Managing Expectations, Demands and Myths: Swedish Study Associations Caught Between Civil Society, the State and the Market

Complying, Transforming or Resisting in the New Austerity? Realigning Social Welfare and Independent Action among English Voluntary Organisations

“…While pressures towards homogeneity among VOs have been largely state driven, they often operate most powerfully through expectations within similar service fields (Aberg, 2013), and are also advanced through resource dependency (Pfeffer, 2003) and competitive funding arrangements. Thus the growth of competitive markets, as more public services are outsourced, alongside the loss of grants and special projects affecting VOs, intensifies coercive isomorphic pressures.…”

“…As Aberg (2013) The dangers are that, in striving for greater external legitimacy, a VO decouples from its civil society origins and from the meanings and purposes that ground it with members, service users or community stakeholders; and ensuing tensions and ambiguities weaken -7-organisational identity. For example, Hucklesby and Corcoran's (2013) Research also illustrates that VOs that have resisted external pressures to retain core missions and sustain grassroots connections (Harris and Young, 2009;Milbourne, 2013).…”

Myths and Traditions as Constraints or Resources? Path Dependency and Decoupling Strategies among Civil Society Organizations

“…The study associations also face a similar trade-off between the exclusivity of promoting an ideological profile and the inclusivity of enhancing the level of education for all members of society (Å berg, 2013;von Essen & Å berg, 2009). Such duality in the expected missions and functions of an organization can also lead to a perceived need to employ decoupling strategies.…”

Same same but different: managerial influences on organisational performance in foundations and associations

“…Even when a strategy of adaptation can be successful in the short run, innovation as a factor of excellence for the survival of an organisation in the midst of social change is essential (Ergenzinger and Krulis-Randa 2005). Because of their democratic structures there is a stronger tendency towards isomorphic processes in associations than in foundations (Aberg and von Essen 2010). Innovations can thus be more successfully and more efficiently implemented in foundations than in associations, where more effort to convert opponents to the party line must be made.…”