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Recent literature on nonprofit boards of directors has extensively investigated the composition, role, responsibilities, and characteristics of boards. Given the growing number of studies on nonprofit boards, which added new impulse to the debate on the role and characteristics of these players, it is time to analyze the state of the art and systematize the current knowledge. On the other hand, despite the presence of some literature reviews, a research comparing the debate among the nonprofit, private, and public sectors is still lacking. Using Gabrielsson and Huse’s (2004) framework, we wanted to identify factors that can influence research on nonprofit boards and compare our results with existing studies on private and public sector.

We conduct a systematic literature review, selecting empirical articles published in international scientific journals from 1992 to 2012.

We found similarities and differences in relation to research on boards among sectors. As a common result, we found that evolutionary studies still remains a neglected area in all of three realms. Finally, whereas input–output studies prevail in the private sector and contingency studies prevail in the public sector, behavioral studies prevail in the nonprofit sector, demonstrating, also, that the sector itself can make a difference in the board’s research.

This literature review provides some suggestion for further research on boards for all of three sectors. For example, we suggest complementing research on boards on all three sectors, especially in relation to evolutionary studies.

This paper fills the need to clarify the status of research on nonprofit boards, in order to address scholars in the understanding of the phenomenon.

This study aims to provide a timely “first look” at the impact of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions on the financial distress of nonprofits.

This study uses Internal Revenue Service Form 990 returns, US census information, and Oxford COVID-19 workplace restriction data and utilizes logistic regression to analyze results.

Nonprofits with greater COVID-19 lockdown restrictions are more likely to experience financial distress, whether measured by a 30% reduction in total, program, management and general, or fundraising expenses. This paper also examines results by subsector using National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities data and finds that the Human Services and Public and Society subsectors drive the full sample results when the authors use total, program, or managerial and general expenses in the measure of financial distress, and the Education and Environment and Animals subsectors drive the results when using fundraising expenses in the measure of financial distress.

Broadly speaking, this paper contributes to the limited research stream examining the impact of crises on nonprofits. More specifically, this study is among the earliest to rely on quantitative data to investigate such effects.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how two types of drivers, namely, executive compensation and market competition, can affect hospital quality in the USA. Recently, patients, insurers and regulators have increasingly focused on hospital quality. Understanding the interplay of incentives in this industry is important because in 2019, hospital treatment contributed $1.161bn to health-care costs in the USA. This study answers the call for more studies in the so-called “mixed” industry, where ownership differences can affect organizational objectives and operating constraints.

This study explores the roles of hospital executive compensation and industry competition as determinants of health-care quality. Specifically, the study probes the heterogeneity in the factors that influence quality across hospital types in the USA.

Using California hospital data from 2006 through 2020, the findings show that the effects of compensation and competition on hospital quality differ by ownership type. Executive compensation is positively associated with quality in for-profit hospitals but is not associated with that of nonprofit hospitals, suggesting for-profit hospitals are more likely to use higher levels of compensation to attract managers with higher ability, whereas the utility function for nonprofit managers may be multidimensional. Within the nonprofit hospital group, competition is more positively associated with quality for religious nonprofits relative to secular nonprofits, suggesting that competition provides more monitoring for religious hospitals.

Taken together, the findings provide evidence that the drivers of quality vary across hospitals in ways consistent with differences in constraints and objectives across ownership types. The findings are important for regulators seeking to incentivize higher quality. For example, Medicare in the USA has incorporated quality measures into its new hospital reimbursement scheme (value-based purchasing) to incentivize quality. This study proposes that regulators should consider differences across ownership types when evaluating the best ways to incentivize hospital quality.

US tax-exempt nonprofits are chronically underdeveloped when it comes to reporting, communicating and comparing the value they create. This paper aims to explore an approach to address these reporting and disclosure issues, for the purpose of sustainability and impact.

First, the authors ask and then answer: is it time to clean up US tax-exempt nonprofit reporting? Second, the authors develop a theoretical argument, based on commensuration of impact, for a specific tax-exempt integrated report (IR), to compare the value of tax-exempt nonprofits. Third, this study offers an example of this tax-exempt IR in practice.

First, this study evidences the need for a drastic shift in the expectations and reporting practices of US tax-exempt nonprofits. Second, this study offers an IR framework that responds to recent scholarly calls to address organizational accountability boundaries and impact assessment in the nonprofit sector. Third, this contributes to sustainability policy conversation by mapping out an approach that US tax-exempt nonprofits could deploy to speed up the implementation of sustainable solutions (Sustainable Development Goal [SDG] 17).

This study contributes to sustainability conversation by closing with a discussion of why policymakers, managers and scholars should continue to push for maximum impact from US tax-exempt nonprofits. If addressing the UN SDGs is a desired outcome, then there is an immediate need for change in the way US nonprofits report what they do. This study suggests that learning from the European Union reporting practices and regulations will facilitate a move toward improved reliability, comparability and impact from US nonprofits.

The aim of this paper was to present a disclosure framework that provides reliable and comparable information of the value created by tax-exempt nonprofits. This principle-based framework is rooted in the IR literature and extends into the prosocial world of tax-exempt nonprofits, recognizing that is it goes farther than simply being a framework; it is a social process.

This paper responds to recent calls for more oversight and comparison disclosure mechanisms of US tax-exempt nonprofits, for the purpose of reducing social or environmental inequality. The framework makes an important contribution to the field of sustainability accounting, in that it promotes a principle-based approach for measuring and regulating tax-exempt nonprofits, in a way that motivates oversight and comparison of sustainability-related practices.

This manuscript explores the value of mission statement emotional content in the relationship between money raised by a nonprofit organization through fundraising efforts and the money spent. It proposes the emotional content of a mission statement moderates money spent and earned to ultimately to impact how much revenue a nonprofit makes through fundraising.

The manuscript evaluates the qualitative turned quantitative data (via text mining [TM]) in mission statements from 200 nonprofits serving the homeless sector via a moderation analysis. After segmenting the sampled nonprofits by gross revenue, the authors analyze the impact of the positive and negative emotional tone in each group to determine how the content of a mission statement impacts organizational revenue.

The paper provides empirical insights about how the emotional polarity of a mission statement influences money earned through fundraising. However, the positive and negative tone of a mission statement impacts organizations differently based on size. For nonprofits that report an annual revenue of less than $1 million, a positive tone in the mission statement results in higher revenue. Conversely, nonprofits that report over $1 million earn less revenue with a positive tone in their mission statement.

Owing to the specialized group sampled, the findings possibly only apply to the sampled group. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the relationships found in other areas of nonprofits. However, the implications of mission statement polarity influencing financial performance in any population should be of keen interest to practitioners when crafting mission statements.

The finding that mission statement emotional tone influences the financial performance of a nonprofit has direct implications for the effective delivery of services in the nonprofit realm. Leaders of nonprofits can use the study’s findings to position their organizations to capture potential needed revenue in the crafting of their mission statements.

This paper uniquely exposes the moderating impact of the emotional tone in mission statements in relationship with financial performance.

Emergency health and humanitarian nonprofits work under volatile circumstances that strain nonprofits' financial resources. This study investigates the impact of revenue composition on the financial health of these nonprofits and the impact of financial health on the likelihood of financial distress.

A sample of 11,335 emergency nonprofits from 2003 to 2020 was obtained through form 990 data and studied through a difference generalized method of moments (GMM) approach for the impact of revenue composition on financial health. The impact of financial health on financial distress was studied through panel logistics regression.

Revenue diversification adversely affects the financial health of nonprofit emergency health and humanitarian organizations contrary to the implications of modern portfolio theory. The financial health of nonprofit emergency health and humanitarian organizations is persistent through the significant positive effect of lags in most cases.

The emergency health subsector of nonprofits was studied separately due to the unique nature of the sectors' operations and operating environment. The impact of revenue composition was investigated on key dimensions of financial health. Omitted variable bias, simultaneity and dynamic endogeneity were handled through difference GMM.

Most prior studies investigating determinants of CEO compensation in nonprofit hospitals ignore how managerial ability affects compensation. This study aims to examine whether CEOs with greater ability to manage corporate resources efficiently receive more payment in nonprofit hospitals.

This study employs a sample of 764 observations from 85 Pennsylvania nonprofit hospitals for the period 2010–2020.

This study finds a positive and statistically significant association between managerial ability and CEO compensation. The results are robust to alternative measures of managerial ability.

The measure of managerial ability proposed in this study could be used by boards of directors to quantify, evaluate and benchmark CEO ability. The results are also relevant to policymakers, stakeholders and the public interested in understanding the determinants of CEO compensation in nonprofits.

This study is among the first to use a more precise measure of managerial ability, which captures the unobserved manager-specific aspects of CEO ability. In addition, this study contributes to the literature by providing evidence that CEO's ability to manage hospital resources efficiently plays an essential role in designing executive compensation contracts.

The DataArts dataset, although it covers mostly arts organizations, has emerged as an alternative source of data for nonprofit research. Most existing studies use the IRS 990 data, which is considered a reliable source for research. We evaluate the reliability of the DataArts dataset by comparing the consistency of the values reported to the DataArts Cultural Data Profile (CDP) and to the 990 forms. We: 1) examine correlations between the same measures in each dataset, 2) assess the cumulative distribution of differences between the two datasets and 3) compare the results of the same empirical model conducted with the DataArts dataset and 990 data, respectively. We conclude that the DataArts dataset is an adequate and reliable source of financial and performance information, but researchers should be aware of a few limitations.

This is a study of ethical climates in nonprofit and government sectors in Japan, the aim of which is to determine the extent to which similarities (and differences) exist in ethical climate dimensions, what drives the differences and what are the implications for the sectors in this country.

Using survey data and structural equation modeling techniques, the factors structure equivalence and measurement invariance of ethical climates in the two sectors were tested. The original sample was made by 1,012 participants (500 public officials and 512 nonprofit executive directors). Due to some missing values, a net sample of 441 questionnaires (for nonprofit) and 321 questionnaires (for government) were used for the final analysis.

Results of this study indicate that there was a significant overlap in shared perception of all ethical climates in the two sectors. There should be an effort to continue building on these commonalities so as to provide an effective framework to build trusting relationships between the two sectors.

This study provides important insights that would allow policy makers in government to better understand the implications of using nonprofit partners to deliver services. It would also provide a theoretical and empirical starting point from which government‐nonprofits relationships in Japan can be better understood.

This was the first time that such a type of research was conducted in Japanese nonprofit and government sectors. Furthermore, among all the empirical studies on ethical climate, this is based on one of the largest sample of respondents in both sectors.

This article addresses the nature of strategic planning in nonprofit organizations through a discussion of relevant literature and the use of a case study of an organization created by a recent merger. Within the framework of a strategic plan, the concepts of continuous quality performance improvement (CQPI) and accountability for achieving nonprofit organizationsʼ goals are discussed. In todayʼs world, nonprofit organizations need to develop a strategic plan to respond to their dynamic and changing internal and external environments. A CQPI system is a useful tool for nonprofit leaders and their staff, to help them adapt the organization to its current environment; clarify needs of its clients; and set priorities to better meet its mission.