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There is still no universal definition of the third sector in Europe, but it can be seen as including all types of non-governmental not-for-profit entities such as non-profit organizations, mutuals, cooperatives, social enterprises and foundations. This article attempts to make sense of the current shifting conceptualization of the third sector in Europe. It is based on short country summaries of the images and concepts of the third sector in 13 European countries by EMES Network’s members, first presented in 2008 (Defourny and Pestoff, 2008; nine of them were recently revised and are found in the appendix to this article.). The perception and development of the third sector in Europe is closely related to the other major social governance institutions/mechanisms, like the market, state and community and through the third sector’s interaction with them. Moreover, many third sector organizations (TSOs) overlap with these other social institutions, resulting in varying degrees of hybridity and internal tensions experienced by them. TSOs can generate resources from their activities on the market, by providing services in partnership with the state and/or by promoting the interests of a given community or group. The country overviews document a growing professionalization of TSOs in most countries and a growing dependency of public funds to provide services. This has important theoretical and practical implications for orienting the articles included in this book. Thus, it can provide a key for better understanding the discussion and analysis in the remainder of this volume.

The purpose of this study is to introduce the concept of social welfare chain and address the challenges in decision making through the development of an optimal planning model for a nongovernmental organization (NGO). The distinctive properties of the social welfare chain and its relationship with the humanitarian relief chain in the context of supply chain management are also discussed. The paper presents a real decision problem and analyzes the managerial impacts of the proposed solution.

The study of social welfare policy and the review of the humanitarian literature has necessitated the introduction of the social welfare chain. Based on its definition, an optimal facility location distribution model that consolidates the non‐integrated style of logistics functions with a cost minimizing approach is developed. The General Algebraic Modeling System (GAMS) is used in order to optimize the coal distribution model of an NGO. Data is obtained from an NGO that aims to help vulnerable people through distributing coal and basic food such as rice and sugar.

Besides laying the foundations of social welfare chain, an analytical tool for decision support systems of the NGOs can be considered as the major finding of the research. Despite the increased number of stages in the proposed network configuration, the optimal solution resulted in significant cost reduction and distribution efficiency due to the availability of temporary distribution center locations at no extra cost. Furthermore, this study brings out the advantages of using intermodal transportation in the distribution process of cost‐sensitive networks.

This paper provides a detailed analysis that contributes to the efficiency and the effectiveness of social welfare chains. Moreover, it represents a cooperation established between university and NGOs.

The planning efforts of nongovernmental organizations targeting at the periodical aids to improve the social welfare level have received little attention in the literature. This paper is the first to propose the concept of “Social Welfare Chain”, at the same time addressing the distribution planning for the NGO.

This study aims to enhance the understanding of the nature of collaboration between public and nonpublic actors in delivering social services and achieving social innovation in a fragile context, with an emphasis on the role of civil society organisations (CSOs). The paper focuses on Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Southeastern European country which has faced a turbulent post-conflict transition and experienced challenges in its social welfare policy and practice.

This study uses institutional theory, particularly new institutionalism and institutional networking, as a lens through which to understand public and nonpublic collaboration and social innovation within a fragile context. This study adopts a sequential mixed-method approach. Data were derived from 15 semi-structured interviews with representatives from local CSOs, international donors and public institutions, as well as a survey of 120 CSO representatives.

The collaboration and social innovation in a fragile welfare context have been initiated primarily by nonpublic actors and developed within the triple context of relations between public, civil and foreign donors’ organisations. In such a context, coercive, normative and mimetic isomorphisms act as leading drivers, but also as potential barriers of public–nonpublic collaboration and social innovation. They are triggered by influences from multiple actors, challenging power relations and external pressures on local CSOs.

The paper contributes to the growing research interest in the role of nonpublic actors in the provision of public services and public social innovation, but examines these issues from the perspective of a fragile context, which has thus far been overlooked in the literature.

Miller McPherson's approach to measuring the inherent duality of organizational forms and the environmental niches that they occupy is adapted and applied to an analysis of the institutional field of (outdoor) poverty relief organizations operating in New York City (1888–1917). In contrast to McPherson's approach that emphasizes how organizations are differentially arrayed within “Blau space,” this chapter focuses on how organizational forms are distributed across an institutional “logic space” that is itself dually ordered and defined by the kinds of organizational forms that are understood to exist. The resulting niche maps are employed to trace out the jurisdictional conflicts that erupted during the Progressive Era between two competing organizational forms – scientific charities and settlement houses – each of which embodied a particular vision and practice for delivering social relief to the poor.

A large and growing literature examines the explicit social responsibility practices of companies. Yet corporations’ greatest consequences for social welfare arguably occur through indirect processes that shape the social fabric that sustains generosity and mutual support within communities. Based on this logic, we theorize and test a model that suggests two pathways by which large corporations affect community philanthropy: (1) through direct engagement in community philanthropy and (2) by indirectly influencing the efficacy of community social capital, defined as the relationships among community members that facilitate social support and maintenance of social welfare. Our analysis of United Way contributions in 136 US cities over the 46 years from 1952 to 1997 supports our model. We find that the presence of corporations weakens the contributions of both elite and working-class social capital on community philanthropy. Our findings thus contribute to a novel view of corporate social responsibility based on how corporations influence the social capital of the communities in which they are embedded.

Social action implemented by the Church via its affiliated entities, foundations and associations may be viewed as a uniform activity. In reality, however, several organizational profiles exist that depend on the origin of these organizations (lay or religious), the scope of their activities (local or general) and their dependence on resources (whether from public administration or civil society). The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this paper, the authors examine this diversity based on a 2015 study of every Catholic Church social organization with headquarters in Catalonia. For the study, the authors conducted a detailed analysis of these organizations in order to determine their nature, scope and structure. The methodology combined questionnaire, interviews and non-participant observation.

The social actions of these organizations lead to interesting debates, such as those on: charity/assistentialism vs social justice; professionalization vs voluntarism; and personal autonomy vs functional dependence resulting from the action. This study also highlights how important it is that Church organizations carry out social actions to generate social welfare in the welfare states of southern European countries.

It is the first time that a study of the social impact of the church and its organizational implications in Spain has been made.

This article highlights the fact that in an attempt to cope with the turbulence and hostility which characterize their operating environments, many public sector organizations have embarked upon far‐reaching programmes of unsettling strategic change. These programmes often exhibit features of disintegration. Additionally they are frequently formulated by senior managers in isolation from organizational members, who are then expected to implement them without question or consultation. This article argues that such approaches to change management are unlikely to bring about the desired transformation. Rather, using a case study of one public sector organization in the Republic of Ireland, it is argued that organizations are more likely to experience the required metamorphosis where the change commences at the periphery and is led by relatively junior front line staff, with senior management practitioners acting as facilitators of organizational transformation.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the European transnational migration of poverty in a regional context, specifically focusing on homelessness among the migrant poor in Norway and Sweden. Gathering insight from individuals who routinely assist with social care, this research seeks to find out if the liberal provision of welfare and supportive services attracts poor migrants to this region from other parts of Europe.

Qualitative in-depth interviews with individuals who provide social care assistance to homeless migrants in Oslo and Stockholm.

The influx of people experiencing homelessness in these areas is comprised mainly of two distinct sub-populations. One group migrated in search of employment opportunities but struggled with tenuous working and living arrangements. A second more transient group appeared to be motivated by perceptions of Scandinavian benevolence and charity. Both groups lacked familiarity with the social welfare system but were generally uninhibited by cultural differences between their destination and country of origin.

The intent of this study is not to generalize to a broader population but to develop an in-depth exploration of homelessness and migration from the perspective of social care workers. Purposive sampling is used to gather insights from key informants that work closely with homeless migrants; however the findings can be limited by the unique experiences of each individual.

In the public discourse on homelessness it is a mistake to group all homeless migrants together. Additionally it is important to distinguish between the needs of migrants and non-migrants, as these two homeless populations generally do not struggle with the same issues.

With a better understanding of this issue, governments will be able to provide more adequate assistance and develop more effective initiatives to combat and prevent homelessness.

Data collected from 41 high schools are used to test a set of hypotheses concerning dimensions of organization and alienation. The results from school organizations are then compared with those of Aiken and Hage for social welfare agencies. Although the relationships between bureaucratic structure and alienation are remarkably similar for secondary schools and social welfare agencies, there are striking differences in their organizational structures. Schools are dramatically more formalized and centralized than welfare agencies; and teachers are significantly more alienated than welfare workers. It is theorized that a bifurcation of professional and administrative domains in schools provides a distinctive organizational structure that reduces the impact of structure on alienation of teachers.