Peer Reviewed Research

Leading Resilient, Purpose-Oriented Networks Through Change

View the Resource By Katherine R. Cooper, Rong Wang, Jack L. Harris, Joshua Paul Miles, Michelle Shumate Background: Conveners are crucial in coordinating interorganizational partnerships, particularly purpose-oriented networks. However, their roles may shift from initially recruiting organizational partners to overseeing and sustaining a network through periods of change. Extensive research has focused extensively on these early stages of the interorganizational venture, but less scholarship has focused on how conveners respond to

The Effect of Corporate–Nonprofit Partnerships on Intention to Donate and Volunteer: It’s the Why Not the What

View the Resource By Rong Wang, Michelle Shumate Increasingly, nonprofits and corporations publicly communicate about their partnerships. Guided by Information Integration Theory, this paper examines how information about a nonprofit’s relationship with a corporation relates to individuals’ intention to donate and volunteer. This research used a two-study experimental design. Study 1 (N = 966) examined how partnership explanations and evaluation were related to the two outcomes. Study 2 (N = 970) further examined whether

Network Effectiveness in Context

View the Resource By Michelle Shumate, Shaun M. Dougherty, Joshua-Paul Miles, Anne-Marie Boyer, Rong Wang, Zachary M. Gibson, Katherine R. Cooper Increasingly, scholars and practitioners are interested in evaluating the effectiveness of interorganizational networks. We use a configuration approach to study network effectiveness. This research is a mixed-method study of 26 education networks in the United States. We measure network effectiveness by comparing 4th-grade literacy, 8th-grade literacy, and high-school graduation

Empowering Practices in Education-Focused Coalitions: An Examination Using Fuzzy-Set Qualitative Comparative Analysis

View the Resource By Joshua-Paul Miles, Anne-Marie Boyer, Michelle Shumate As pressure increases to support social justice, coalitions try to understand their role in oppression while implementing practices to create equitable environments. Twenty-six education-focused community coalitions in the United States participated in the study. Coalition interviews and membership rosters are used to evaluate the degree to which these coalitions engage in community engagement practices conducive to empowerment. Involvement practices emphasize

A Conversation about the Communicative Constitution of CSR and Its Implications for Business and Society

View the Resource By François Cooren, Michelle Shumate In this conversation, the authors discuss what corporate social responsibility (CSR) means, the role of communication in CSR, the ways actors and material conditions shape, limit, enable, or amplify a corporation’s social responsibility and the unique contributions of communication scholarship to corporate social responsibility research. The conversation illuminates points of convergence and divergence in the scholar’s perspectives and approaches to CSR communication

How Volunteer Commitment Differs in Online and Offline Environments

View the Resource By Jennifer Ihm, Michelle Shumate The contemporary media environment transforms the organization-volunteer relationship by attenuating the formation of organizational belonging, often thought to be the result of direct interactions and face-to-face meetings. We examine and compare factors that influence offline and online volunteering. We investigate the ties for communicating about volunteering that bind individuals to nonprofit organizations (NPOs) and the ways that multiple levels of identification influence