Summary

Nonprofit organizations are arguably the fastest growing and most dynamic part of modern market economies in democratic countries. This book explores the frontiers of knowledge at the intersection of economics and the management of these entities. The authors review the role, structure and behavior of private, nonprofit organizations as economic units and their participation in markets and systems of public service delivery, assess the implications of this knowledge for the efficient management of nonprofit organizations and the formulation of effective public policy, and identify cutting-edge questions for future research.Chapters address five broad categories of scholarship: development and management of the diverse economic resources supporting nonprofit organizations; market behavior of nonprofits; strategic economic decision-making; evaluation and performance of them; and impacts and implications of public policies affecting nonprofit organizations. Topics include: income diversification and crowd-out among income sources, paid and volunteer labor markets, competition and collaboration among nonprofits and for-profits, pricing and diversification of nonprofit products and services, performance measurement and regulation, contracting, franchising and federation practices, and government taxation and funding.The book will help nonprofit scholars identify new areas of productive research, help practicing managers understand the underlying economics of their decision-making, and offer teachers and students a concise and penetrating view of key economic dimensions to managing nonprofit organizations.