Civil Society and the Professions in Eastern Europe: Social Change and Organizational Innovation in Poland - Book Review

Administrative Science Quarterly, Sept, 2002 by Mayer N. Zald

Second, Sokolowski substitutes the term "social proximity organization" (SPORG) for nonprofit organization, for two reasons. First, the term nonprofit has no equivalent in Polish. Second, he believes that social proximity organization is closer to the meaning of what he wants to talk-about. Well, the book is published in English for an English-speaking market. Moreover, SPORG has little meaning to this reader. An alternative might have been "nonprofit service organizations." He is certainly right, however, that the term nonprofit covers such a large range of types of organizations that it is not very useful for analytic purposes.

Third, Sokolowski is aware that nonprofit status and claims to be serving public needs serve different functions with different groups--clients, funders, and other professionals. I wish he had expanded on this issue more systematically. Is it really inherently the case, for instance, that a summer camp for poor children, receiving money from the state or charitable sources, gains more legitimacy if it claims to be a nonprofit than a profit-making camp? Is this possibly only a historical residue? Doesn't contract specification help solve the problem? Certainly, as profit-making firms have moved into formerly non-profit-making areas (e.g., in the management of prisons, the running of schools, etc.), our assumptions about the organizational forms useful for the delivery of high-quality services have changed. Finally, and related to the last point, Sokolowski approaches a neoinstitutional perspective and a constructionist perspective. I wish he had done so more completely. It might have provided a more unified an d comprehensive alternative to the economic models that have dominated this area.

In spite of these criticisms, Civil Society and the Professions in Eastern Europe should be read by anyone with interests in the nonprofit sector or nonprofit organizations. It is deeply thoughtful, dense with ideas, and exposes important issues. For anyone interested in the emergence of new organizational forms or the transformation of state controlled societies, it is a must.

REFERENCES

Ben-Ner, A., and T. Van Hoomissen

1993 "Nonprofit organizations in the mixed economy: A demand and supply analysis." In A. Ben-Ner and B. Gui (eds.), The Independent Sector in the Mixed Economy: 27-58. Ann Arbor: university of Michigan Press.

James, E.

1987 "The nonprofit sector in comparative perspective." In W. W. Powell (ed.), The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook: 397-415. New Haven, CT: Yale university Press.