The Management of Advocacy Non-profit Organizations: A Case Study on Consumers’ Foundation, Chinese Taipei (CFCT)

[[abstract]]In recent years, the number of foreign and local non-profit organizations (NPOs) has increased significantly, while a concurrent rising influence on public issues has prompted people to value the essential function of NPOs: advocacy. Among the various types of NPOs, advocacy NPOs seek to advance specific issues and influence governmental policies as their primary goal. Given its goal and social movement influences, managing these NPOs poses particular challenges. Observing relevant literature, NPO management theories are lacking in advocacy NPOs, while studies on social movements and NPOs do not crisscross often enough. The present thesis explores an individual case by focusing on Consumers’ Foundation, Chinese Taipei (CFCT), which is representative of an advocacy NPO, and aims to accomplish the following goals: 1) summarize the particular traits of management through understanding the business management of CFCT; 2)discuss the management problems and difficulties of CFCT, while summarize and find effective management methods to improve current strategies and outlooks; 3)draw a conclusion and recommend ways for CFCT and the other advocacy NPOs to improve management and provide a reference for constructing theories on advocacy NPOs. To accomplish the above goals, research methodologies include case study, in-depth interviews, and document analyses. Through literature review and research, the present thesis has gained the following conclusions: A. The organizational characteristics of CFCT: 1) CFCT as a NPO: Guided by professionals, its influence on the market is difficult to evaluate; the nature of the organization is service-based, its resources limited, and its political nature are strongly inclined; 2) CFCT as an advocacy NPO: CFCT must withstand pressures from other organizations with an opposing interest and even from people it serves; the more political leverage it has, the more public goods it would have, while the livelihood of its central issue is closely linked with the livelihood and momentum of the organization, and its role in society changes according to the degree of democratization; 3) CFCT as a consumers’ rights protection NPO: In terms of serving target groups, the target is a social role instead of identity. Given the particular nature of public goods, its service target groups are more likely to cause the “free-rider” problem. B. The characteristics of CFCT’s management: 1)The core and the basis of its development is public welfare, and it receives the recognition of internal and external; 2)The organization’s basic management philosophy rests upon building public goods; 3)Professional guidance is the organization’s primary management style, which focuses on flexibility and responsiveness, as well as employees’ self-management; 4)adheres to the legitimacy, public welfare, fairness, trustworthiness, and immediacy of advocacy issue, strategies and actions are the key to establishing accountability; 5)the core competitiveness of advocacy comes from establishing a basic advocacy strategy and building an operation value chain. C. The management problems and bottlenecks of CFCT: 1) the dilemma of maintaining the nature of public goods and the organization operation; 2) the concern of putting professionalism and leadership philosophy first; 3) the myth of utilizing the media resource. Lastly, combining literature review, interviewee suggestions, conclusions from this research, the thesis provides recommend for the management of CFCT and advocacy NPOs.