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Organizational Pathways for Social Innovation and Societal Impacts in Disability Nonprofits

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations volume 31, pages 995–1012 (2020)Cite this article

Abstract

Using data from a sample of 301 Australian disability nonprofit organizations (NPOs), this study applies configurational thinking to identify combinations of organizational capabilities that lead to Nonprofit Social Innovation (NSI)—a new service or process that promotes social inclusion of people with disabilities—and examines whether NSI is a sufficient condition for high societal impacts to be achieved. The conceptualization and components of the NSI framework were developed in our previous research through a two-month researcher-in-residency at disability NPOs. In this study, we employ fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis to identify several “recipes” of capabilities (varying by organizational size and geographical location) for NSI development. The analyses find that high societal impacts from NSI occur when organizations adopt diverse perspectives, and embrace either person-focused approaches or operate in a risk-tolerant environment. These findings provide valuable linkages to managerial practice in nonprofits and advance emerging theoretical understandings of social innovation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    We detail the full process and findings of the ‘researcher-in-residency’ investigations (including the pivotal capability framework for Nonprofit Social Innovation) in a separate article that is currently under review.

  2. 2.

    “The use of “cause” [or “causal complexity” in QCA] refers to relevant association and not causation from the perspective of true experiments with treatment and control groups and random assignment of cases to groups” (Hsiao et al. 2015, p. 614).

  3. 3.

    The way we operationalized variables was consistent with that used by QCA innovation researchers (e.g., Torugsa and Arundel 2017).

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Funding

The lead author would like to acknowledge financial support received through an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.

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Affiliations

  1. Federation Business School, Federation University Australia, Ballarat, Australia

    Rachel Taylor

  2. Ratchasuda College, Mahidol University, 111 Moo 6 Phuttamonthon 4 Road, Salaya, Nakhon Pathom, Bangkok, 73170, Thailand

    Nuttaneeya (Ann) Torugsa

  3. Tasmanian School of Business and Economics, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Australia

    Nuttaneeya (Ann) Torugsa & Anthony Arundel

  4. UNU-MERIT, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands

    Anthony Arundel

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  1. Rachel Taylor
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  2. Nuttaneeya (Ann) Torugsa
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Correspondence to Nuttaneeya (Ann) Torugsa.

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Taylor, R., Torugsa, N. & Arundel, A. Organizational Pathways for Social Innovation and Societal Impacts in Disability Nonprofits. Voluntas 31, 995–1012 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-019-00113-8

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Keywords

  • Capabilities
  • Disability nonprofits
  • Qualitative comparative analysis
  • Social innovation
  • Societal impact