Does Organizational Type Matter for Clients' Experiences? A Comparative Study of Nonprofit Organizations, Government Organizations, For-Profit Organizations, and Social Enterprises

Abstract

This dissertation research addresses the question: Does organizational type matter for the service experiences of clients? One of the central questions in nonprofit studies is whether nonprofits are distinct in significant ways from other service providers including governments, for-profits, or social enterprises. This dissertation addresses this question by focusing on two aspects of service quality hypothesized as mattering to clients’ helpseeking preferences—employee motivation and clients’ perceived control over key decisions in the service process. It specifically examines how employee motivation and clients’ perceived control affect clients’ help-seeking preferences in different organizational types. In the first essay, the study conducted an online experiment to test how organizational types (governments/nonprofits/for-profits) and clients’ perceptions of employee motivation (intrinsic/extrinsic) affect clients’ help-seeking preferences. Employee motivation has been theorized as distinct for nonprofits compared to governments and for-profits. The study found that clients’ perceptions of employee motivations are a stronger determinant of their willingness to interact with the organization and employees, compared to their perceived organizational types. When employees have intrinsic motivation, there is no effect of organizational type on clients’ service preferences. However, when employees are extrinsically motivated, clients prefer interacting with government or nonprofit organizations and employees. In the second essay, the study conducted a scoping review to examine the current literature on the experiences of clients in social enterprises and ran an online experiment to test the effects of social enterprise types (nonprofit/for-profit) and clients’ perceived control over key decisions in the service process. The study found that clients’ perceptions of social enterprise types and control over their job placement mattered for their service preferences. When the services are provided in for-profit social enterprises, clients would recommend and say positive things about the for-profit social enterprise they perceive to have more control over service selections. But there is no similar effect on nonprofit social enterprises. This dissertation contributes to understanding nonprofit distinctiveness through clients’ experiences, a perspective often ignored in nonprofit studies, and considers the implications for both nonprofit relationships to the market and the state.