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This paper aims to extend some of the theoretical propositions of Michael Power’s (1997) audit society thesis by exploring the capacity of organisations to push back against external accountability pressures. The paper positions the literature on non-governmental organisation (NGO) accounting and accountability as a “case study” against which the notion of the audit society is put to the test.

A qualitative meta-synthesis of the accounting literature is used to analyse how NGOs have responded to audit society pressures – most notably funder pressures to adopt formalised accountability mechanisms. The different responses of NGOs to funder accountability demands are analysed using Christine Oliver’s (1991) typology of strategic responses to institutional processes.

This review of the accounting literature unveils that NGOs can adopt a range of strategic responses to funder accountability pressures that vary from passive conformity to proactive manipulation. The findings confirm that NGOs often perceive acquiescence to funder accountability demands as necessary to ensure organisational survival. Yet, the author also found that NGO resistance to funder accountability pressures is more common than previously assumed. Five dominant forms of “accountability resistances” emerged from the analysis: evading accountability, disguising accountability, shielding accountability, negotiating accountability and shaping accountability.

By conducting a qualitative meta-synthesis of the accounting literature, the author was able to integrate the findings of prior research on NGO resistance to funder accountability demands, guide future research and extend Michael Power’s (1997) work by developing a more nuanced understanding of how organisations respond to external accountability pressures.

Drawing on “Strategic Alliance” literature and qualitative research methods, the purpose of this study is to examine the initiation and operations phases of the relationship between Australian litigation funders and class law firms. The initiation phase examines factors such as complementarity between needs and assets compatibility between the funder and the class law firm goals of the alliance trust and alliance structure. The operations phase considers factors such as governance, communication and risk management and accountability. Because of its focus on the fairness of settlement, case law provides limited understanding of the drivers of the class law firm and funder relationship. An “inside look” of how the funder-law firm is initiated and made operational provides a more accurate picture and has important implications for the management of the ethical issues that arise during the course of that relationship.

This paper is a content analysis and contains qualitative interviews.

The strategic alliance between class law firms and litigation funders has evolved within an institutional climate that has acknowledged the benefits that the alliance can bring to the conduct of class actions. That same institutional environment has led to an alliance which is informal and transactionally oriented, where each of the parties maintains a demarcation in function. Although they share aspects of the strategic management of class actions, funders continue to be diligent monitors of class law firms, and class law firms continue to advance the legal rights of class members.

It is observed that the size of the sample is small driven by a number of market participants.

The paper confirms that the litigation funder–law firm strategic alliance works well as a result of institutional constraints.

Each of the alliance partners was keen to ensure that neither they nor their partner acted in a way which might attract judicial disapproval. Each also believed that they played a positive role in promoting class member interests, albeit that their primary motivation was to earn fees or a commission. The success of the alliance between class law firms and litigation funders has substantially improved access to justice in Australia for small claims holders.

The paper provides insight into a strategic alliance which is formed primarily for the benefit of third parties. This is one of the first papers to consider the litigation funder–law firm relationship through the lens of strategic alliance literature.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate funders' decisions in supporting reward-based crowdfunding (RBCF) in the creative industries by providing insights into the role of trust in the decision-making process of funders. In doing so, the authors examine how trust is developed through online interaction.

Data were collected from interviews and participation at short-term immersive events and gatherings. In addition, data were gathered from online discussions and social media platforms related to RBCF campaign. Qualitative analysis was performed to offer a deeper understanding of funder decision-making processes.

New insights were revealed into funder decision-making processes. Using foraging practices, funders participating in RBCF campaigns build trust before framing their final funding judgments. The paper’s findings highlight the interplay of organizational competency with previously uncharted relational dimensions associated with funder decision-making processes. The authors also revealed how nascent and experienced funders differ in their evaluation of risk.

This study offers an understanding of funder decision-making processes in creative RBCF campaigns. Their support of RBCF campaigns in the creative industries can present some potential risks. Further investigation is still required to reveal the funder's decision-making process. By looking at the roles of trust, the authors provide a conceptualization of competence and the relational dimension of trust, and how trust is developed as a means for mitigating risk.

The purpose of this paper is to ascertain how upward accountability processes can be enabling in, or constraining to, the effective deployment of development aid funding.

The paper derives its primary insights from in-depth interviews and focus groups with non-governmental organization (NGO) fieldworkers working and delivering development aid in Northern Ghana. It analyses inductively the perspectives of fieldworkers to explain their experiences of upward accountability.

The fieldworkers’ perception of upward accountability was mainly one of external control, in response to which they enacted a skilful form of compliance accountability. This perception of control failed to stifle their initiative and intrinsic commitment to beneficiaries. The fieldworkers craved “conversations for accountability”, in which they had a voice in the development of upward accountability metrics, thereby enabling them to fulfil their sense of felt responsibility to beneficiaries. While aspects of “conversations for accountability” were emerging in fieldworker-funder interactions, it was unclear to what extent funders were committed to further advancing them. Overall, the analysis unveils how felt responsibility mediates for, and partly diminishes, the perceived negative impacts on aid effectiveness of upward accountability processes informed by a focus on control.

The authors examine the potential of upward accountability processes using in-depth analyses of the actual experiences of those involved in delivering NGO services at the grassroots level. The authors contribute to emerging work in this vein by enriching the authors’ understanding of local constituencies’ experiences of accountability processes more generally, especially the impact these mechanisms have on NGO operational activities. The authors also unveil the mediating role fieldworkers’ “felt responsibility” to beneficiaries’ plays in moderating the perceived negative impacts on aid effectiveness of upward accountability processes.

Literature has widely studied the financial accountability pressures on NGOs but rarely analysed how NGOs respond to them. This paper studies one large humanitarian NGO to address this question. It investigates the NGO's responses to understand the extent to which NGOs are able to regain control over their own work and turn the frames of evaluation and accountability to their own advantage.

This article draws on a case study of one of the largest French humanitarian NGOs. Interviews and observation (both participant and non-participant) were conducted in the financial department of the NGO. These data are supplemented with field-level contextual interviews.

In the NGO studied, institutional pressure is largely mediated by compliance audits. The paper thus traces the consequences of compliance audits for the NGO's central finance teams and describes how they respond. The findings detail three responses to evaluation. First, to respond to the burden of evaluation, the organisation makes itself auditable and develops preparedness. Second, to respond to the anxiety of evaluation, the organisation engages in a process of purification and succumbs to the allure of the single figure. Third, building on its newly acquired auditability and purity, the organisation performs itself as a “corporatised NGO”. Together, these three responses constitute the NGO as an “entrepreneur” competing for eligibility, and financial literacy and managerialism become crucial to respond to pressure from institutional funders.

This paper extends the understanding of organisational responses to evaluation. The authors show the influence of evaluation systems on NGOs, but also how NGOs can react to regain control over their work and turn the frames of evaluation and accountability to their own advantage. However, despite several decades of calls for broader conceptions of NGO accountability, the case NGO prefers to promote a very narrow view of its performance, based solely on accounting compliance. It takes some pride in its ability to comply with funders' and auditors' demands. Turning a simple matter of compliance into a display of good performance, it builds a strategy and competitive advantage on its ability to respond competently to evaluation.

The purpose of this paper is to identify funders’ motivations for investing in crowdfunding. It applies trust theory to propose a research model including three subject measures – fundraiser-related, project-related and platform-related factors. Trust has been categorized into cognitive and affective dimensions to specifically analyze the influential factors.

Bootstrapping is employed to analyze data collected from respondents with investment experience on equity crowdfunding projects. Structural equation modeling techniques are adopted to examine the factors that influence trust between funders and crowdfunding as well as the outcomes of this trust.

The results indicate that calculus trust and relationship trust collectively or separately transmit the effect of some antecedents to investment intention. However, there is no evidence indicating the mediating effects of calculus trust and relationship trust on the relationship of structural assurance and value congruence to investment intention.

This paper provides insights for crowdfunding fundraisers on how to build a strong relationship with funders, and it also gives crowdfunding designers advice on how to improve and perfect the platform functions.

This study contributes to a better understanding of the driving forces of calculus and relationship trust and their influence on investment intention. It is also the first to address a funder’s trust using a theoretical model describing the investor intention in crowdfunding and thereby extending the knowledge base of trust theory.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how influencer endorsement services stimulate funding intention in the context of crowdfunding (donation- and reward-based) and the moderating role played by platform trufvst and funder expertise.

To explore the effects of influencer endorsement services (i.e. perceived congruence, social influence and motivation) on funding intention in different crowdfunding campaigns, the authors developed a conceptual model tested using structural equation modelling. The authors also investigated two potential moderators underlying this relationship: platform trust and funder expertise.

The results of the study indicate that there was a positive effect of influencer endorsement services through the dimension congruence and the funding intention, both for reward- and donation-based crowdfunding. Moreover, they suggest that while perceived congruence has a positive effect on funding intention, when the two contexts are compared, only the moderating roles of platform trust over motivation and the funder expertise over motivation are significant and relevant.

The study has implications for both funders and those who seek to raise money for crowdfunding campaigns. The results offer new insights for developing effective crowdfunding campaigns, e.g. leveraging communication strategies based on the context of the crowdfunding (reward- vs donation-based) and the use of influencers as endorsers.

The present study is, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, the first to examine the impact of influencer endorsement services on crowdfunding campaigns, shedding new light on the interdisciplinary connections between service marketing and entrepreneurial finance in terms of fundraising activities. The study opens new and previously under-investigated interdisciplinary research streams. It deepens our understanding of a particular issue relating to the marketing and crowdfunding domain by measuring the impact of the influencer’s endorsement on people’s intention to participate in two different campaigns.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse whether the development of a needs‐based funding formula for resource allocation incorporates the needs of funders or the needs of the service providers.

The paper analyses interview data and documentary evidence gathered from a UK local education authority about the creation of a “needs‐based” formula for sharing resources to schools. It employs and extends a framework developed by Levačić and Ross to evaluate needs‐based formula funding.

Although formula funding is purported to be a more objective method of resource allocation, the paper finds that as with other resource allocation methods the power relations between the funder and the service provider impacts on the extent to which service provider needs are incorporated into the funding formula.

This paper considers only the funding of schools. Further work is needed to investigate formula funding for other public services.

Debates between funders and service providers should be encouraged by policy makers to ensure that allocations based on the funding formula are acceptable to service providers.

The paper provides a useful analysis of a needs‐based funding formula for resource allocation in schools and whether this incorporates the needs of funders or the needs of the service providers.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the factors that determine two forms of crowdfunding campaign success: success in securing the necessary financial resources and personal success in terms of the entrepreneur’s satisfaction. Specifically, it studies factors linked to the relationship between entrepreneurs and funders (co-creation and feedback) and factors linked to the campaign’s content (dimensions of corporate social responsibility (CSR)).

An empirical study of 52 crowdfunding entrepreneurs was conducted. Data were gathered using a structured questionnaire. Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis was performed.

For financial and personal success, all factors, except the social dimension of CSR, are necessary conditions. Two configurations are sufficient for entrepreneurs to achieve financial success. The first configuration that is sufficient for personal success is the same as the first configuration for financial success. The second configuration for personal success is similar to the second configuration for financial success, except that it also includes financial success itself.

Entrepreneurs should invest in CSR and seek to improve the quality of their relationships with their funders. Crowdfunding platforms should design and manage co-creation and feedback tools that are capable of providing deep knowledge of users’ opinions and concerns whilst generating value. The limitations of this study are that only the reward-based crowdfunding model was considered, and the data covered just two platforms.

This study contributes to the literature by presenting empirical analysis of the factors that influence financial success and personal success in reward-based crowdfunding. It examines aspects that strictly refer to the content of the project and aspects that refer to the entrepreneur–funder relationship. Specifically, the roles of the four dimensions of CSR were considered. Moreover, the fsQCA method provides a fresh approach to research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the evolving nature of the accountability relationship between a group of Irish non‐governmental development organisations (NGDOs) and their primary governmental funder.

The examination is undertaken in the context of a unique funder‐led initiative to instil a broad social accountability focus among NGDOs while re‐orienting the NGDO‐funder accountability dynamic towards a partnership‐based approach – whereby the accountability entity would effectively be a supra‐organisation comprising the funder and the NGDOs. The empirical content of the paper is derived from a series of in‐depth interviews with senior individuals working within the Irish NGDO sector, along with a comprehensive analysis of documentary sources.

The partnership rhetoric central to promoting the enhanced focus on social accountability across the “virtual” accountability supra‐organisation has not been transformed into reality, and the NGDO‐funder accountability relationship within the supra‐organisation remains centred on control and justification. A lack of resources, organisational commitment, guidance, and expertise from the governmental funder has contributed to an attitude of scepticism among many NGDOs towards both the partnership rhetoric and the accompanying adoption of the central tenets of social accountability, particularly downward accountability to beneficiaries.

The research is based on a detailed analysis in a specific context which may limit its wider applicability. Nevertheless, it adds insights to the developing academic literature on NGO accountability, with particular reference to their broader social accountabilities.

Although highly context‐specific, the findings of the study will be useful to researchers and policy makers interested in understanding how NGDO‐funder accountability relationships can move towards mutual accountability and genuine partnerships focused on promoting social accountability.

Very few in‐depth academic examinations of the evolving nature of NGDO‐funder accountability relationships in specific NGO contexts have emerged in the accountability literature. Many of the insights in this paper are derived from individuals inside organisations in the NGDO sector who are regularly addressing issues of accountability, both social and otherwise. This provides in‐depth, highly‐informed insider perspectives on the evolving nature of these relationships, especially in the context of attempts to promote more partnership‐based approaches to the delivery of development aid.