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Taking a micro-perspective of governance that includes problem-solving and stakeholder involvement capabilities as part of the strategic steering role, we wish to contribute to the understanding of the human side of governance. Thus we have studied the relationships between the board and its management and stakeholders, and in so doing we recognize internal and external actors as well as the board itself, and how they all contribute to the implementation of the governance function.

Based on an interpretative approach that focuses on change over time, we performed a qualitative empirical study of the governance of Robotdalen, a small non-profit public organization in Sweden that is a joint public and private collaboration. This chapter forms part of a longitudinal study that has been carried out since 2009. It is based primarily on interviews with board members, management and other stakeholders, and complemented by document studies and observations.

Governance practice entails multiple and multilevel tasks, and the tensions between representativeness/professional boards, conformance/performance, and controlling/partnering up with management, are prevalent in both small non-profit and public organizations. According to our results the apparent choice between the extremes of each tension is, however, not a choice at all but rather a balancing act. In trying to balance tensions through collaboration between managers, board, financiers, and the hosting university, new governance structures and practices emerge at the organizational level.

By following the process of the emergence of a new board, we illustrate how various actors work together to co-produce governance functions in practice. In the past little or no effort has been made to take into account contextual factors such as organizational size – an aspect that may influence or shape board characteristics and work methodology. We therefore attempt to do so in our chapter, by studying the emergence of a new board in a small public organization, what possible paradoxes and tensions are involved in such work, and how such tensions are managed.

Research on public and non-profit organizations has recently shifted towards the main body of research on governance of organizations and many public and non-profit scholars focused on that. Actually, public and non-profit organizations are important elements of the whole spectrum of organizations. But in the meanwhile, their study, within the governance research, has kept aside. Moreover, with the scope and the aim of the governance research, public and non-profit governance research fitted to this new environment, focusing on performance issues, as private organizations do.

The economic literature shows contradictory results when the relationship between corporate governance and financial position is assessed. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of the online disclosure of information, as an omitted variable, in this relationship.

In order to test the role of the online disclosure of information, a set of the structural equation models is evaluated. In these models, the indirect effect of the online disclosure on the relationship between corporate governance and the financial position, defined by performance, funding and investment, is analyzed.

Using data from a sample of 252 Spanish public non-profits between 2012 and 2016, the authors found that the development of corporate governance practices is not, by itself, able to improve the financial position of these organizations. These improvements can only be achieved if the online disclosure is promoted.

Organizations should not only follow corporate governance practices but also communicate to the stakeholders the degree of development of these practices in an exercise of accountability. Finally, Web 3.0 practices must be promoted because they can be a mechanism to reinforce corporate governance practices and achieve a solid financial position.

This study contributes to the debate about the role of the online disclosure, introducing this transparent practice as a variable omitted by previous research. Moreover, the authors have considered the evolution for a period of four years in relation to the information published by each organization on the internet.

In current economic systems, the role played by non-profit and voluntary organisations is relevant. Several studies analyse the development of these organisations and suggest reasons related to the dissemination of policies that first consider public intervention and then ‘the third way’ of the economy as a way to increase wealth and support economic development. In this context, it should be noted that:

• Modern non-profit organisations (NPOs) take the form of enterprises encouraging the development of capabilities to satisfy human needs in terms of production of goods and utilities.

• A systematic cooperation with the local context (i.e. enterprises and Public Administration) is becoming increasingly more important for the survival and development of NPOs.

• Excellent opportunities for economic and social growth and for mutual development can develop from this type of cooperation.

• Starting from this premise, the purpose of the research is to suggest some insight on the theme of cooperation between for-profit and non-profit world in the light of the thought of Church’s Social Doctrine, and in particular, of the Encyclical Letter of Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate – On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth. In this sense, the contribution is a conceptual work; the study could improve with empirical research concerning the level of diffusion and the form of collaborations for-profit/non-profit in the Italian context.

Modern non-profit organisations (NPOs) take the form of enterprises encouraging the development of capabilities to satisfy human needs in terms of production of goods and utilities.

A systematic cooperation with the local context (i.e. enterprises and Public Administration) is becoming increasingly more important for the survival and development of NPOs.

Excellent opportunities for economic and social growth and for mutual development can develop from this type of cooperation.

Starting from this premise, the purpose of the research is to suggest some insight on the theme of cooperation between for-profit and non-profit world in the light of the thought of Church’s Social Doctrine, and in particular, of the Encyclical Letter of Benedict XVI, Caritas in Veritate – On Integral Human Development in Charity and Truth. In this sense, the contribution is a conceptual work; the study could improve with empirical research concerning the level of diffusion and the form of collaborations for-profit/non-profit in the Italian context.

From a methodological point of view, after a literature review on NPOs and corporate social responsibility, the chapter analyses reasons, strategies and tools of collaborations between non-profit and for-profit worlds (the role of Public Administration and hybrid organisation is excluded). Then, focus moves up on Church’s Social Doctrine and Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate with particular attention to the topic analysed in this chapter (collaboration for-profit/non-profit enterprises). The vision emerging from the Encyclical is that the dichotomy between for-profit and NPOs should be resolved by striving for the development of a ‘civil economy’ with the capacity to promote the overall development of the human being. The research highlights the importance of dissemination of initiatives promoted predominantly by NPOs, with the objective of stimulating and supporting the implementation of forms of structured collaboration; we are sure that a ‘connection point’ between for-profit and non-profit is now necessary.

As public service deliverers, funded by public money and performing tasks on behalf of government, many non-profit organisations (NPOs) are under pressure to increase their performance. More and more NPOs have to prove they work efficiently, effectively and in line with the overall mission. As a result, the challenges these organisations are confronted with put pressure on their management. For NPOs, innovation and performance are managerial key issues. Ultimately, the question is what the factors are that lead to innovation and/or improved organisational performance in NPOs, given their important role in public service delivery, often acting as agents of government. For academics, this creates an ambitious research agenda. With a risk to oversimplify the picture, we could summarise this agenda as consisting of some crucial descriptive and explanatory questions. Major descriptive research questions concern the level of innovative behaviour of NPOs, their performance, and their organisational governance characteristics. In terms of explanations, there is a possible relationship between organisational governance features and organisational performance, between organisational governance features and innovation, and between innovation and organisational performance. In this chapter, we discuss the recent academic research concerning these issues, and, secondly, based on the assessment of this literature, we will propose some directions and challenges for such a research agenda.

This paper examines the role that effective governance plays in driving the strategies of grant-giving foundations as it relates to supporting various types of charitable and philanthropy activities of public interest. Today, foundations are more than ever active as pivotal element of the so called ‘private welfare state’ all around Europe and the United States. While other forms of organizations involved in philanthropy and public welfare face competition (i.e. corporations), budget constrain (i.e. governments) or fundraising imperatives (i.e. NGOs), private foundations do not feel such a pressure and can, therefore, tackle social issues that other organizations may not. Despite this privileged position, the role of governance in such non-profit organizations is far from certain. Prior literature review shows the lack of empirical analysis related to the role of governance in foundations as they attempt to shape various projects of strong public interest.

Given foundations’ unique societal role and obligations and the fiscal advantages enjoyed by them, the objective of this study is to explore the factors that drive their decision-making and resource allocation process and to examine the efficacy of their financial and non-financial resource allocation decisions. Using the data collected from 112 large Italian foundations, this paper studies the relationship between the governance mechanism and philanthropic strategies of private foundations.

The significance of the study is based on the fact that in the non-profit sector, more than in the for-profit one, board members are called to play a strong advisory role at the top of their traditional monitoring role. In other words, active boards are expected to screen relevant public needs and to properly invest foundations’ resources in meritorious projects; while inert boards risks to pursuit private goals, camouflaged as public interest, and to dissipate resources by unconditionally financing unrelated grant requests.

This paper aims to empirically examine if and how different governance attributes associate with different philanthropic strategies. The choice of Italian foundations represents an ideal research environment considering the strong reduction of governmental social spending due to the financial crisis and the simultaneous increase in the social relevance of private foundations to support social causes of significance.

We argue that the proliferation of governance in the public sector has raised questions regarding individual constitutional rights. While some proclaim cost savings and entrepreneurial solutions to vexing social ills, others suspect that these benefits donʼt outweigh the risk of diminished accountability and the loss of constitutional protection over public service production. We propose a new model to examine the relationships between direct government, governance, public value, and public law value. We apply this model to analyze two landmark Supreme Court cases and one contemporary federal appellate court case to explore the ongoing tension between the governance model and public service production. Our findings suggest that enforcible contract language and public-private entwinement can be used as tools to protect constitutional rights in the face of increasing pressure of governance approaches.

The COVID-19 global pandemic has caused significant disruptions to the non-profit sector, highlighting the issues that the narrowly focused, traditional conception of governance fails to address. The purpose of this paper is to propose a contingency-based framework with its theoretical underpinnings in the existing literature, in order to support future empirical research on non-profit governance and accountability practices.

From a theoretical perspective, this paper synthesizes relevant existing literature and proposes a contingency-based accountability and governance framework in the non-profit sector. This paper draws on Ostrower and Stone’s (2010) contingency-based framework on boards and Hyndman and McDonnell’s (2009) conception of governance systems. This paper engages with the New Zealand and Australia context while reviewing relevant literature and relevant regulations.

The global pandemic has caused severe worldwide disruptions both socially and economically. There have been dramatic changes to the ways in which non-profit organisations (NPOs) operate. There is an urgent need to understand how such changes in the external environment impact on NPOs’ governance and accountability practices. In this context, the contingency-based accountability and governance framework proposed in this paper has important implications for non-profit research, while opening up an avenue for future research in this field.

This paper does not involve empirical analysis.

This paper contributes by facilitating better understanding on how external contingencies like the COVID-19 global pandemic affect the external and internal environment of an NPO, how they impact on stakeholders and their interplay with an NPO’s governance and accountability systems. It also suggests that regulators of the non-profit sector, umbrella support organisations, and funders proactively encourage and guide NPOs to embrace a wider scope of governance and strengthen the level of governance in the sector.

This paper contributes to the literature by proposing a contingency-based accountability and governance framework in the non-profit sector to support future research in this field. It also sheds light on competing theoretical debates relating to the conceptualisation and operationalization of accountability and governance.

In recent years, increasing scholarly attention has been directed towards the field of governing bodies research. However, little attention has been paid to the behavioural perspective on studying public boards. Aiming to fulfil this gap this paper offers a review of the international literature addressing boards behaviour within the unique organizational setting of public sector.

Considering as behavioural studies those publications focusing on actors, processes, decision-making, relationships and interaction inside and outside the boardroom, 91 papers were analysed. Adopting the framework provided by Huse (2007), the papers are classified following four behavioural dimensions/blocks which are crucial to understand board dynamics: board members, interactions, structures and leadership, decision-making culture.

The literature review shows the increasing production – in the last years – on the theoretical issues related to the behavioural perspective in public governance literature. The most relevant part of these contributions addresses the theoretical dimensions of the board member’s characteristics and of structural leadership.

The manuscript reveals the need to adopt a more organizational approach for studying the behavioural categories and levels of analysis proposed by public governance literature. Moreover, the article evidences some possible directions for future research that might further contribute to enrich the ‘behavioural governance perspective’ in public organizations.

This paper argues that divergence rather than convergence is manifested in non‐profit governance in non‐profit boards in Australia. This reinforces broader literature on governance undertaken in other countries, and suggests expectations of convergence are premature. The inclusion of more women as directors, together with a greater proportion of directors from minority groups in society, supports a view of directorship dissimilar from the corporate sector. Such divergence offers a contribution to the theory and practice of governance because it suggests that policies of convergence need to be built upon a realistic assessment of the ideologies and values that characterise the non‐profit sector.