Governing nonprofits under competing institutional logics: The implementation of board governance in China

Abstract

Privatization reform originated in Western countries and was translated across political regimes. While extensive literature discusses the practices of privatization in liberal democracies, little has been written on its implementation in authoritarian contexts, where the logic of privatization is incompatible with the logic of authoritarianism. This study explores the adoption of a specific administrative model promoted by the privatization reform: nonprofit board governance in Shenzhen, China. We find that, although the nonprofit board is the formal governing structure, regulatory agencies constrain the autonomy of boards, decoupling governance practices from board governance. Two organizational-level contingency factors—institutional origins and political risks—help explain the balance of the competing logics and the degree of decoupling from board governance. These findings suggest that, within the global privatization movement, the seemingly converging administrative structures embody divergent practices when adapting to local contexts.