Does government funding alter nonprofit governance? Evidence from New York City nonprofit contractors

Katherine O'Regan and Sharon Oster
Additional contact information
Katherine O'Regan: Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University, Postal: Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University
Sharon Oster: School of Management, Yale University, Postal: School of Management, Yale University

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2002, vol. 21, issue 3, 359-379

Abstract: Government contracting has raised a collection of issues with respect to adequate oversight and accountability. This paper explores one avenue through which contracting agencies may achieve these tasks: through the governance practices of the contractor's board. Oversight and monitoring are a board's key responsibilities, and influencing a board's practices is one way a governmental agency can help to insure quality performance. Agencies could thus use both their selection process and their post-contracting power to influence board practice. Using a new, rich data set on the nonprofit contractors of New York City, a series of hypotheses were tested on the relationship between government funding and board practices. Significant differences were found to exist in board practices as a function of government funding levels, differences that mark a shift of energy away from some activities (i.e., traditional board functions, such as fund-raising) towards others (financial monitoring and advocacy). This suggests that government agencies may indeed use their contracting choices with an eye to particular governance practices. This increased emphasis on such activities appears to crowd out other activities, and is not unambiguously to the benefit of nonprofit board governance. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Date: 2002
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (11)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1002/pam.10050 Link to full text; subscription required (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wly:jpamgt:v:21:y:2002:i:3:p:359-379

DOI: 10.1002/pam.10050

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Policy Analysis and Management from John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().