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The purpose of this paper is to examine the literature on third sector performance measurement system design.

A systematic literature review was undertaken. The abstracts of 917 articles identified from a database search were examined and, of these, 110 papers were put forward for full paper review. Totally, 55 papers were subsequently selected for the literature synthesis.

The findings examine the important questions of why and how the performance of third sector organizations is measured. The analysis of the sample of works suggests a potential methodological mismatch between the rationale for measuring the performance of third sector organizations and the measurement methods that are currently employed.

The study raises provocative questions about the usefulness of third sector performance measurement approaches, which may lead third sector managers to critically examine current practice.

As the papers in the synthesis are drawn from a broad range of journals, the review provides a multi-disciplinary discussion of the key themes of third sector performance measurement system design. Recent studies have been published simultaneously, suggesting that there has been limited opportunity for synthesis of this work. This study therefore offers a springboard for further research in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theoretical framework that explains how performance management (PM) affects the organisational effectiveness in the third sector.

The authors adopt a two stage process in developing the theoretical framework; a systematic review of literature and theoretical developments of the framework. The underlying principles for developing the theoretical framework are mainly based on prior theoretical justification and empirical research in management accounting and international development fields.

Drawing upon contingency theory, the authors propose a theoretical framework explaining how the contingency variables affect PM and organisational effectiveness in the third sector. The authors discuss the justification for contingency theory as well as its weaknesses in the PM research. The authors also highlight how a modified Performance Management and Control Framework could be used to identify PM practices in the third sector. The organisational effectiveness can be measured using the four domains the authors suggest in this paper. Finally the authors put forward propositions that can be empirically tested in future studies.

This conceptual paper opens an opportunity for future empirical research to cross-validate the model in a large survey through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modelling.

This paper helps researchers and practitioners to understand how modern PM tools integrate with third sector characteristics to optimise the effectiveness of individual organisations.

Integrating insights across disciplines, this paper strengthens cumulative knowledge on conceptualisation of PM and effectiveness within the third sector.

The purpose of this paper is to seek to investigate public trust as an important factor of performance in the charitable sector, and explain the necessity of including public trust assessment in charity performance measurement.

Two focus group interviews were conducted in the UK to investigate the reasons for trust and lack of trust in charities, which contributed to the identification of the relation between public trust and charity performance measurement.

Indicators of public trust in charities are not only related to some conventional criteria for evaluating charity performance, but also shed light on “soft” factors which are relatively new criteria used to assess performance. Furthermore, measuring public trust is an indispensable supplement to existing approaches of performance assessment in the charitable sector. It remedies the drawbacks of previous studies by employing a “bottom-up” approach to evaluation that avoids the conflicting demands of different stakeholders when deciding assessment criteria.

Re-conducting the study with larger samples, combining with quantitative surveys, and applying more rigorous approach to data analysis could be helpful for improving the generalizability of the results.

The study highlights the necessity of considering public trust when measuring charity performance. Additionally, it suggests charities to make improvements of their performance based on the reasons for trust and lack of trust.

It provides insight into the public trust of charities and, for the first time, explores the applicability of measuring public trust in charity performance evaluation.

Third sector organizations regularly innovate through collaboration with other organizations in order to secure resources and to increase the potential to more effectively meet each collaborator's mission. Following a review of relevant literature, the purpose of this paper is to explore and document the variety of ways that third sector organizations collaborate with other nonprofit organizations.

The paper reviews the literature regarding motivations to collaborate, barriers to collaboration, and ways to ensure that collaboration is successful. Drawing on exemplary cases of collaboration that applied for a national (USA) prize, the paper describes the range of collaborations that third sector organizations used to enhance their performance and productivity.

The analysis culminates in eight models: the fully integrated merger, partially integrated merger, joint program office, joint partnership with affiliated programming, joint partnership for issue advocacy, joint partnership with a new formal organization, joint administrative operations, and confederation.

All cases are drawn from one country in one part of the world, the USA; some models will have less veracity in other countries or contexts, and the nonprofit sectors of other countries will likely generate additional kinds of models not anticipated by the USA cases. Second, the eight models generated by the method are the result of debate, deliberation, and iterative process carried out by two coders. Other coders employing the same analytic process might generate more or fewer models.

Once nonprofit boards, staff, and other advocates understand the potential that can come with collaboration, blurring boundaries and giving up autonomy might not seem so intimidating. The practical value of our work is in reporting the wide array of options available to nonprofits – models that staff and board can use to plot their way forward.

The value of our work to research is identification of the assortment of ways that nonprofits collaborate. Future research may consider how any of the issues discussed in the literature – trust, co-opetition, resource dependence, network connectedness – vary or are conditioned by differences across these models of collaboration.

The paper documents collaboration as a viable strategy for the enhancement of performance and productivity among third sector organizations in the USA. For each model described, the paper discusses the circumstances in which they might be used, as well as the challenges and advantages associated with implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to intend as a contribution to the performance evaluation of Third Sector organisations (TSOs). The Italian experience on the development and adoption of harmonised indicators is considered here as an example of problems and possible solutions.

Preliminary analysis shows that, in the Italian situation, two main gaps exist. The first one relates to the incomplete statistical information on the magnitude and performance of TSOs; the second is related to the lack of a set of harmonised indicators. To address these problems, two initiatives have been recently set up in Italy. On the one hand, the newly presented “National Strategy on Social Corporate Responsibility – 2012-2014” has been oriented to fill the statistical gap, by extending the compilation of socio-economic and environmental accounts to TSOs; on the other hand, a joint initiative of the Italian Statistical Institute and the CSR Manager Network Italia towards the harmonisation of the “Global Reporting Initiatives-quantitative performance indicators” and the standards of the Italian statistical system. Within the second initiative, a specific sub-set of performance indicators for TSOs is proposed and presented in this paper.

The Italian experiences reported here, together with the set of proposed indicators, can be used to improve data collection and to move towards a common framework for performance evaluation in the TSOs.

The main contribution of the proposed set of indicators is to: first, provide standard definitions and clear calculation methods; second, define quantitative measurements allowing for aggregation; and third, promote data collection and performance evaluation in a context, as the Italian one, where statistical information for TSOs is largely incomplete.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze whether the use of current performance tools is consistent with the specific features of social enterprises.

In a first phase, the main performance tools are divided into strategic planning tools, reporting tools and economic optimization techniques. In a second phase, 15 criteria emerge from a literature review to characterize the specific features of social enterprises. These criteria are brought together into an analytical framework, which makes it possible to analyze the relevance of each performance tool in relation to the specific features of social enterprises.

What comes out of the analysis is that the tools globally fail to account for the specific features of social enterprises. That none of them met more than half of the criteria suggests the need for new performance tools based on strong theoretical bases.

Only the main performance tools are taken into account in this study. Some tools developed specifically for social enterprises might score better if they were tested in the framework.

Managers in social enterprises often feel helpless when having to choose or develop a performance evaluation tool. This paper allows them to test whether the tools they use are well suited to social enterprises, and provides them with useful guidelines for developing new ones.

Literature on performance evaluation for nonprofits or social enterprises mostly remains conceptual or focusses on one single tool. The author fills the gap by studying a broad range of performance evaluation tools and comparing them.

Research related to operations management (OM) in the sport industry is underdeveloped, despite sport being a continued context of study in other management disciplines. Most studies on the topic are conducted largely in isolation and not linked to the wider OM theory base. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the few studies conducted and develop a detailed research agenda to encourage future research in this interesting, important and topical context.

This paper uses a comprehensive systematic literature review methodology to synthesize the research on sport OM to date. Gaps within the literature are identified and avenues for future research to drive improved performance in multiple aspects of sport OM are suggested.

Examination of the literature shows sports OM to be underdeveloped, with little cumulative learning between existing studies and weak linkages between sport and OM research. To develop the topic further there is a clear requirement for more theory-based research as well as more rigorous empirical testing. The sport industry has special characteristics that differentiate it from the overall service industry and call for targeted research.

Sport today is a major business. The industry also contributes to individual health and well-being. This paper suggests several research directions designed to improve off-field performance in sport operations.

This paper is the first to identify and synthesize the separate studies that have been conducted on OM in sport to date in order to provide a multifaceted research agenda aimed at developing both theoretical and managerial contributions within this important yet under researched area.

In providing a fine-grained analysis of public service management, the purpose of this paper is to make an important contribution to furthering research in service management, a body of literature that has tended to regard public services as homogenous or to neglect the context altogether.

Integrating public management and service management literatures, the past and present of public service management are discussed. Future directions for the field are outlined drawing on a service-dominant approach that has the potential to transform public services. Invited commentaries augment the review.

The review presents the Public Service Network Framework to capture the public value network in its abstraction and conceptualizes how value is created in public services. The study identifies current shortcomings in the field and offers a series of directions for future research where service management theory can contribute greatly.

The review encourages service management research to examine the dynamic, diverse, and complex nature of public services and to recognize the importance of this context. The review calls for an interdisciplinary public service management community to develop, and to assist public managers in leveraging service logic.

The review positions service research in the public sector, makes explicit the role of complex networks in value creation, argues for wider engagement with public service management, and offers future research directions to advance public service management research.