Civil servants' preferences for nonprofit contractors: A conjoint analysis
通过对1206名中国公务员的联合实验，发现公务员更倾向于资助那些具备理性化、专业化、协作性、吸纳性以及有政府资助历史的非营利组织。
Abstract Although governments frequently contract nonprofit organizations (NPOs) to provide public services, little is known about why civil servants are more willing to direct funding to some NPOs than to others. Based on previous research on government funding for NPOs, this study proposes a theoretical framework that combines NPOs' internal and external management strategies to explain civil servants' preferences for funding specific NPOs. On the basis of an original conjoint experiment of 1206 civil servants from China between 2020 and 2021, the analysis found that civil servants generally value the characteristics of rationalization, professionalization, collaboration, cooptation, and a prior history of receiving funding from the government in NPOs. A series of robustness checks were used to validate the theorized relationships. These findings have important implications for both future research and efforts to promote government–NPO contracting.