Why is a business school researching nonprofits?

People are sometimes surprised to learn that I am based in the Trinity Business School when my research subjects are usually nonprofit organisations (NPOs).  In the United States many nonprofit studies happen in a university department which is called something like “Public Administration” and which we would struggle to locate in an Irish university.  In Europe it is university business schools that are the home of management studies and of organization studies – that’s the study of how people collectively organize themselves into functioning entities, supported and shaped by cultures, values, norms and legal frameworks.   If I was working on some nonprofit discipline such as community development, then I might be part of an Irish sociology school.  But as I am interested in nonprofits as organizational entities, here I am in Trinity College Dublin’s Business School.

Do nonprofits therefore sit comfortably in a business school?  Well, my experience has been good so far.   Business schools often set up specialist research centres and that can include nonprofit studies.  University College Cork has the Centre for Co-operative Studies and Oxford has the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship.  Trinity used to have the Centre for Nonprofit Management – but now has the Trinity Centre for Social Innovation where I am located.  The premise of the centre is that, while based in the Business School, social innovation should and can have a wider reach across other schools and disciplines, both in the university and in the world of public policy and practice.  Social Innovation is about more than “management” and embraces systems change, organizational  and entrepreneurial behaviours, pedagogy and much more.