint decision-making being emphasized in the governance dimension, the administration dimension might bring about the conflicts of collaborating organizations’ interests that leads to autonomy infringement on a practice level. Organizations must forego some levels of autonomy to support the collective administrative function. For example, each organization may need to set aside some of its internal resources for collaborative actions, either voluntarily or due to the jointly set rules, which then limits their capacity to implement autonomous decisions. Because of the lack of authority and formal structure, supervision by different stakeholders will also exaggerate conflicted interests and instigate more perceived autonomy infringement. Indeed, a recent study of small nonprofit organizations suggests that an organization’s administrative capacity is one of the important determining factors for building collaborative relationships (Kim & Peng, 2018). Therefore, we expect that:

Hypothesis 2: A highly specified administration dimension of collaboration is negatively associated with the nonprofit’s autonomy in the collaborative process.

The mutuality dimension of collaboration is a process of forging mutually beneficial relationships. Mutuality emphasizes the interdependency between organizations and occurs when one organization’s unique resources or skills can benefit another organization in the collaboration and vice versa (Thomson & Perry, 2006). Mutuality implies symmetric interdependence relationship, “which exists in the relationship when the exchange is not equally important to both organizations” (Pfeffer, p.53), and is theorized to be a necessary antecedent to one organization’s power over the other. When two or more organizations’ self-interests conflict, an organization that need critical resources will yield to the power of the other organization providing those resources. In order words, nonprofits engaged in imbalanced interdependent relationships will choose to sacrifice their organizational autonomy in exchange for much needed resources. Even when organizations with more power in the relationship do not necessarily execute their discretionary control over partnering organizations, less powerful organizations could voluntarily sacrifice their autonomy to maintain the relationship for the sake of critical resources. For example, nonprofits might be motivated to create adaptive self-regulations to maintain or gain access to resources when in an imbalanced resource-dependent relationship (Bies, 2010). On the contrary, organizations in a mutually beneficial relationship can enjoy more bargaining power on both sides. As such, none of the participating organizations need to be subjected to the control of other organizations; instead, participating organizations can negotiate for collaborative models that minimize the infringement on autonomy. Thus, we propose:

Hypothesis 3: A strong mutuality dimension of collaboration is positively associated with the nonprofit’s autonomy in the collaborative process.

The norm dimension of the collaborative process covers reciprocity and trust between collaborating organizations. While the mutuality dimension emphasizes the interdependency between partnering organizations, the norm dimension focuses on social capital that reflects each organization’s commitment to maintaining the mutually beneficial relationship (Thomson et al., 2007; Thomson & Perry, 2006). Trust, reciprocity, and reputation as a whole are key to fostering successful collective actions (Emerson et al., 2011; O’Leary & Vij, 2012); Ostrom, 1998. The constant interactions, reciprocity, reputation, and trust can nurture a beneficial cycle that “overcome[s] the strong temptations of short-run self-interest” (Ostrom, 1998, p. 1) to pursue collective interests.

A high level of social capital reduces transaction costs spent on rule-setting that holds participating organizations accountable. When collaborating with each other, partner organizations build connections based on their understanding of obligated reciprocity; both parties expect their counterpart to invest the same level of effort into their collective actions. However, explicit roles, implicit roles, or both are needed to maintain reciprocity. In comparison to rules that define the execution and reporting of reciprocity round by round, trust among organizations can ultimately benefit both parties with reduced transaction costs and a tightened alliance. Trust and reciprocity not only facilitate collaborations that co-produce services but also reduce the amount of external controls that otherwise might be imposed on each party. Consequentially, a well-established norm across partner organizations reduces the fear of losing organizational autonomy. More importantly, a high level of norm can shift the participating organizations’ focus from the conflicts between their self-interests and the collective interest to the achievement of long-term collective interests. Thus, we propose:

Hypothesis 4: A strong norm dimension of collaboration is positively associated with nonprofit’s autonomy in the collaboration process.

Characteristics of Collaboration

Thomson et al. (2007) argue that the level of organizational autonomy infringement can only be partially explained by other dimensions of the collaborative process—governance, administration, mutuality, and norm. Utilizing resource dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003), we should consider other factors related to the external controls an organization is subject to. First, the formality of collaboration can determine the level of autonomy that participating nonprofits must sacrifice for the collaborative relationship. Following Guo and Acar (2005), we define formal collaboration as being formally bound to collective actions, whereas organizations in an informal collaborative relationship do not make an ongoing, official commitment to collaborative activities, therefore maintaining the power of individual decision-making. In collaborative relationships, a formal commitment to shared decision-making, governance, and resource sharing is necessary to prevent the potential risk of collaborating organizations shirking their work toward the common goal and prioritizing their self-interests (Williamson, 2002). For such reason, formal controls, such as legally binding documents and contracts, are often used to hold collaborating parties accountable (Isett et al., 2011). Consequently, organizations within a formal collaborative relationship would experience more autonomy infringement in decision-making processes as compared to those in an informal relationship. Thus, we propose:

Hypothesis 5: Nonprofit organizations engaged in mostly formal collaborations will experience more infringement on autonomy than those engaged in mostly informal collaborations.

Along with the formality of relationships, the types of collaborating partners matter. In particular, we focus on partner organizations mainly in terms of private businesses, government agencies, and other nonprofits. We are interested in this sectoral difference because the ownership status of an organization determines the organization’s institutional logic, where conflicts and competing interests may happen (Provan, 1984). Thus, although nonprofits have an increasing propensity to collaborate with government agencies and private firms for unique resources and legitimacy (Boenigk & Schuardt, 2015; Suárez, 2011), collaborating across other sectors might yield conflicts from different sources depending on the type of partner organizations.

When working with government agencies, nonprofits can suffer from actual or perceived power imbalance (Gazley, 2010). For instance, nonprofits working with government contracts often experience substantial mission drifts and managerial challenges due to government-regulated procedures (Lipsky & Smith, 1993). When collaborating with for-profit firms, nonprofits might be subjected to goal conflicts due to the tension between partner organizations’ profit-seeking value and the nonprofit’s social values (Galaskiewicz & Colman, 2006). Indeed, Bryson et al. (2006) suggest that “competing institutional logics are likely within cross-sector collaborations and may significantly influence the extent to which collaborations can agree on essential elements of process, structure, governance, and desired outcomes” (p. 50) (See also Mitchell, 2014b). Even when collaborating with other nonprofits, organizations might still experience competing interests and managerial challenges but in more implicit ways. Taken all together, we argue that collaborating with partner organizations in different sectors can present different patterns—the more congruent the missions and operational logics of organizations are, the less autonomy infringement for nonprofits because of fewer conflicts. As such, we propose:

Hypothesis 6: Nonprofit organizations collaborating with other nonprofits will experience less infringement on autonomy than those collaborating with government and business agencies.

The resource dependence theory (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003) suggests diversifying the partners in the collaboration can help minimize control exerted by external parties. That is, collaborating with numerous partners (i.e., resource suppliers) “buffers the organization against the potential effects of dependence by putting the organization into another set of relationships that are presumably different” (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003, p. 127). By doing so, organizations can avoid being dominated by a single interdependent relationship with imbalanced power. It is reasonable to suspect that working with more collaborators can diminish autonomy due to more conflicting interests. However, having multiple interdependent relationships allows an organization to make discretionary choices about maintaining or leaving a partnership since it has other partners to fall back on. As such, multiple collaborators increase the chance to choose right collaborators and ultimately help organizations secure their autonomy. Results from a meta-analysis support that building multiple alliances helps organizations to retain autonomy, which in turn leads to better performance (Drees & Heugens, 2013). Thus, we follow Malatesta and Smith (2014) who suggest “many partners are better than one partner” (p. 20) and propose:

Hypothesis 7: The number of partners is positively associated with the nonprofit’s organizational autonomy.

Methods

Data

This study draws data from an online survey of nonprofits that are part of a university-affiliated online panel, pretested in the fall of 2017 and fully administered from December 2017 to February 2018. To be part of the panel, these organizations were first randomly selected from a list of all nonprofits registered with the Internal Revenue Services in the US. Then, the leaders of the selected nonprofits were identified, selected, and invited via email to join the panel project. Once the leaders of the invited organizations joined the project, they receive invitations to periodic online surveys and voluntarily participate in those surveys on behalf of their nonprofits. Most of the invited leaders are executive directors or someone in equivalent positions.

For this study, we sent a survey invitation to a subset of panel organizations identified as human service and arts and culture nonprofits using the NTEE codes. To the selected group of nonprofits across the United States, we sent an initial invitation in November 2017, followed by two reminders. A total of 2,268 arts and culture nonprofits as well as human service organizations received an invitation to participate in this survey, and when the survey closed, we received a total of 477 responses, representing a 21% response rate.

To account for basic information such as type, age, location, and financial conditions as well as address common source bias, we augmented all survey responses with Form 990 tax return data obtained from the National Center for Charitable Statistics 2015 Core Files. We used the lagged financial variable partly because an organization’s financial position can be the antecedent for an organization’s likelihood of being part of collaboration and their position in the relationships. The use of lagged financial variable is also partly due to the practical matter; 2015 core files were the most recent available data when the survey responses were collected for analysis.

We also combined county-level census data to account for community contexts. Since our study focuses on nonprofit organizational autonomy in collaborative processes, we dropped organizations that reported no collaborations (formal or informal) in the past 12 months (24.57%). We also dropped observations with missing values in any of the main variables used for this study as well as obviously erroneous values. The final sample size yields the observations of 275 nonprofits in the arts and culture and human services sectors.

It is important to discuss the representativeness of the sample organizations as compared to the known characteristics of the entire population, given the voluntary nature of the panel. Table 1 compares the key characteristics of all registered nonprofits with both weighted and unweighted results from our survey sample organizations. Weighting helps adjust the results of a study to align with the known factors of a population; as such, unless otherwise noted, all reported results are weighted based on an organization’s location, age, and budget size to make the results more generalizable (Pasek, 2016).² Yet, we must still note that weighting does not eliminate sources of bias that are independent of the weighted variables.

Table 1.

Comparison of Weighted and Unweighted Profile of Respondents (%) (N = 448).

Variables	Unweighted, %	Weighted, %	Population, % (N = 426,416)
Age
Fewer than 5 years	0.45	11.92	11.79
At least 5 years or more but less than 10 years	10.04	15.43	15.48
At least 10 years or more but less than 20 years	25.22	26.62	26.68
At least 20 years or more but less than 30 years	20.98	18.29	18.21
At least 30 years or more but less than 40 years	19.20	12.00	11.86
At least 40 years or more	24.11	15.75	15.98
Budget size
Below $50,000	11.38	32.56	32.19
At least $50,000 or more but less than $100,000	11.16	15.46	15.69
At least $100,000 or more but less than $200,000	15.40	14.05	13.89
At least $200,000 or more	62.05	37.94	38.23
Region
Northeast	24.11	22.20	22.30
Midwest	25.45	21.63	21.80
South	26.79	32.71	32.53
West	23.66	23.46	23.38
Area
Nonurban area	34.60	37.38	37.07
Urban area	65.40	62.62	62.93

Finally, we are well aware of the potential common source bias as we drew both the dependent variable and main independent variables from a single survey completed by each organization’s leaders (for further discussions, see Conway & Lance, 2010; Jakobsen & Jensen, 2015). However, using survey data as a source for collaboration research is inevitable considering the limitation of archival data regarding collaborative processes in the field (George & Pandey, 2017). We also note that survey items are advantageous in capturing the nuances of concepts in collaborative relations as these variables are subjective and perceptual. It is these perceptions that lead to the various outcomes of managerial decision-making.

Even so, we followed previous literature to minimize the potential issues of common source bias (Favero & Bullock, 2015; Meier & O’Toole, 2012). First, our empirical models include various measures obtained from the Form 990 tax return data. Second, we applied an empirically validated measurement for the dimensions of a collaborative process developed by Thomson et al. (2007). Third, our survey questions asked respondents to share their experience and knowledge based on specific events and dates. Finally, our survey provided clear definitions of key concepts, a strategy known to address the potential issues of common source bias (Meier & O’Toole, 2012).

Variables and Measurements

Dependent Variable

Our dependent variable is perceived infringement on the organizational autonomy of nonprofits engaged in collaboration. Previous studies have developed various survey instruments for organizational autonomy (e.g., Jung & Moon, 2007; Verschuere & De Corte, 2014) and organizational proxies (Drees & Heugens, 2013). Even so, there are limited measurements of organizational autonomy focusing on infringement from a managerial perspective. In this study, we adopted three survey items from Thomson et al. (2007) to measure autonomy: (a) the collaboration hinders your organization from meeting your own organizational mission, (b) your organization’s independence is affected by having to work with partner organizations on activities related to the collaboration., and (c) it seems that your organization gets pulled between trying to meet the expectations of both your organization and the partnering organization. This empirically validated approach is appropriate for our study because these items capture perceived autonomy infringement in a collaborative context. Survey participants (i.e., nonprofit leaders) reported their perception of each item based on the organization’s overall experience with interorganizational collaborations during the past 12 months on an 1 to 5 Likert-type scale (1 = not at all, 5 = a great deal). Thus, the greater the value is, the greater degree an organization’s autonomy is infringed. We then constructed an autonomy scale by taking the average score of all the Likert-type items of autonomy. Our measurement indicates a time lag between perceived or experienced autonomy infringement and the initiation of collaborative relationships. As such, it ensures that the perceived infringement is an outcome of collaboration, not vice versa.

Independent Variables

There are two sets of main independent variables adopted in our study. The first set, described in Table 2, covers conceptual dimensions of the collaborative process. All measurements in this set are adopted from Thomson et al. (2007). Table 3 covers the second set characteristics of the organization’s collaborative relationship—formality and the number of partners in each sector (government, for-profit, and nonprofit). For the formality, we asked whether the nonprofit had worked with partners during the past 12 months through “mostly formal collaborations that requires long-term commitment,” “mostly informal collaborations with no required commitment,” or “evenly formal and informal ways.” For types and numbers of collaboration partners, we asked nonprofit leaders to report the number and types of partner organizations (i.e., nonprofit, for-profit, and government) their organizations had worked with during the past 12 months. The total number of collaborative relationships is the sum of all collaborations with each type of collaborator. We created four ordinal variables to capture the number of collaborations in total and for each type of partners.³

Table 2.

Survey Items for Conceptual Dimensions of Collaborative Processes.

Conceptual dimensions of collaboration	Survey items	M	SD	Cronbach’s alpha
Governance	Partner organizations take your organization’s opinions seriously when decisions are made about the collaboration.	3.97	0.93	0.794
Governance	Your organization brainstorms with partner organizations to develop solutions to mission-related problems facing the collaboration.	3.60	1.02	0.794
Administration	Your organization has a clear understanding of your roles and responsibilities in the collaboration.	4.14	0.88	0.877
	The meetings with partner organizations usually accomplish what is necessary for the collaboration to function well.	3.83	0.88
	Partner organizations (including your organization) have a clear consensus over the goals of the collaboration.	4.00	0.86
	Your organization’s tasks in the collaboration are well coordinated with those of partner organizations.	3.71	0.89
Autonomy loss	The collaboration hinders your organization from meeting your own organizational mission.	1.76	0.98	0.811
	Your organization’s independence is affected by having to work with partner organizations on activities related to the collaboration.	2.29	1.05
	It seems that your organization gets pulled between trying to meet both your organization’s and the collaboration’s expectations.	2.31	1.01
Mutuality	Partner organizations (including your organization) have combined and used each other’s resources in a way that all partners benefit from collaborating with each other.	3.67	0.93	0.776
	Your organization shares information with partner organizations that will strengthen their operations and programs.	3.85	0.97
	What your organization brings to the collaboration is appreciated and respected by partner organizations.	4.01	0.90
	Your organization achieves its own goals better working with partner organizations than working alone.	3.63	1.05
Norm	The people who represent partner organizations in the collaboration are trustworthy.	4.04	0.93	0.833
Norm	Your organization can count on partner organizations to meet their obligations to the collaboration.	3.74	0.88	0.833

Note. Nonprofit leaders report their overall perception in all collaborative dimensions in the past 12 months using a 5-point Likert-type scale (1 = not at all, 5 = a great deal). Scales for each dimension were derived after factor analysis.

Source. Survey items from Thomson et al. (2007).

Table 3.

Descriptive Statistics (N = 275).

Variables	Source	M	SD	Min	Max
Dependent variable
Autonomy infringement	Survey	1.94	0.84	1	5
Independent variables: conceptual dimensions of collaboration
Governance	Survey	3.93	0.90	1	5
Administration	Survey	4.10	0.70	1.25	5
Mutuality	Survey	3.97	0.72	1	5
Norms	Survey	4.10	0.79	1	5
Independent variables: characteristics of collaboration
Total number of collaborators	Survey	2.24	1.29	1	4
Total number of nonprofit partners	Survey	1.88	1.13	1	4
Total number of for-profit partners	Survey	1.42	0.90	1	4
Total number of government partners	Survey	1.37	0.80	1	4
Mostly formal collaborations	Survey	0.24	0.43	0	1
Mostly informal collaborations	Survey	0.37	0.48	0	1
Control variables
Belief in collaboration	Survey	4.57	0.70	1	5
Perceived financial health	Survey	2.47	0.61	1	3
	NCCS 2015 Core Files	23.08	46.44	−42.39	592.95
Solvency [Fund balance/100,000]	NCCS 2015 Core Files	20.61	66.46	−0.99	843.19
Margins ([Revenues−Expenses)/[Revenue + 1])	NCCS 2015 Core Files	−5.37	89.67	−1,487	0.80
Profitability ([Revenues−Expenses]/Total assets)	NCCS 2015 Core Files	0.48	7.37	−2.05	122.09
Budget size	NCCS 2015 Core Files	3.37	1.01	1	4
Urban	NCCS 2015 Core Files	0.68	0.47	0	1
Organization age	NCCS 2015 Core Files	3.27	1.31	1	5
Arts & culture nonprofits	NCCS 2015 Core Files	0.21	0.41	0	1
Midwest	NCCS 2015 Core Files	0.24	0.43	0	1
South	NCCS 2015 Core Files	0.27	0.44	0	1
West	NCCS 2015 Core Files	0.25	0.43	0	1

Control Variables

Our empirical model controls the perceived financial health of the nonprofit. We asked respondents to report their organization’s financial health status on a 3-point scale (3 = Strong and sustainable, 2 = not strong but doing okay, 1 = Unstable). Nonprofits whose leaders perceive their organizations to be financially vulnerable might yield toward external forces to compensate for their financial weakness (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003). To address potential issues of common source bias, we include four financial measures using the data drawn from the Form 990 tax returns. The four measures represent long-term capacity (equity ratio: fund balance), long-term sustainability (profitability: return on assets), short-term capacity (liquidity: months of spending), and short-term sustainability (margins: mark up), following Bowman (2011) and Prentice (2016).

Our model also controls organizational characteristics suggested as important common causes of organizational autonomy and collaboration (Guo & Acar, 2005; Suárez & Hwang, 2013). We include organizational age, budget size, and service area in our empirical model to capture organizational capacity. We also control two geographical factors to account for economic and social contexts: urban area (Snavely & Tracy, 2000) and the census regions.

Results

Descriptive Findings

Table 3 provides the descriptive statistics for all variables in the analysis. The average reported value of autonomy infringement is 1.94 with the standard deviation of 0.84 where the measure ranges from “none at all” (1) to “a great deal” (5). As such, we can say respondents are fairly confident about their organizational autonomy during the collaborative processes. The other four independent variables capturing governance, administration, mutuality, and norm based on their collaboration experience in the past 12 months show the average values range from 3.93 to 4.10, suggesting a generally positive view toward the collaborative process.

For the type of collaborators, we find that these nonprofits collaborate more frequently with nonprofit partners as compared to government or for-profit partners. Regarding the formality, about 24% of the respondents said their organizations work mainly through formal collaborations, 37% reported having mainly informal collaborations, and the rest reported working with both types of collaborations.

Analytic Results

Table 4 reports the results of weighted ordinary least square (OLS) regression analyses, using the scale of organizational autonomy infringement as the dependent variable and by adding different sets of independent variables gradually. Note that all assumptions of OLS have been checked; the Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) test confirms no multicollinearity issue in our models, and the White’s test suggests no issue of heteroskedasticity. It is common to treat ordinal variables as continuous variables to measure the linear effect of the interval-level measure. As robustness checks, we ran both the ordered logistic model as well as the nonweighted OLS model (Hoffmann, 2004) and confirmed that both results are qualitatively the same.⁴

Table 4.

Results of Weighted OLS Regressions: Conceptual Dimensions and Characteristics on Organizational Autonomy.

Variables	Model 1	Model 2	Model 3	Model 4	Model 5
Conceptual dimensions of collaborative process
Governance	.083 (.08)			.030 (.07)	.023 (.07)
Administration	−.322* (.14)			−.120 (.11)	−.109 (.11)
Mutuality	.210* (.08)			.111 (.09)	.065 (.10)
Norm	−.481*** (.11)			−.405*** (.11)	−.376*** (.11)
Characteristics of collaboration
Total number of collaborators		.085 (.05)		.061 (.05)
Total number of nonprofit collaborators			.155* (.06)		.130* (.06)
Total number of for-profit collaborators			−.024 (.06)		−.004 (.06)
Total number of government collaborators			−.038 (.08)		−.045 (.07)
Formality (base = evenly formal and informal ways)
Mostly formal collaborations		−.002 (.19)	−.039 (.19)	−.001 (.17)	−.024 (.17)
Mostly informal collaborations		−.269 (.15)	−.301* (.15)	−.222 (.13)	−.254* (.13)
Perceived financial health		−.154 (.11)	−.160 (.10)	−.104 (.09)	−.113 (.09)
Liquidity		−.001 (.00)	−.000 (.00)	.000 (.00)	.000 (.00)
Solvency		−.000 (.00)	−.001 (.00)	−.001 (.00)	−.001 (.00)
Margins		.000 (.00)	.000 (.00)	−.000 (.00)	−.000 (.00)
Profitability		.005* (.00)	.006*** (.00)	.006*** (.00)	.007*** (.00)
Budget size		.055 (.06)	.058 (.06)	.067 (.05)	.070 (.05)
Urbanity (base = rural)
Urban		−.138 (.16)	−.138 (.15)	−.040 (.14)	−.041 (.13)
Organization age		−.059 (.05)	−.056 (.05)	−.052 (.04)	−.050 (.04)
Service area (base = human service organization)
Art and culture nonprofits		−.096 (.12)	−.075 (.12)	−.172 (.12)	−.162 (.12)
Region (base = Northeast)
Midwest		.195 (.17)	.228 (.18)	.141 (.14)	.172 (.15)
South		.196 (.16)	.233 (.16)	.190 (.15)	.214 (.15)
West		.269 (.16)	.334* (.16)	.279 (.14)	.333* (.15)
Constant	4.107*** (.33)	2.206*** (.34)	2.152*** (.31)	3.585*** (.46)	3.581*** (.44)
N	275	275	275	275	275
R ²	.271	.115	.144	.256	.276

Note. Robust standard errors reported in parentheses.

p < .05. ** p < .01. ***p < .001.

The empirical results of five models reported in Table 4 provide some support for our hypotheses. First, we find robust evidence that the norm dimension is significantly and negatively linked to autonomy infringement. This result conversely suggests a positive correlation between norm and autonomy. Second, we find a marginally significant and positive relationship between the mutuality dimension and autonomy infringement in model 1, but its effect is not robust. Finally, although we hypothesized that both the governance dimension and administration dimension are positively associated with autonomy infringement, neither of them showed a statistically significant result.

Looking at the characteristics of collaboration, we find that organizations working in mostly informal relationships sustain more organizational autonomy, and we also find some support for our hypotheses about the number and type of collaborators. Model 5 shows how the number of collaborators creates impacts each type of partners differently, suggesting that an organization working with a larger number of nonprofit collaborators is more likely to experience compromised organizational autonomy. Neither the number of for-profit nor government collaborators makes any statistical difference.

Table 5 presents models taking each of three dimensions of organizational autonomy as dependent variables: perceived damages on organizational mission (model 6), influence on organizational independent status (model 7), and the frustration of nonprofit leaders in collaborative relationships (model 8). As such, we analyze each of the three organizational autonomy factors separately. These separate analyses allow us to identify how other dimensions of the collaborative process—norm, mutuality, governance, and administration—influence organizational autonomy.

Table 5.

Results of Weighted Ordered Logistic Regression: Dimensions of Organizational Autonomy.

	Model 6		Model 7		Model 8
Variables	Damage on mission		Influence on independence		Leaders’ frustration
Conceptual dimensions of collaborative process
Governance	.182 (.25)	.154 (.25)	.012 (.20)	.002 (.21)	.125 (.22)	.116 (.22)
Administration	−.823* (.35)	−.892** (.33)	.276 (.34)	.288 (.35)	−.611 (.32)	−.623* (.30)
Mutuality	.268 (.32)	.205 (.34)	−.210 (.25)	−.300 (.27)	.677* (.31)	.594 (.33)
Norm	−1.148*** (.31)	−1.077*** (.30)	−.414 (.30)	−.351 (.32)	−1.052*** (.32)	−1.022** (.32)
Characteristics of collaboration
Total number of collaborators	.178 (.15)		.088 (.13)		.211 (.12)
Total number of nonprofit collaborators		.360 (.19)		.206 (.15)		.334* (.15)
Total number of for-profit collaborators		−.097 (.17)		.023 (.17)		.057 (.14)
Total number of government collaborators		−.100 (.24)		−.030 (.20)		−.135 (.17)
Formality (base = Evenly formal and informal ways)
Mostly formal collaborations	−.703 (.48)	−.814 (.50)	−.308 (.51)	−.298 (.51)	.379 (.39)	.374 (.39)
Mostly informal collaborations	−.791 (.43)	−.849* (.43)	−.636* (.31)	−.644* (.30)	−.100 (.38)	−.187 (.37)
Perceived financial health	−.208 (.31)	−.178 (.30)	−.059 (.16)	−.088 (.17)	−.513 (.29)	−.505 (.29)
Liquidity	−.002 (.01)	−.002 (.01)	.002 (.00)	.003 (.00)	−.001 (.01)	−.000 (.01)
Solvency	.001 (.00)	.001 (.00)	−.005 (.00)	−.005 (.00)	−.002 (.00)	−.003 (.00)
Margins	.003* (.00)	.003* (.00)	−.001*** (.00)	−.001*** (.00)	.259 (1.01)	.168 (.99)
Profitability	.016** (.01)	.020** (.01)	.015*** (.00)	.016** (.01)	.015** (.00)	.017** (.01)
Budget size	.105 (.17)	.138 (.16)	.235 (.13)	.240 (.13)	.123 (.18)	.132 (.18)
Urbanity (base = rural)
Urban	−.199 (.41)	−.224 (.40)	−.501 (.36)	−.505 (.36)	.363 (.37)	.341 (.37)
Organization age	−.112 (.14)	−.109 (.14)	−.040 (.12)	−.045 (.12)	−.157 (.12)	−.167 (.12)
Service area (base = human service organization)
Art and culture nonprofits	−.699 (.52)	−.707 (.51)	−.363 (.34)	−.304 (.35)	−.273 (.36)	−.275 (.36)
Region (base = Northeast)
Midwest	.180 (.55)	.227 (.56)	.506 (.36)	.503 (.37)	.039 (.45)	.130 (.47)
South	.506 (.52)	.665 (.54)	.712 (.39)	.741 (.41)	.021 (.41)	.062 (.42)
West	.302 (.49)	.492 (.50)	.916* (.39)	.971* (.42)	.263 (.39)	.385 (.38)
N	275	275	275	275	275	275
Wald Chi²	114.08***	111.90***	139.39***	144.52***	130.77***	131.96***
Pseudo R²	.170	.180	.060	.065	.117	.125

Note. Robust standard errors reported in parentheses.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Consistent with the previous results, model 6 and model 8 both show a statistically significant effect of the norm dimension, meaning that a stronger sense of trust and reciprocity in the collaborative processes mitigates potential damages to the organizational mission (model 6) and alleviates leaders’ frustration (model 8). The administrative dimension appears to be significantly associated with the perceived damages on the mission (model 6) and the frustrations of the nonprofit leaders (model 8). Yet, the direction of the relationship is opposite to our hypothesis: a highly specified administrative dimension is negatively associated with two major dimensions of organizational autonomy (i.e., less perceived damage on the mission and leaders’ frustration). Table 6 summarizes the empirical results for each of our hypotheses.

Table 6.

Summary of Findings.

Hypotheses	Supported
H1: A strongly defined governance dimension of the collaboration process is negatively associated with a participating nonprofit’s autonomy.	×
H2: A highly specified administration dimension of collaboration is negatively associated with the nonprofit’s autonomy in the collaborative process.	×
H3: A strong mutuality dimension of collaboration is positively associated with the nonprofit’s autonomy in the collaborative process.	×
H4: A strong norm dimension of collaboration is positively associated with nonprofit’s autonomy in the collaboration process.	√
H5: Nonprofit organizations engaged in mostly formal collaborations will experience more infringement on autonomy than those engaged in mostly informal collaborations.	√
H6: Nonprofit organizations collaborating with other nonprofits will experience less infringement on autonomy than collaborating with government and business agencies.	×
H7: The number of partners is positively associated with the nonprofit’s organizational autonomy.	×

The findings of our study highlight the need to understand organizational autonomy as an outcome of collaboration. It also sheds light on a self-perpetuating cycle between organizational autonomy and an organization’s perspective toward collaborations. Having a strong belief in the benefits of interorganizational collaboration can motivate nonprofit leaders to have their organizations collaborate with others. Conversely, the fear of losing organizational autonomy can discourage nonprofit managers from collaborating as often seen in the cases of nonprofit-government collaborations (Gazley, 2010; Gazley & Brudney, 2007). A stronger belief in collaborations is likely to come from positive prior experiences of working with other organizations, and, as such, we ran a post hoc analysis.

Our survey asked, “To what extent do you agree or disagree with the following statement? ‘A nonprofit organization generally benefits from entering into partnerships with other entities.’” (5 = Strongly agree, 1 = Strongly disagree). Results in Table 7 confirm that organizations that reported maintaining higher levels of autonomy, governance, and mutuality in their collaborative relationships believe more strongly in the merits of working with other organizations. Our post hoc analysis showed that nonprofit leaders feel more strongly about the benefits of collaboration when their nonprofits could maintain high levels of organizational autonomy while working with other entities. A strong belief in collaborations, which arises from past experience, could encourage nonprofits to seek more collaborative relationships with other organizations.

Table 7.

Post hoc Examination: Collaborative Dimensions and Characteristics on Belief in Benefits of Collaboration.

Variables	Model 8Weighted Ordered Logistic
Conceptual dimensions of collaborative process
Infringement on autonomy	−.625** (.19)
Governance	.491* (.23)
Administration	−.319 (.50)
Mutuality	.911* (.38)
Norm	.330 (.35)
Characteristics of collaboration
Total number of nonprofit collaborators	.174 (.17)
Total number of for-profit collaborators	.022 (.25)
Total number of government collaborators	.337 (.25)
Formality (base = Evenly formal and informal ways)
Mostly formal collaborations	.377 (.49)
Mostly informal collaborations	−.001 (.47)
Perceived financial health	.347 (.35)
Liquidity	.001 (.00)
Solvency	−.004 (.00)
Margins	−.003** (.00)
Profitability	−.003 (.01)
Budget size	−.105 (.16)
Urbanity (base = rural)
Urban	−.128 (.47)
Organization age	.038 (.12)
Service area (base = human service organization)
Art and culture nonprofits	−.281 (.46)
Region (base = Northeast)
Midwest	.075 (.54)
South	.856 (.64)
West	.073 (.47)
N	275
Wald Chi²	142.31***
Pseudo R²	.207

Note. Robust standard errors reported in parentheses.

p < .05. ** p < .01. ***p < .001.

Discussion and Conclusion

It has long been a challenge for public and nonprofit managers to manage their organizational autonomy within interdependent collaborative relationships. By being part of a collaborative relationship, nonprofit may increase the efficiency of service delivery, but they might do so at the expense of organizational autonomy (e.g., Boenigk & Schuardt, 2015; Suárez, 2011). However, yielding control to resource suppliers, even if doing so increases efficiency, would “generate additional demands for various actions and, more important, may restrict the organization’s ability to adapt to other demands made by other external groups in the future” (Pfeffer & Salancik, 2003, p. 110). As such, protecting an organization’s autonomy can be more beneficial in the long run.

The complexity in the collaborative process involves multiple factors that simultaneously influence organizational autonomy. Our study offers a framework that helps better understand the underlying mechanisms in the dynamic relationship between collaboration and organizational autonomy. The results of our study suggest that collaboration with stronger norms, based on trust and reciprocity, and a highly specified administrative arrangement have a greater potential to help nonprofits protect their individual organizational autonomy while reaping the benefits of collaboration. The findings also suggest that autonomy infringement tends to be more severe in formal and intrasectoral collaborations.

Although the autonomy problem can hardly be “resolved” (Connelly et al., 2008), evidence from our study offers some insights. Nonprofits in collaborative relationships can sustain autonomy through (a) maintaining a better sense of trust and reciprocity with partner organizations; (b) establishing more specified administrative roles for participating organizations; and (c) strategically developing informal cross-sectoral collaborations.

First, our findings about trust and reciprocity, covered by the norm dimension of collaboration, reiterate the importance of building social capital among collaborating organizations (Berardo & Scholz, 2010; Emerson et al., 2011; Provan & Kenis, 2008). One might argue that reciprocity exemplifies mutually beneficial collaborative relationships. However, following previous research (Thomson et al., 2007; Thomson & Perry, 2006), our study suggests that reciprocity and mutuality are conceptually different. Mutuality indicates the interconnectedness between two participating organizations, and the norm of reciprocity is the perceived obligation to provide resources to collaborating organizations based on the belief that the partner organization will also act in the same way. Therefore, the two dimensions influence organizational autonomy differently. Although collaboration literature and resource dependence theory suggest that resource interdependence might mitigate the infringement of organizational autonomy, our study, instead, found only marginal effects on organizational autonomy from such a mutual relationship. On the contrary, the norm of trust and reciprocity significantly aid in sustaining organizational autonomy as it shows organizations’ commitment to their interdependent relations. Thus, building trust-based relationships could be an effective strategy to mitigate external controls from partners with greater resources who might exert more influence over the other party.

Second, our findings suggest that specified rules and an administrative process for collaboration could help organizations to protect their organizational autonomy, especially by preventing damage to missions. It is possible that specified administrative rules, such as clear protocols and institutional arrangements, help reduce uncertainties for organizations working with other entities (Emerson et al., 2011). Investing more resources in specifying administration protocols for managing collaborations could benefit an organization by creating better-managed collaborative relationships.

Third, we found that nonprofits seem to face a greater infringement on autonomy when collaborating with other nonprofits as compared to collaborating with for-profit or government partners. One possible explanation is philanthropic particularism (Salamon, 1995; Salamon & Toepler, 2015). That is, each nonprofit targets a narrow range of the population with particular needs in its own unique way. Therefore, collaborations between nonprofits with different philosophies may be more likely to result in conflicts as compared with cross-sector collaborations. Qualitative evidence from earlier studies (Piatak et al., 2018; Tsasis, 2009) support that values-based conflicts damage the independence of the participating nonprofits and reduce their motivation to collaborate. As such, nonprofits collaborating with other nonprofits must frequently communicate to understand each other’s philosophies and find shared value propositions. We also encourage nonprofits to diversify the types of partners to include more corporate and government entities.

Finally, nonprofits working in mostly informal relationships seem to suffer less from autonomy problems, most likely because informal collaborations are often structured with less external controls (Guo & Acar, 2005). As such, nonprofits should aim to develop informal relationships, rather than only focusing on formal relationships, to reap the benefits of collaborations while retaining organizational autonomy.

The findings in this study should be understood with caution due to several limitations. First, our measurement of collaboration is not able to capture the role of the organization in the collaborative process—that is, whether the nonprofit actively initiates the collaboration or passively participates. It is reasonable to anticipate that organizations who are more active during the process may maintain more autonomy. Second, our study is subject to limited generalizability. Our study relied on data collected from nonprofits in human services and art and culture sectors. Although these two specific subareas were not suggested as a significant effect in our model, we still call for future studies in other subareas such as health, education, and international nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to increase the generalizability of our findings. Furthermore, the use of an opt-in, online panel limits the generalizability of the results even though we analyzed the results after applying sampling weights. Third, the cross-sectional data allows us to identify only correlations between factors in the theoretical framework instead of causalities. Notably, one important caveat of our findings is the potential simultaneity issue. It is possible that autonomy infringement leads to multiple changes in the collaborative process, including re-negotiation and rule resetting. Even though we measured autonomy infringement by nonprofit managers’ perceptions based on their prior experiences, we admit that the simultaneity issue cannot be fully addressed with our cross-sectional data. Thus, we call for future efforts to create a longitudinal data set. In addition, this study focused only on the collaborative process and its characteristics and could not investigate other potential factors that might also influence nonprofit autonomy. For instance, future studies can explore the role of the organizations’ fiscal capacity to understand how nonprofits may experience enhanced or diminished autonomy due to collaborations, as our study found that the profitability of one nonprofit is a potential predictor of its autonomy.

Despite these limitations, our study contributes to the literature with novel empirical evidence that unravel the tension between organizational autonomy and collaboration. A challenge for nonprofit organizations in the era of collaboration is that they must navigate the tradeoff between protecting their organizational autonomy and reaping the benefits of interorganizational collaborations. Our study helps both nonprofit scholars and practitioners better understand the underlying factors for this dilemma by highlighting how various dimensions of collaboration create different effects on organizational autonomy.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-arp-10.1177_0275074020983802 – Supplemental material for Loss or Gain? Unpacking Nonprofit Autonomy-Interdependence Paradox in Collaborations

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-arp-10.1177_0275074020983802 for Loss or Gain? Unpacking Nonprofit Autonomy-Interdependence Paradox in Collaborations by Chengxin Xu and Mirae Kim in The American Review of Public Administration

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

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

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Chengxin Xu

Mirae Kim

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

Notes

Author Biographies

Chengxin Xu is an assistant professor of the Institute of Public Service at Seattle University. His research focuses on the sectoral relations of the social service market, including sector difference, competition, collaboration, and organization hybridization. He receives his PhD from Rutgers University–Newark.

Mirae Kim is an associate professor at George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government. She is the director of the Nonprofit Organization Research Panel (), which she developed to provide valuable information for nonprofit practitioners while producing much needed data for researchers in the nonprofit community. Her research addressed issues of nonprofit financial management, the role of 501c3 organizations in civil society, nonprofit arts management, and interorganizational partnerships.

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