State and Regional Professional Associations—the Case of the CSA and the PSA

The CSA and the PSA share several critical challenges including maintaining a stable membership, providing opportunities for students to present their work while at the same time maintaining their position as an organization of professional sociologists, meeting the needs of a diverse membership and balancing the teaching and research needs of this diverse membership. The need is for the CSA and the PSA to work together to form an even closer partnership.     

The history of sections in the American College Health Association.

The founders of the American College Health Association (ACHA) recognized the importance of regional groups (affiliates) and worked actively to foster their formation and continued existence. In 1932, D. F. Smiley, MD, described the concept of establishing ACHA regions and suggested combining institutional membership in both the national and regional organizations. Significant affiliate representation in the association's governance structure finally became a reality in 1987, when regional representatives became permanent members of the board of directors. Standing committees of the association were transformed into the present ACHA sections in 1957, and a new category for individual membership established for college health professionals interested in participating in educational activities of the new sections. In many ways, the changes in the association's governance that occurred in 1987 are reminiscent of the original structure of the 1920-1970 era, when the organization was much smaller and essentially an association of college health center directors.     

How PSA’s Inclusion Shift Cracked the Ivory Tower Culture and Led to New Governance Challenges

PSA’s shift to inclusion began in the 1990s as a response to the declining membership and the domination of the association by scholars from the Ivory Tower universities--those institutions focusing primarily upon research. Cracking the Ivory Tower refers to this inclusion which involved encouraging student participation; inviting faculty from teaching-focused colleges; expanding program topics on teaching or issues of gender, race, sexual orientation; hosting inclusive receptions; and electing some officers from non-elite schools. As inclusion has dramatically increased membership and promoted more representative participation, governance now faces new challenges, especially the executive director's workload.     

“Can/Should/Does One Size Fit All? Does the Pacific Sociological Association Still Meet the Needs of Faculty Members at PhD-Granting Institutions?”

This article addresses the concern expressed by many within the Pacific Sociological Association in recent years that their regional organization is increasingly seen by Research I University sociologists as no longer meeting their professional needs, thus leading to (a) decreasing rates of membership and participation within, (b) a decline in the amount of high quality professional work associated with, and (c) a diminishment of the professional status of, the PSA. Using data gained from a membership survey of sociologists at the 29 Research I Universities in the Western Region of the United States and Canada, the empirical basis of these claims is examined, and their possible implications explored. The results of this investigation suggest that although PSA membership among faculty members at PhD-granting institutions may have declined somewhat over time, this has occurred for a number of very comprehendible reasons, some associated with but others external to the Pacific Sociological Association as a professional organization. In light of these findings, it is the main recommendation of this paper that the PSA should continue to approach this issue in a careful and reasoned manner, doing what it reasonably can to try to meet the professional needs of Research I University sociologists in the 21st century, but being mindful not to jeopardize what has made the PSA important and attractive to its growing number of other constituencies in recent years.     

Leadership in faith‐based nonprofits

This case study illustrates the unique challenges of leading a faith‐based nonprofit organization within a multifaith constituency in Asia. The core themes of the case are based on research conducted with the staff, executive team, and board members of an international faith‐based nonprofit organization in Asia. Specifically, the case focuses on three identity‐based leadership dilemmas in relation to (1) creating a shared sense of organizational identity, (2) talent management, and (3) board governance. By describing the challenges faced by the CEO, the case shows how a strong faith‐based identification can positively bind an organization together, but also result in organizational blind spots with unintended consequences.     

Fifty Years of the Southern Sociological Society: Change and Continuity in a Professional Society. Methodological Perspectives on Studying the History of the Southern Sociological Society

This paper revisits research procedures used to collect and analyze data for Fifty Years of the Southern Sociological Society: Change and Continuity in a Professional Society (1988) to comment on methodological issues. The fifty years of change were conceptualized as having shifted the Southern Sociological Society from a disciplinary to a professional mode of organization. The shift occurred both from evolutionary processes and from deliberate revolutionary actions of officials and members. Data for the study came mainly from the Society’s Archives. It included personal accounts by presidents, secretary-treasurers’ and committee reports, annual programs and newsletters. Evolutionary processes of adapting the association to the growth of membership, to differentiation of fields of sociological study, along with the rationalization and formalization of the Society’s governance and operation, were extracted mainly from annual programs, the most continuous and objective body of archival information. Revolutionary changes, including adaptation to societal challenges including racial segregation, from the Society’s founding onward were inferred from personal accounts, committee reports, and newsletters, and were confirmed from interviews with long-standing members.     

A Brief History of the Pacific Sociological Association

Founded in 1929 by Emory S. Bogardus, the PSA is the oldest regional sociological association. During its 85-year history, the association has steadily increased in membership, participation, registration and size of its annual meeting, complexity of organizational structure, and has moved from a gemeinshaft to a gesellshaft culture and to a more inclusive and democratic association. Much of this change has mirrored the growth of sociology in general and of higher educational institutions in U.S. and has been made possible essentially through the work and effort of volunteers.     

Professional Associations and Members' Benefits: What's in It for Me?

In this study we examine reasons that professionals become and remain members of professional associations. We looked at tangible and symbolic benefits that an association can provide to attract members. Satisfaction with these benefits was linked to overall membership satisfaction and intent to renew the membership. We also considered the role of customer service in shaping members' attitudes. Based on the responses of 1,980 members of a large international accounting association, we found that members who were satisfied with their benefits and with the quality of customer service reported higher membership satisfaction and intent to renew. We also found that professionals who were more involved in the association were more satisfied with it. Contrary to predictions, younger professionals were less concerned with the value of the benefits of membership. As expected, longer‐tenured members were more likely to consider maintaining their memberships. We conclude with a discussion of practical and research implications for the management of professional associations.     

A critique of ‘new’ rural local governance: The case of gender in a rural Australian setting

Over the past decade rural social scientists have demonstrated significant interest in documenting the new forms of governance emerging in rural and regional areas. However, little attention has been given to examining the gendered aspects of these new arrangements. This paper takes up the issue of gender and governance in rural areas by reporting on the establishment, membership and practices of a new governing organisation in a local government area in a small rural township in Australia. Men hold almost all positions on the 19-member board of this institution charged with facilitating development in the shire. This is not surprising, given women's exclusion from the male-dominated networks from which appointees are selected. While this numerical dominance is important, it is not just the presence of men's bodies that is of concern to this paper. Also of interest is the way in which hegemonic discourses of masculinity are privileged by board members. This includes an emphasis on competition, entrepreneurialism, and aggression, and a focus on economic concerns over and above social issues. In conclusion, there may be a lot that is ‘new’ in the governance of contemporary Western rural nations, but what is not is that these forms of governance are gendered, just as the traditional state has always been, in a way that excludes women and feminine subjectivities.     

BUDGET COMMITTEE AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL TRANSFER: EVIDENCE FROM SOUTH KOREA

This paper revisits the claim that members of legislative committees direct more earmark spending to their constituents. In South Korea's legislature, a national law regulating the budget committee provides an unusual source of exogenous variation in membership: members of the committee are rotated each year owing to 1-year term limits. Using data from 226 local governments, and both within-district and within-member variations in membership, we find that districts represented by a budget committee member secure roughly 3% more subsidies than those represented by a nonmember. (JEL D72, D78, H70)     

Balancing strategy and accountability: A model for the governance of professional associations

An erratum has been published for this article in Nonprofit Management and Leadership 15(4) 2005, 487 [ ]. Professional associations are operating in a context of uncertainty and change, with which their traditional governance structures struggle to manage. After describing this context and presenting a brief overview of relevant governance literature, a project aimed at supporting the redesign of governance structures and procedures among five professional associations in the United Kingdom is outlined. Three specific governance issues are examined: size of councils (council is the term used for a governing body of a U.K. professional association), their composition in relation to electoral processes, and the development of inner councils, or executive boards, within councils. Finally, we present a normative model, the cupped hands model, that has arisen from the research. This model offers a possible means of balancing the representation required by their status as membership associations with the requirement that professional associations become more strategic and proactive.     

Elite Dilution or Saved by the Belles? The Changing Social Demography of the Pacific Sociological Association

This article examines four overlapping structural changes in the Pacific Sociological Association’s membership since the 1970s: (1) a burgeoning student participation, (2) the seeming withdrawal of faculty from research-based universities, (3) the feminization of the PSA’s leadership, and (4) the fading proportion of men at all levels of the organization. Instead of signaling a weakened professional association, however, these changes point to an energized PSA that leads other American regional sociological associations on indicators valued by sociologists. Three principal data sources inform this analysis: PSA administrative records; content analysis of the PSA meeting programs in 1970, 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2013; and the 2013 PSA conference registration data. I use my experiences at University of Oregon to illustrate some themes.     

Same Baby,Fresh Bathwater: Restructuring the PSA Meetings

The changes to the way that the program is built for the PSA annual meetings offered some exciting new possibilities and successes, but there were also problems. This paper suggests a hybrid between the new and old systems in order to allow continued involvement by committees and other PSA members in shaping the program. Suggestions are also given for ensuring quality of papers, increasing attendance, and providing increased opportunities for interaction and networking.     

Development of the Structure of the American College Health Association

Abstract

The present structure of the association since its founding is traced. Basically, the historical development traces an association founded by the directors of college and university health programs to one that now includes a broad interdisciplinary mix of directors and others at work in the field. Gradually, the governance has passed from the directors (institutional representatives) to settings where other membership components of the association have a voice, principally through the current Council of Delegates structure, which includes delegates coming from all of the major components of the association.

The sectional structure, providing organizational entities through which disciplines, program areas, and types of institutional programs may relate to the association (and principally may influence the programming of the annual meeting) has remained virtually unchanged since its creation in 1958, with the exception of the addition of the Sections on Junior/Community Colleges and Student Participation. The regional affiliate structure has changed only little since the “local sections” were originally delineated. The first such local organization, Ohio, was formed in 1925. The relationship of these organizations to the national association has changed considerably.     

The Revitalization of a Popular Movement: Case Study Research from Sweden

This article tries to enhance knowledge about organizational characteristics and processes that are important for mitigating oligarchic tendencies in the governance of CSOs, and to discuss the factors that condition the operation of these characteristics and processes. Civil society is frequently seen as an important part of societal governance and discussed as the intermediary link between the individual and society. This connection is often made through the aggregate function of civil society organizations (CSOs). Currently there are discussions regarding the decline of traditional cross-class federative CSOs and the possible effect of this on democracy in society. This article presents a longitudinal case study of the governance within a large, membership-based federative CSO and illustrates the revitalization of a CSO and its mission through the influx of a new group of members from the surrounding environment. The author argues that this revitalization process was possible partly because the proposed changes were in keeping with the organization’s original ideological core and partly because of the organization’s open democratic governance system. This permeability is found at two levels: first, the borders are open for individuals to enter the organization as members, and second, the borders of the internal governance system are open for members to take part in the decision-making process. This enabled ideas to percolate up from the members through the democratic decision-making system to the top of the organization, and some ideas are translated into statutes and policies, which then trickle down to the members again through the executive structure. The conclusion is that a functioning democratic governance system, which is able to stay true to the organization’s ideological core at the same time as it is able to modify it in light of societal change, seems imperative for this kind of organization. By doing this, the organization is not just staying true to its original mission but also actively contributing to democracy in society by including new groups into the decision-making process.     

谁能代表我们：转型期城市社区管治研究——基于南京梅花山庄社区物管纠纷的实证分析

在单位制城市社区向物业小区的城市社区转型中,业主、业主委员会、物业服务公司、居委会等利益相关者大量涌现,社区管治也随之出现。但转型期居委会基层组织和房地产行政主管部门“双线”管理的社区管治结构在物业管理纠纷时并非有效。本研究对南京市梅花山庄社区物业管理纠纷进行实证研究,透视转型期社区管治的问题,并对改善社区管治提出一些建议。     

Black Adoption Placement and Research Center at 25: placing African-American children in permanent homes (1983-2008)

The Black Adoption Research and Placement Center is a nonprofit organization delivering culturally specific adoption and foster care services. The organization developed as a response to concerns in the African-American community about the high numbers of African-American children entering and not exiting the public foster care system. The organization has undergone significant transformations over its 25-year history in relation to social, political, and economic changes that have altered the ways that the agency finances and delivers services. The history of Black Adoption Research and Placement Center presents an organization that has weathered many challenges because of its strong leadership, its committed governing body, its external relationships, and its internal operations.     

Between Scylla and Charybdis: Designing,Implementing, and Assessing Innovations in the Annual PSA Meetings

For the 2013 meeting cycle, the Pacific Sociological Association (PSA) implemented subtle but important changes in the processes by which the program is constituted – centralizing the processes of review and assignment, and making distinctions between presentation types. Those changes, the product of several years of discussions, were designed to address member concerns about the uneven quality of presentations, as well as shifts in membership composition which had led to a predominance of student members and a shrinking proportion of faculty members from doctoral-granting institutions. The changes were intended to increase the overall quality of presentations (and reestablish PSA’s reputation as a venue for disciplinary leading research) while retaining the programmatic diversity and culture of inclusion so valued by PSA members. Assessment of annual member survey data suggests that members across all membership components evaluated the changes positively. Specific patterns suggest that while the creation of research-in-progress sessions was seen as an inclusionary change, the centralization of program development processes was seen as exclusionary. We discuss the implications of the data for considering the contemporary role of regional sociological associations.     

The Governance of International Nongovernmental Organizations: How Funding and Volunteer Involvement Affect Board Nomination Modes and Stakeholder Representation in International Nongovernmental Organizations

The governance of civil society organizations (CSOs) is a crucial determinant of organizational legitimacy, accountability, and performance. International nongovernmental organizations (INGOs) are a subtype of CSOs and have received a lot of attention as actors in global governance. Research suggests that INGOs can follow a membership model, where the board is elected by the membership, or a board-managed model, where the board is appointed to represent major stakeholders. Following resource dependency theory, we argue that the choice between these two models depends on the INGOs different sources of funding and the degree of volunteer involvement: As donors and volunteers provide important resources, they are in turn granted the right to nominate board members or to sit on the board. In our quantitative study we show that individual members, regional member organizations, and governmental donors hold a stronger position in the governance of INGOs than philanthropists, foundations and volunteers. Our results inform research on CSO governance by highlighting the relevance of board nomination modes and by showing how CSOs can incorporate stakeholders into their governance mechanisms.     

Conservation,community, and culture? New organizational challenges of community forest concessions in the Maya Biosphere Reserve of Guatemala

Community-based forestry has received much recent attention as an effort to protect threatened Southern forests by linking conservation with sustainable livelihoods. Many researchers have emphasized the importance of effective organization for successful community-based forestry. While significant attention has been paid to community-level organizational design for collective action, less attention has been given to the role secondary-level grassroots associations play in supporting forest governance. The case of the Association of Forest Communities of Petén (ACOFOP) in Guatemala's Maya Biosphere Reserve is discussed, using a framework drawn from research on multipurpose agrarian federations. As it confronts ongoing problems of representation, equity and legitimacy, ACOFOP now encourages associated community forest concessions to diversify beyond commercial timber into collectively organized non-timber forest activities. Diversification, however, brings new governance issues with new participants, objectives and organizational logics that challenge ACOFOP to change while maintaining characteristics that support successful advocacy of its members' interests. ACOFOP and its members actively experiment with several organizational alternatives, each with diverse implications for the balancing of political and economic roles. To better understand and support community forestry initiatives, their associations and similar agrarian organizations should be viewed in dynamic rather than static terms, and the central role local participants play in adapting their own organizations recognized.