IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tur/wpapnw/006.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Exploring the Talk-action Gap: a Qualitative Investigation of Foundation Practices over Three Regime Types

Author

Listed:
  • Stefan Einarsson

    (Stockholm School of Economics)

  • Jasmine McGinnis

    (Georgia State University)

  • Hanna Schneider

    (Vienna University of Economics and Business)

Abstract

For some scholars and practitioners the unique organizational characteristics of foundations allow them to play a major role in society as innovators and risk takers and as powerful agents of change (Anheier and Daly, 2007). For others, foundations are in theory thought to be powerful actors, but in practice do not live up to their potential due to the seemingly ad hoc nature of their grantmaking decisions (Arnove, 1982; Karl and Katz, 1987; Porter and Kramer, 1999; Frumkin, 2006). In this paper we ask who, what and why do foundations learn from and does this differ across countries? We seek to understand whether foundations grantmaking behaviors are or are not responsive to changes in their environments, their internal operational systems and/or changes in foundation leadership. To address these questions we conduct qualitative interviews with 9 foundations across three countries active in social services. We find that the ability of many foundations to change their grantmaking strategies is highly influenced by a set of 'imprinting forces' which constrain their future grantmaking flexibility. We also find that across countries board members play the strongest roles in changing grantmaking priorities.

Suggested Citation

  • Stefan Einarsson & Jasmine McGinnis & Hanna Schneider, 2012. "Exploring the Talk-action Gap: a Qualitative Investigation of Foundation Practices over Three Regime Types," Working papers 006, Department of Economics and Statistics (Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Sociali e Matematico-Statistiche), University of Torino.
    • Handle: RePEc:tur:wpapnw:006
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bemservizi.unito.it/repec/tur/wpapnw/m6.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2012
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Randall Y. Odom & W. Randy Boxx, 1988. "Environment, planning processes, and organizational performance of churches," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(2), pages 197-205, March.
    2. Henry Mintzberg, 1978. "Patterns in Strategy Formation," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 24(9), pages 934-948, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Phillips, Jon C. & Peterson, H. Christopher, 1999. "Strategic Planning And Firm Performance: A Proposed Theoretical Model For Small Agribusiness Firms," Staff Paper Series 11685, Michigan State University, Department of Agricultural, Food, and Resource Economics.
    2. repec:tur:wpapnw:6 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Xueyan Dong & Jingyu Gao & Sunny Li Sun & Kangtao Ye, 2021. "Doing extreme by doing good," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 38(1), pages 291-315, March.
    4. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    5. Denise M. Keele & Susan DeHart, 2011. "Partners of USEPA Climate Leaders: an Event Study on Stock Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(8), pages 485-497, December.
    6. Robert P. Garrett Jr. & Jeffrey G. Covin, 2015. "Internal Corporate Venture Operations Independence and Performance: A Knowledge–Based Perspective," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(4), pages 763-790, July.
    7. Stephen J. Procter & Michael Rowlinson & Louise McArdle, & John Hassard & Paul Forrester, 1994. "Flexibility, Politics & Strategy: In Defence of the Model of the Flexible Firm," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 8(2), pages 221-242, June.
    8. Ben Slimane, Faten & Padilla Angulo, Laura, 2019. "Strategic change and corporate governance: Evidence from the stock exchange industry," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 206-218.
    9. Tammy E. Beck & Donde Ashmos Plowman, 2009. "Experiencing Rare and Unusual Events Richly: The Role of Middle Managers in Animating and Guiding Organizational Interpretation," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 909-924, October.
    10. Hoe Chin Goi & Jiro Kokuryo, 2016. "Design of a University-Based Venture Gestation Program (UVGP)," Journal of Enterprising Culture (JEC), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 24(01), pages 1-35, March.
    11. Hohler, J., 2018. "Reconstruction of empirical strategies using content analysis - an application to the dairy industry," 2018 Conference, July 28-August 2, 2018, Vancouver, British Columbia 277123, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    12. Bövers, Jana & Hoon, Christina, 2021. "Surviving disruptive change: The role of history in aligning strategy and identity in family businesses," Journal of Family Business Strategy, Elsevier, vol. 12(4).
    13. Gosselin, Maurice, 1997. "The effect of strategy and organizational structure on the adoption and implementation of activity-based costing," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 105-122, February.
    14. Peters, Matt D. & Wieder, Bernhard & Sutton, Steve G. & Wakefield, James, 2016. "Business intelligence systems use in performance measurement capabilities: Implications for enhanced competitive advantage," International Journal of Accounting Information Systems, Elsevier, vol. 21(C), pages 1-17.
    15. Alexis Laszczuk & Lionel Garreau & Bernard de Montmorillon, 2017. "Understanding emergence in business model development: how companies interact with stakeholders to deal with environmental ambiguity," Post-Print hal-01787276, HAL.
    16. Pirozzi Maria Grazia & Agliata Francesco & Tuccillo Danilo & Pirozzi Francesco, 2021. "Defining the Integrated Performance Measurement Systems in Small and Medium Enterprises: An Advanced Model," International Journal of Business and Management, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(12), pages 203-203, July.
    17. Kai Dominik Renchen, 2020. "Influencer Impact on Brand Awareness: A Mixed Method Survey in the German Fashion Segment," European Journal of Business Science and Technology, Mendel University in Brno, Faculty of Business and Economics, vol. 6(2), pages 138-153.
    18. Elizabeth Krauter & Herbert Kimura & Leonardo Fernando Cruz Basso, 2004. "Criação De Valor Através Da Estratégia De Procrastinação," Anais do XXXII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 32nd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 092, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    19. Rodrigo Alves Rolo & Kristof Van Assche & Martijn Duineveld, 2021. "Strategy and Steering in Governance: The Changing Fates of the Argentine Planning Council," Politics and Governance, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(2), pages 415-427.
    20. Speklé, R.F. & van den Bogaard, M.A., 2002. "Reinventing The Hierarchy, The Case Of The Shell Chemicals Carve-Out," ERIM Report Series Research in Management ERS-2002-52-F&A, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
    21. François Therin, 2003. "Learning-based Strategy, Toward a New Model of Strategic Behaviour," Post-Print hal-00451450, HAL.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    grantmaking foundations; philanthropic strategy; Welfare regimes;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • L10 - Industrial Organization - - Market Structure, Firm Strategy, and Market Performance - - - General
    • L31 - Industrial Organization - - Nonprofit Organizations and Public Enterprise - - - Nonprofit Institutions; NGOs; Social Entrepreneurship

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tur:wpapnw:006. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Daniele Pennesi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dstorit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.