Planning as strategy: The logic, symbol and politics of planning in nonprofit organizations.

摘要

This dissertation research is an exploratory study of formal planning in nonprofit organizations and asks, under what conditions are we likely to see formal planning processes and whose interests are served by its use? The study compares two different types of nonprofits, those serving the mental retarded and those in the performing arts, in two geographic regions, Hartford and New Haven. The research design includes organizational field analyses of the two nonprofit types, interviews with managers of forty-four nonprofit organizations, and a case study of a planning nonprofit. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses are included, using archival, interview, and questionnaire data.;The research found that most of the planning conducted by these nonprofits was for symbolic or political purposes, enhancing the legitimacy of the nonprofit with key external stakeholders (e.g., funding sources or community members) or increasing the degree of control managers maintained within organizations. The research also found that the use of planning was contingent on: field-specific pressures from dominant organizations; the structuration of local environments; the size of the nonprofit's budget; and the support of its board of directors. Finally, the research found that most planning managed change rather than caused it. The case study demonstrated how planning helped a new executive director develop a dominant organizational coalition that would support a major change in direction that she felt was critical to the agency's survival.