From Service Provision to Institutional Advocacy: The Shifting Legitimacy of Organizational Forms

Debra Minkoff

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Management and Organizational Studies Nonprofit Sector and Volunteering Social Movements and Cultural Identity

Abstract

This article examines changes in the distribution of national women's and minority membership organizations since 1955, emphasizing the increasing legitimacy of the advocacy form of organization and the consequent replacement of service provision as the dominant mode of activity. Using data on the founding and disbanding of national women's and minority organizations since 1955, I argue that Hannan and Freeman's (1989; Hannan & Carroll 1992) theory of density-dependent legitimation and competition, and its extension to cross-effects among organizations, provides a framework for understanding the contemporary development of social change organizations. Though institutional and resource factors are important, they do not fully account for organizational vital rates. Findings indicate that increases in both service and protest organizations promoted the expansion of advocacy groups. As this middle-of-the-road strategy became more legitimate, competition became the predominant mode of interorganizational relationship. This accounts for the growth in the number of advocacy organizations after 1970, as well as the leveling off of service and protest organizations.

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References

1977Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony 2004The iron cage revisited institutional isomorphism and collective rationality in organizational fields 2017From Mobilization to Revolution 1992Legal Ambiguity and Symbolic Structures: Organizational Mediation of Civil Rights Law 1977The Trend of Social Movements in America: Professionalization and Resource Mobilization 1967A System Resource Approach to Organizational Effectiveness 2015The Interest Group Society 1990Legal Environments and Organizational Governance: The Expansion of Due Process in the American Workplace

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