NGOs—better than business companies or business as usual?

Academics and practitioners alike have suggested that non-governmental organizations (NGOs) show signs of commercialization as they increasingly adopt practices and exhibit structures of business corporations. While scholars of various sub-disciplines of political science have paid attention to this phenomenon, including third sector research, sociology and International Relations, they have either placed exclusive focus on internal organizational changes or on the external behavior of NGOs. Because of this partial treatment, we thus far lack knowledge not only with respect to the scope of commercialization of NGOs, but also its different facets and the interdependencies that exist between them. This article provides a systematic review of the state of the art and based upon it, develops a conceptual framework of commercialization intended to stimulate future research on the subject