Volunteers and paid staff members in hybrid organizations II
Civicness, the capacity of organizations to stimulate civility, is no longer reserved for civil society organizations (CSOs) (Brandsen et al., 2010). Third parties, such as public agencies, schools and firms, increasingly enter civil society. At the same time, the prototypical civil society and its universe of organizations is reinvigorated as “a place where politics can be democratised, active citizenship strengthened, the public sphere reinvigorated and welfare programmes suited to pluralist needs designed and delivered” (Brown et al., 2000: 57). Volunteers are explicitly prized for their added value as citizens.
Voluntary associations and their representatives have pioneered formally organized services in many fields (e.g. adult education, elderly care, child care). From the 1980s onwards, international scholarship has noted that welfare services, and educational and leisure activities have been increasingly delivered by hybrid arrangements and volatile partnerships between sectors that flexibly combine quasi-state, quasi-market and quasi-civic institutional logics (Billis, 2010; Bode, 2006; Brandsen et al., 2005). As a result of these processes of ‘institutional hybridization’ (Billis, 2010; Bode, 2006; Brandsen et al., 2005; Brandsen et al., 2010) or ‘rehybridization’ (Wijkström & Zimmer, 2011), CSOs currently exhibit a significant amount of hybrid structural and cultural features: they engage both paid staff members and volunteers, their revenue structure entails both public and private resources, they prioritize partnership governance over more hierarchical modes of governance, they engage in service delivery and advocacy, and so on (Anheier, 2005; Billis, 2010; Evers, 2005).
Although voluntary engagement remains substantial in CSOs, recently it has become more fluid, sporadic and dispersed - as is exemplified by concepts such as ‘episodic volunteering’ (Macduff, 2004; Cnaan & Handy, 2005), ‘revolving-door volunteering (Dekker & Halman, 2003), or ‘plug-in’ volunteering (Eliasoph, 1998). Volunteer-involving organizations, mainly CSOs and public agencies, have pro-actively sought to accommodate these changes in volunteering style by providing new arrangements (e.g., more short-term volunteer opportunities) (HustinxMeijs, 2011).
We expect that the increasing organizational hybridity of CSOs plays an important role in the present-day nature and experiences of their paid staff members and volunteers. The impact of organizational hybridity on organizational participants hasn’t received much research attention yet. The findings so far point to both beneficial and adverse effects. Hybrid settings can form stimulating environments because they exhibit clarified lines of public and social accountability, greater efficiency and innovation, promote political activity and sometimes even radicalize their mission (Binder, 2007). Paine et al. (2010) observe that in some organizations volunteers are engaged for more responsible and complex tasks. In contrast, in other organizations a hierarchy is installed, with volunteers being excluded from decision-making roles and performing less risky or ancillary tasks, leaving the complex tasks to paid staff members. Eliasoph (2011) observed that while hybrid settings may stimulate public-spirited dialogue among paid staff members, they impeded political talk among volunteers.
Questions of interest
In the panel the following types of questions can be addressed:
- What is the impact of hybrid organizational settings on:
o Meanings that volunteers and paid staff members attribute to their efforts?
o Organizational participants’ perceptions of citizenship and the role of volunteering in society?
o Structural-behavioral and motivational-attitudinal components of the volunteering style ?
o Interpersonal relationships between organizational participants (paid staff members, volunteers, clients)?
o Volunteer management and service delivery practices?
o Professionalization of volunteering, for instance monitoring, evaluation and demands for competence?
- To what extent do hybrid organizational settings offer a fostering environment for the classic positive externalities of voluntary action? (e.g. social capital formation)
- How is volunteering framed and justified in professionalized organizations?
The panel aims to develop a new and broad research agenda to further define and test the concept of organizational hybridity and its impact on the present-day nature and experiences of CSOs’ paid staff members and volunteers.
Paper Title
Co-operation or Conflict? The Role of Civil Society Organizations in Finnish Public Service Provision –A Case Study of Public-Private Partnerships in Finnish Drug Treatment
Author
RiikkaPerälä, ; University of Helsinki (Non-Presenter)
Abstract
The article explores the changing relationships between non-profits and public power in the Finnish social and health care sector. In Finland like in the other Western countries many postwar institutional arrangements are being abandoned and new arrangements are taking place. An especially increasing emphasis has been put on the renewing of the public policy by strengthening the role of communities and non-profit organizations in welfare policy and by prioritizing networks and partnerships over hierarchical modes of governance. In the current discussion there has been, however, a growing understanding that these ideals and prospects have been realized only partially. The article is based on a case study of negotiations that took place between local-level public officials and the representatives of a civil society organization working in the field of substance abuse treatment vis-à-vis the establishment and organization of a needle exchange services for injecting drug users in Finland from 2003 to 2007. Ethnographic method used in the article reveals present, but rarely unseen power relations at the everyday level of public service transformation. There is a growing uncertainty at the moment about how different social problems should be handled and who or what stake is mainly responsible. In the article the situation is referred to as “the new negotiated order of the Nordic welfare state”, where especially the services for the most marginalized groups, such as drug users, are constantly under re-evaluation. Also the funding of these services is increasingly dependent upon the activity and negation skills of the civil society organizations, which makes the position of these services vulnerable. The new partnership governance has been a step towards liberal welfare regimes in Finland. However, at the same time the Finnish nonprofits are lacking in tools of how to use power in the new system in an effective way.
Paper Title
Institutional hybridization viewed through the social origin lens: A qualitative study on the driving forces, organizational features and the impact on volunteering in Flemish TSOs
Author
JozefienGodemont, ; University of Ghent (Presenter)
Abstract
This paper focuses on the driving forces of the hybridization process in the Flemish (the Dutch speaking part of Belgium) third sector, its externalization at the organizational level, and its impact on volunteering in third sector organizations (TSOs).
TSOs and their volunteers, have always played a substantial role in the delivery of social services. However, from the 1980s onwards international scholarship has noted that social services are increasingly delivered by hybrid arrangements that flexibly combine quasi-state, quasi-market and quasi-civic institutional logics (Billis, 2010; Bode, 2006; Brandsen et al., 2005). As a result, TSOs may increasingly exhibit hybrid structural and cultural features (e.g. a mix between paid and voluntary workers, a mixed revenue structure, a combination of private and public values, multiple stakeholders) (Anheier, 2005; Billis, 2010; Evers, 2005). It is furthermore expected that hybrid TSOs have an impact on present-day nature and experiences of volunteers.
The process of hybridization is deemed to be generic to modern, industrialist, capitalist states (Bode, 2006; Mayo, 1994). However, we argue that in studying hybridization, more attention needs to be paid to the baseline welfare regime as identified in the social origin approach (Salamon et al., 2003). Only then can we discern its driving forces, its concrete externalization at the organizational level and its impact on volunteers.
As France and Germany, Belgium (Flanders) too has been typified as a corporatist welfare regime (high government social welfare spending/ large third sector) (SalamonAnheier, 1998). It is a typical example of a ‘third party government’, in which private TSOs act as governmental agencies that deliver social services on behalf of government (Salamon et al., 2003). By using the social origin approach we aim to provide a counterweight against the prevailing universal conception of the hybridization process and its impact.
In the first half of 2011, 23 semi-structured interviews with Flemish representatives from umbrella organizations and with policy makers working in public agencies were conducted. The umbrella organizations are intermediaries between the third sector and the government and can provide a storks perspective on their subsector. The qualitative research entailed different subsectors of the Flemish third sector: culture and recreation, health, social services, environment, community and international development. All interviews were transcribed verbatim and thematically analysed with NVivo.
In the result section we will argue that the starting position of Flemish TSOs as governmental agencies needs to be taken into account when studying the hybridization process.
First, TSOs’ traditional partnership with the government and their high dependence on subsidies still prevail in Flanders. Nevertheless, the partnership is getting further formalized and more contract-based. For instance, accountability is either more focused on policy planning (socio-cultural sector) or on outcomes (health and welfare sector), such as quality care. It is furthermore felt that governments at different levels (local, provincial, Flemish) stress the need to restore the unique contribution of volunteers in a professionalized welfare field, but on the other hand strongly responsibilize TSOs and their volunteers to address urgent social issues (e.g. poverty reduction, interculturalization) and to empower vulnerable citizens (e.g. neighbourhood mediation, victim assistance, Family Group conferences).
Second, until now most TSOs have been very reluctant to partner with firms, but in some cases become gradually more open to it. However, cooperation between TSOs and for profits remains ad hoc, mainly locally based and is situated at the level of logistic support, rather than the level of service delivery.
Finally, TSOs are experiencing an increased competition in a civil society that is deemed overcrowded by other TSOs and third parties (e.g. public authorities, firms). In this context the need for TSOs to formulate their ‘unique selling point’ to multiple stakeholders becomes more pressing, but TSOs feel they lack the necessary communication skills.
Paper Title
“Big Society” – a solution to problems of the state and voluntarism?
Author
Irene Hardill, ; Northumbria University (Non-Presenter)
Michael S. Locke, ; Volunteering England (Presenter)
Nick Ockenden, ; Institute for Volunteering Research (Non-Presenter)
Abstract
1. Introduction and overview
The Big Society was proposed by David Cameron in the campaign for the UK 2010 general election which led to his appointment as Prime Minister. Couched in terms of “Big Society not Big Government”, the idea was proposed as a policy programme for increasing individual responsibility and voluntary action alongside a reduction in the functions of the state.
The paper analyses the formulation of social problems and the theoretical sources of the Big Society as a public policy solution in England. The paper then takes a critical perspective of how the other countries of the UK have adopted different approaches. This comparative approach identifies processes applied by governments to increase voluntarism and thus poses questions for discussion about appropriate and effective methods.
This paper is undertaken through policy analysis, shaped by an institutional analysis and development approach, through literature review and analyses of the theoretical grounding for policy stances.
2. Big Society in one country
The intention of the Big Society policy programme in England was broadly conceived in terms of increasing the role of personal responsibility and decreasing the role of the state so as to tackle a range of social problems, whilst reducing public expenditure. Policies have been introduced for decentralisation and localism, with proposals for ‘bottom-up’ involvement in community services.
The paper analyses how the policy programme aimed to encourage voluntary action in different manifestations. Whilst in the media and public imagination the promotion of – traditional forms of – volunteering has seemed central, the distinctive theme in Big Society thinking is ‘social action’ at community level. This thinking has claimed to draw on Alinsky (eg 1969) and what was seen as its current form in Obama’s presidential campaign in the USA. More largely, it takes ideas from Blond’s (2010) Red Tory concept and, less cited, Etzioni’s (eg 1993) communitarianism.
The paper shows the Big Society programme represents particular means to tackle social problems, drawing on international perspectives especially from the USA, and challenging the previous Labour government programmes to support volunteering as ‘top-down’ and ineffective.
3. Perspectives from two nations
Although the Big Society was prominent in Cameron’s campaign in the UK general election and in his speeches as Prime Minister of the UK, the devolved administrations of the UK – Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland – did not follow this lead, even if tacking cognate problems. This is in part the result of the fact that since 1999, there has been the devolution of non-reserved powers relating to voluntary participation, the voluntary and community sector (VCS), and relations between the public sector and the VCS. This paper notes briefly the different approaches in Wales – where the Welsh government has focussed on projects at small community level – and Northern Ireland – where cross-national and international programmes have played a major role.
The paper analyses how the Scottish government, led by Alex Salmond and the Scottish Nationalist Party, have taken an explicitly different approach for social justice and civic society, including the Christie Commission on public service delivery, and with a vision of a fair society. It identifies the key features of this thinking and policy programme.
4. Questions and issues for public policy
There is a complex set of issues for what governments can do to tackle social problems through increasing the strengths of civil society and collective or associational ways and of individual responsibility. The paper refers to the literature exploring and assessing the processes through which governments can seek to encourage volunteering in its various manifestations (eg, Ellis Paine, Locke and Jochum 2006, Volunteering England 2009), and reflects on tensions arising as a result of economic austerity, and reduced funding for public services.
The analyses of the Big Society in England and the counterpart approaches in the devolved administrations of the UK lead the paper to identify issues for the formulation of problems and solutions where national governments are seeking to develop voluntaristic approaches in social policy programmes.
The interplay between state and voluntarism is a key area of debate, posing questions about how voluntarism depends on and/ or requires independence from the state, its resources and regulatory functions. The questions are itemised for discussion in conference.