Nonprofit Accountability: An Institutional and Resource Dependence Lens on Conformance and Resistance

This research examines to what extent and why nonprofit accountability mechanisms are adopted in human service organizations located in southwestern Pennsylvania. Its focus is twofold: 1) to assess the extent to which nonprofit leaders are familiar with and use the nonprofit accountability mechanisms that have been proposed in the literature and through nonprofit sector leadership organizations—to assess nonprofits' "accountability competency" and 2) to explore the motivations or incentives for instituting or resisting the practices. One hundred and fifty-six nonprofit human service executives in southwestern Pennsylvania participated in a mailed survey, and 20 of those respondents agreed to a follow-up personal interview. Results indicate that local nonprofits are more likely to adopt legal and financial accountability mechanisms, such as filing the IRS Form 990 and having a board approved operating budget, and less likely to adopt normative best practices, such as program evaluation, ethics codes and executive compensation policies. Further, study results examined through a dual lens of institutional and resource dependence theories, support the hypotheses that organizations are more motivated to adopt accountability mechanisms with greater degrees of organizational interconnectedness, external dependence on pressuring constituents, social legitimacy achieved, economic gain and legal coercion