As a strategic advantage and a kind of intangible assets, reputation has been a cornerstone for the existence and development of the Not-for-profit (NFP) Organization, an entity that is committed to facilitating the social benefits. During the social transition period, while developing rapidly, NFPs in China have been confronted with an increasingly serious reputation crisis. Therefore a probe into the crisis origin and remodeling path of NFP's reputation in the Chinese social transition period will be of significance to the healthy development of nonprofit sector and the construction of modern social organization system in China in the future. The theoretical connotation and localized understanding of NFPs' reputation. Compared with the for-profit organizations, the reputation of NFPs has three classic features: the extensiveness of social embeddedness|the diffusion of value in the society|the complexity of management. Meanwhile, for NFPs, the reputation has five positive functions: (1)the reforging function of organizational image; (2)regulating function of opportunistic behavior|(3)the assessment function of service quality|(4)the strengthening function of organizational capability|(5)the distinguishing function of organizational identity. Besides, from the point-view of system management, the article indicates that, as the system input, country system, social climate and organization management in the Chinese social transition period which NFPs are confronted with, have directly influenced the features and values of organizational reputation as an output of intangible assets. The crisis origin of NFP's reputation in the Chinese social transition period. The article points out that the crisis origin of NFP's reputation in the Chinese social transition period lies in the failure of five key reputation mechanisms. First, the reputation investment mechanism. The deficiency of responsible parties and the blur of target direction which resulted from the special property system of NFPs in China, have slacked down the investment incentives of NFPs' leaders. Second, the reputation information dissemination mechanism. The indirectness of service and the assessment difficulties of output for NFPs have led to the obstacles of information dissemination related to the organizational reputation. Third, the incentive and restraint mechanism. Normally, there exist two roles that employees in nonprofit play, namely the role as the individual in pursuit of their own benefits and the role as the representative of the public benefits. However, it is due to the blur of these two roles that the working staff in NFPs might bring about harm to the organization reputation. Fourth, the reputation punishment mechanism. The monopoly of service provision in nonprofit sector in China brought about the defect of nonprofit market structure, which has directly done harm to the construction of the reputation punishment mechanism for NFPs. Fifth, the reputation social monitoring mechanism. Due to the special organization features as well as the deficiency of management system, the stakeholders of NFPs could not effectively possess and monitor the NFPs' operational information, which has led to the noticeable expectation of short-term behavior of NFPs. The remodeling path of Chinese NFP's reputation. On one hand, the subjective enforcement of reputation remodeling. As a kind of self-enforcement, this is a direct reputation remodeling path of ″Autonomy,″ and is carried out on the basis of individual employee level as well as the organization level. On the other hand, the objective enforcement of reputation remodeling. This is an indirect reputation remodeling path of ″Heteronomy,″ in which the NFP is confronted to the reputation modeling by the society and governments. Until now, great achievements have been made in the researches related to organizational reputation home and abroad. However, the literatures are mainly focused on the for-profit organizations, and there exists a fierce lack of research on the reputation of NFPs, especially the localized research in China, though NFPs are committed to the facilitation of social benefits, therefore resulting in higher demands of organizational reputation. This article could be a meaningful try at the theoretical level. The innovation point of the article is that the research represents a combination of modern reputation theory and NFP, and the theoretical analysis of NFPs' reputation is put in the background of the Chinese social transition period, and thus a theoretical analysis framework of crisis origin and remodeling path of Chinese NFP's reputation is constructed.
张冉. 社会转型期我国非营利组织声誉研究:危机溯源与重塑路径[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2014, 44(1): 100-112.
Zhang Ran. A Probe into Not-for-profit Organizations' Reputation in China during Social Transition Period: Crisis Origin and Remodeling Path. , 2014, 44(1): 100-112.