Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Panel: Public Sector Entrepreneurship

(Public and Non-Profit Management and Finance)

The study of entrepreneurship in the public and nonprofit sectors is rapidly growing. Public administration scholars have arguably been slower to formally apply social science methods to understand entrepreneurship in both the public and nonprofit sectors than scholars in other fields. This is not surprising given that most entrepreneurial activity has taken place in the private sector and has been primarily motivated by profit.

Notwithstanding the slow growth in understanding entrepreneurial activity in the public and nonprofit sectors, there has been a substantial increase in the implementation of entrepreneurial practices in the public realm. Entities that pursue entrepreneurial practices include government agencies and non-profit organizations, which include federal agencies, universities, foundations, and state and local governments. Furthermore, in contrast to private sector workers, public and nonprofit managers tend to pursue entrepreneurial activity to more effectively attain organizational social goals or mission. These can include furthering regional economic development, revenue generation for the purpose of investing in programmatic offerings, responding to high-wealth donor motivations to create social good, and providing employees with opportunities of career advancement and innovation. The pursuit of entrepreneurial activity in the public and nonprofit sectors has important implications for the future of both sectors and their management – much of which is still to be discovered.

This panel brings together papers that address these issues. The first paper titled, “The role of government in fostering social entrepreneurship: An inductive study,” explores and provides a fuller understanding of government’s role in supporting or hindering social entrepreneurship. Drawing upon extant literature on social entrepreneurship and government, the paper proposes an initial framework for ways in which different levels of government can foster or hinder social entrepreneurship. The study analyzes mass media coverage from top ten countries known for being hospitable to social entrepreneurs as identified by Thomson Reuters Foundation. To analyze data from the ten countries, the study relies on multiple case analysis methodology. The authors determine whether their initial framework based on extant theory holds or whether it needs modifications or extensions. The second paper titled, “Prosociality in business: A human empowerment framework,” introduces a human empowerment framework to better understand why some businesses are more socially oriented than others in their policies and activities. Based on Welzel’s theory of emancipation, the authors argue that four components of emancipative forces—action resources, emancipative values, social movement activity, and civic entitlements—enable, motivate, and entitle individuals to pursue social goals for their businesses. The third paper titled, “Motivations for and use of contract labor among nonprofit arts organizations,” conducts an examination of organizations’ motivations for and use of contract labor in order to understand the dynamics of nonprofit entrepreneurial activity. The study uses data on nonprofit arts organizations, which detail level of 1099 (i.e., independent contractor) expenses for approximately 4000 nonprofit arts organizations in California, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. In addition to illustrating trends in contract labor among nonprofit arts organizations, the paper analyzes substitution between wages and contract labor among nonprofit arts organizations in these states.