Bridging and Bonding: Disentangling Two Mechanisms Underlying the Diversity–Performance Relationship

Abstract

Although extensive research has examined whether diversity hinders or improves organizational performance, the aggregate results remain inconclusive. Social bridging theories argue that diverse organizations perform better than homogeneous organizations, while social bonding theories argue that diverse organizations perform worse. When scholars test these competing theories, they often specify bridging and bonding as the inverse of one another. This study instead specifies them as distinct mechanisms and measures them independently using data from a national study of organizations containing information on the race, class, gender, and religion of each organization’s leadership team and the frequency, type, and content of their interactions. The analysis indicates that both bridging and bonding are positively associated with an organization’s performance; however, their respective performance benefits depend on the type of task being performed. The results suggest that social diversity facilitates performance related to accessing external resources and social interaction facilitates performance related to internal coordination.

Doing More With Less: Racial Diversity in Nonprofit Leadership and Organizational Resilience

“…However, as scholarly interest in nonprofit racial diversity's implications for organizational performance has increased over the last 20 years, empirical academic literature offers only mixed conclusions on exactly how racial diversity may influence a nonprofit's capacity to acquire and mobilize resources (Fredette & Bernstein, 2019;Fulton, 2021;Garrow, 2012). Additional studies are needed to replicate findings from the grey literature, often based on convenience samples and bivariate analyses, and solidify our understanding of apparent racial inequities in nonprofit funding, with implications for nonprofits' capacity to provide critical services in times of crisis.…”

Sustaining the grassroots: How community organizations mitigate the downsides of collaborating with unions

“…The count variable largest single turnout was constructed using a survey item in which respondents were asked to provide the date and approximate attendance level of their organization's three most recent organization-wide events. The attendance number for the event with the largest turnout was used for this variable (Fulton, 2020a).…”

Space and Interaction in Civil Society Organizations: An Exploratory Study in a US City

“…A variety of factors influence the types of ties formed in a CSO, one of which is the level of interaction at its convenings. Studies based on ethnographic observation (Blee, 2012;Eliasoph, 1998;Long, 2003;Staggenborg, 2020), leader interviews (Andrews et al, 2010;Baggetta, 2009;Fulton, 2021b), participant surveys (Fulton, 2021a;Quintelier, 2013;Verba et al, 1995), and historical records (Skocpol, 2003) reveal substantial variation in the amount of convening interaction within organizations, across organizations, and over time.…”