Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-27T17:15:51.250Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

3 - Trends and patterns in third-party accreditation clubs

from Part I - Club emergence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2010

Mary Kay Gugerty
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Aseem Prakash
Affiliation:
University of Washington
Get access

Summary

An important group of accountability clubs are accreditation clubs. These clubs try to influence the behavior of member organizations using tools ranging from codes of conduct to intensive and sophisticated accreditation processes. This chapter uses the club framework developed by Gugerty and Prakash in this volume (chapter 1) that combines an agency perspective on accountability with club theory and signaling theory to describe the various types of voluntary standard-setting and enforcement in the nonprofit sector. The particular focus of this chapter is on the health and education sectors in the United States where such clubs are quite prevalent. A principal who delegates a task to an agent has a right to expect the agent to perform according to her specifications. When the self-interests of the principal and her agent diverge, as they often do, the agent has an incentive to shirk. Asymmetric information between the general public and its agent (a nonprofit) places the public at a disadvantage in giving, volunteering, and seeking service. Asymmetric information is a fact of life where the most important characteristics of services are not readily observable and/or not easily evaluated by lay persons – as is typical of education and healthcare services. Gugerty and Prakash identify competence asymmetry as an additional component of the information problem. Even if one has information on an organization, one might not be able to evaluate competence as it is unclear how well that information measures organizational competence.

Type
Chapter
Information
Voluntary Regulation of NGOs and Nonprofits
An Accountability Club Framework
, pp. 64 - 84
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bekkers, René. 2003. Trust, Accreditation, and Philanthropy in the Netherlands. Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 32(4): 596–615.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowman, Woods and Fremont-Smith, Marion R. 2006. Nonprofits and State and Local Governments. In Boris, Elizabeth T. and Steuerle, C. Eugene, eds. Nonprofits and Government: Collaboration and Conflict, 2nd edn. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, pp. 181–217.Google Scholar
Bowman, Woods and Bies, Angela. 2005. Can the Charitable Sector Regulate Itself?Nonprofit Quarterly 12(special issue): 39–43.Google Scholar
Brown, June Gibbs. 2003. The External Review of Hospital Quality: A Call for Greater Accountability. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Inspector General. Accessed via http://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-01–97–00050.pdf.Google Scholar
Encyclopedia of Associations: A Guide to Nearly 23,000 National and International Organizations. Accessed via http://galenet.gale.com.
,Independent Sector. 2002. The Nonprofit Almanac and Desk Reference. Washington, DC: Independent Sector.Google Scholar
Phillips, Michael M. 2005. Big Charities Pursue Certification. Wall Street Journal, March 9: A1+.
Silber, Norman I. 2001. A Corporate Form of Freedom: The Emergence of the Nonprofit Sector. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Silvergleid, Jordan E. 2003. Effects of Watchdog Organizations on the Social Capital Market. New Directions for Philanthropic Fundraising (special issue: Exploring Measurement and Evaluation Efforts in Fundraising) 41: 7–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sprague, Lisa. 2005. Hospital Oversight in Medicare: Accreditation and Deeming Authority. National Health Policy Forum Issue Brief No. 802 (May 6). Washington, DC: George Washington University.Google ScholarPubMed
Weisbrod, Burton A. 1988. The Nonprofit Economy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Wing, Kennard T., Pollak, Thomas H., and Blackwood, Amy. 2008. The Nonprofit Almanac. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.Google Scholar
Young, Dennis, Bania, Neil, and Bailey, Darlyne. 1996. Structure and Accountability: A Study of National Nonprofit Associations. Nonprofit Management and Leadership 6(4): 347–365.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×