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Higher education in the United States aims to nurture civically engaged and democratically minded individuals. During its long history, nonprofit higher education has successfully responded to that call. While for-profit higher education is not new, in recent decades its expanded reach and career-focused influence have begun to drastically challenge our thinking about all of higher education and specifically the character and practices of nonprofit institutions. At the same time, for-profit institutions of higher education have been highly criticized for their administrative practices, their cost, and their questionable outcomes. Given this criticism, there has been only limited study of the student experience with for-profits. This chapter introduces a brief history of for-profit education in the United States and offers an overview of studies exploring the student experience at for-profit institutions. It examines the relationship between administrative practices at for-profit institutions and how those practices have affected students and their educational choices, both before enrolling and after graduation. By doing so, the reader is challenged to consider the past, present, and future of higher education along with its role and mission of shaping individuals and society.

The purpose of this paper is to examine changes in accountability as the provision and control of education moved from private nonprofit organisations to a public sector provider.

Analysis of nineteenth century archival documents from significant primary educational providers in a major early New Zealand settlement.

The nonprofit education provider utilised public meetings including public examinations, whose effect was to develop trust based on the education values it shared with its community of stakeholders. It also published financial reports which, along with inspections and statistical returns, were preferred once the government became the education provider. Such publications and inspections indicated bureaucracy and control. Nevertheless, government funding, rather than the nonprofit organisation’s dependence on its community, made education provision sustainable.

It has been suggested that the differences between public sector and private sector accounting and accountability are not always sharply defined (Carnegie and Napier, 2012). However, this case study shows that a change of education provider did lead to a marked difference in accountability. While theory suggests that public sector accountability should enhance democracy, the party best meeting this brief was the nonprofit provider, with the public sector provider preferring hierarchical accountability. It could be argued that funding dependence drove these different approaches as community accountability was traded for financial security.

Distinctive study of accountability practices to external stakeholders, in a mid-nineteenth century education context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine corporate social responsibility (CSR) partnerships from the often-overlooked perspective of nonprofit beneficiaries, situated in the rapidly evolving higher education funding environment.

In-depth interviews with corporate relations officers from public research universities across the USA were conducted. Qualitative coding procedures from Lindlof and Taylor (2019) were employed to analyze transcript data.

Three main factors have contributed to a rapidly evolving climate for corporate partnerships: CSR partnerships help universities build their reputations rather than endowments; feature new preferences in communication-based stewardship practices; and raise questions about university autonomy and authority.

New interpretations of interdependent relationships and stewardship may be needed to explain new corporate funding models, while threats to nonprofit organizational authority and autonomy may be growing.

Nonprofit practitioners may better understand how to position their organizations as more attractive to corporations while learning how to advocate for mutual benefits. They may also benefit from a new understanding of corporate stewardship.

While previous research has documented detrimental effects to nonprofits in CSR partnerships, higher education fundraisers in this study detail their struggles with new models of measuring success, new expectations for stewarding corporate partners and perceived threats to autonomy. Their voices add to a fuller understanding of rapidly evolving relationship management practices in higher education.

The paper describes an integrated, interdisciplinary nonprofit management three-course concentration developed for an undergraduate public service major at a small, private college. We describe the course development process and implementation issues pertinent to nonprofit management education that include where to house programs, faculty issues, interdisciplinary teaching, students’ needs and experiential learning. Our course objectives aimed to develop business competencies from accounting, finance, management and marketing in the context of nonprofit organizations for students with no prior business knowledge. The paper concludes with a description of our three courses.

Despite the enormous size of the nonprofit sector, there has been very little empirical research done on the capital structure of nonprofit organizations, and no one has examined the potential effects of borrowing on individual contributions. Using a representative sample of nonprofits, the empirical analysis first determines whether secured or unsecured borrowing by nonprofits influence future contributions. The results for the full sample support a “crowding-out” effect. When the analysis is repeated on a subsample of nonprofits that are older, larger, and more dependent upon donations, the results are more ambiguous: secured debt has little or no effect, while unsecured debt has a “crowd-in” effect. The empirical analysis is then expanded to test whether nonprofits with higher than average debt levels have different results than nonprofits with below average debt levels. The results suggest that donors do remove future donations when a nonprofit is more highly leveraged compared to similar organizations.

This chapter reviews ethical challenges confronting nonprofit administration in relation to organizational managerial practices and leadership behaviors. Through a theoretical model of nonprofit-specific toxic leadership, it reviews the dynamics of destructive leaders, susceptible followers, and conducive environments in cases of unethical and corrupt nonprofit organizational behaviors. It provides a case for prioritizing oversight responsibilities of the board of directors, board supervision, promoting ethical culture in organizational leadership, and implementing policies for addressing destructive and corrupt nonprofit leaders. It reflects on how nonprofit toxic leadership primarily erodes public trust in the nonprofit sector and concludes with practical recommendations for recentering positive behaviors congruent with the nonprofit's social and public good mission.

Considering a macro view of business and higher education interactions, this chapter explores key facets for business interest in other organizations (e.g., other businesses and their social agendas, nonprofits, and higher education) and a trend toward the creation of signature programs, which allow most companies to focus efforts by highlighting Carroll's (1991) Pyramid of Corporate Social Responsibility and Jacoby's (1973) Three Models of Behavior of the Business Enterprise. This chapter also addresses ethical opportunities and problems.

This paper aims to reflect on 25 years of the social enterprise initiative at the Harvard Business School, examining the processes and thinking involved at key stages of this pioneering Initiative’s implementation and institutionalization.

The authors adopt an auto-ethnographical approach, reflexively considering the impact of our actions at key stages.

Reflecting on the experiences, the authors offer their thoughts on the challenges involved in establishing an educational program. They consider that there were give stages in the development of the program, which ensured its longevity, institutionalization and success: giving birth; starting an experiment; gaining acceptability; being embraced and achieving irreversibility.

The multiple challenges faced, as well as the successes that the authors had over the years, are set out. Awareness of the challenges that the authors faced will support educators to be prepared to overcome the same or similar challenges to implementing and embedding a social enterprise program.

This is the first time that the authors’ reflections on the history of the Social Enterprise Initiative have been brought together. As well as distinctive in their own right, the authors consider that the lessons learned from the work over such a long period could provide valuable insights to those who wish to integrate social enterprise teaching into their settings.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how chief executives of 20 nonprofit organizations construe and prioritize the skills they use to perform typical leadership tasks.

The in-depth interview protocol used in the study is based on the Repertory Grid Technique, which elicits assumptions, beliefs, and values of respondents without imposing the researchers’ implicit frame of reference.

The interviews generated 285 skill constructs. Respondents in this study report that they utilize a mix of technical, interpersonal, and conceptual skills. Interpersonal skills, especially communication and trust building, appear to be particularly prevalent among the many skills used by executives to perform their leadership tasks.

Because this is an exploratory study, its findings cannot yet be generalized to other contexts. Therefore, the paper concludes with some propositions for further research.

The study may have implications for the design of curricula to prepare people to assume leadership positions in nonprofit organizations.

This study uses a distinctive methodology to elicit from nonprofit leaders their assumptions and beliefs about the skills they use to perform leadership tasks. In this respect, the findings are grounded in the frames of reference of the subjects, not those of the researchers.

China has witnessed the emergence and rapid development of private higher education in the past three decades. As private higher education gradually takes on a more significant role in the Chinese educational system, due to the inability of the government to accommodate the growing demand for higher education, educational reform, influenced by the success of private higher education, will inevitably affect the quality and quantity of education overall.

This chapter focuses on several aspects of this development: the growth of private higher education in China, issues of finance and access, its relationship to the national system and to government policy, issues of ownership and the autonomy of private higher education, as well as the advantages and challenges of Chinese private higher education and the larger significance of its emergence in China. This study concludes that with proper management private colleges and universities will benefit from and contribute to Chinese society through multiple roles and responsibilities at their mature stage.