Nonprofit commercialization: What shapes the perceptions of top managers?

Abstract

AbstractBusiness‐like thinking among NPOs and scholars has stimulated growing but contested views on what constitutes commercialization and what drives its adoption. Unfortunately, empirical efforts have largely neglected the perspective of nonprofit managers who play pivotal roles in commercialization decisions. To stem this knowledge gap, this study applies a mixed methods on a case study from Cameroon to elicit top nonprofit managers' perceptions to commercialization. Almost 90% of all top managers demonstrate sound theoretical knowledge of nonprofit commercialization. Overall, 65% perceived commercialization positively, and 40% were already engaged in commercial activities. Binary logistic regression results indicated positive and statistically significant relationships between organizational capacity variables (intervention sector, for‐profit management strategy, and assets), and managers' perceptions of nonprofit commercialization (p < 0.05), questioning the resource‐dependency theory. The implications of conceptual ordering, theoretical diversity and contextualizing research on nonprofit managers' commercialization perceptions are discussed, particularly the need to include managerial perception as a key variable in the nonprofit commercialization equation in developing countries, and reconciling theoretical contestations with contextual reality.