Research Trends in Nonprofit Graduate Studies

Abstract

This study examines the growth of the academic study of the formal nonprofit sector by focusing on dissertations and theses written between 1986 through 2010. Using a keyword search, we find and examine 3,790 abstracts available in the ProQuest Dissertation and Theses database. There has been a growing number of theses and dissertations since 1986; the majority (80.2%) were completed at schools in the United States. Thematic analysis found five main themes: (a) Resources (human and financial); (b) Organizational effectiveness and performance; (c) Organization development (context, processes, and culture); (d) Intra-organizational context (leadership, structure, etc.); and (e) Interaction and collaboration (with other organizations, government, etc.). Findings demonstrate an emerging interdisciplinary field in the study of the formal nonprofit sector. Trends across the 25-year time span relating to country of origin, theme, and subject are explored and discussed.

A Century of Nonprofit Studies: Scaling the Knowledge of the Field

“…Table 2 shows the top 20 institutions by the number of papers produced. Congruent with previous research, this field is dominated by US institutions (Shier and Handy 2014). For the top 20 institutions, each author contributed about 1.36 journal articles on average, which is much larger than the number in public administration (0.98; Ni, Sugimoto, and Robbin 2017, 4).…”

“…Longhofer, Robinson, & Schnable, 2018;Brudney & Durden, 1993;Bushouse & Sowa, 2012;Jackson, Guerrero, & Appe, 2014;Shier & Handy, 2014). But there needs to be a more comprehensive analysis regarding the dataset and methodology.…”

Research trends in nonprofit graduate studies in China: An inside perspective

“…Reflecting the global associational revolution (Harris et al, 2016; Salamon, 1994; Smith, 2016) and significant growth and change in the nonprofit sector worldwide (Almog‐Bar & Young, 2016; Casey, 2016; Smith, 2016), interdisciplinary nonprofit research has become an established and growing academic field in the universities of Europe and North America since the late 1980s. Shier and Handy's (2014) analysis of master's theses and doctoral dissertations between 1986 and 2010 documented this trend for nonprofit graduate studies in the English‐written context. China also features a growing civil society (Smith & Zhao, 2016).…”

“…Nonprofit graduate‐level studies constitute a wide‐angle lens through which to view nonprofit management research and practice, as this field embraces a spectrum of nuances and facets of nonprofit organizations and of the sector as a whole (Shier & Handy, 2014). Research reviews in English or Chinese on China nonprofit organizations and related disciplines have been published (Chen & Liu, 2015; Hou & Liu, 2018; Smith & Zhao, 2016), but to date, there has been no literature specifically focused on nonprofit graduate‐level studies.…”

Dissertations in CACREP-Accredited Counseling Doctoral Programs: An Initial Investigation

“…Several other researchers have noted the growing number of interdisciplinary dissertation topics either within specific fields (e.g., political science; Knapp, 2013;nonprofit studies;Shier & Handy, 2014) or across disciplines at a university (Herther, 2010). Perhaps most relevant to this study is the ongoing documentation of doctoral dissertation research in rehabilitation counseling from 1979 (Lofaro, 1981) through 2011 (Zanskas et al, 2014).…”