Beyond Control: Why Can Some Chinese Nonprofits Maintain Autonomy When Collaborating with the Government While Others Cannot?

Abstract

Past research assumes that in highly restrictive institutional environments such as China, nonprofits are likely to lose autonomy when collaborating with the government. We challenge this assumption by developing a multi-factor theoretical framework (resource dependency, political connections, cooperation specificity, and organizational reputation) to explain the conditions under which nonprofits would maintain autonomy. We further test this framework using a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis of 20 government-nonprofit partnerships in China. Results show that all four factors combine to contribute to autonomy. The absence of cooperation specificity is necessary for high autonomy, and three configurations are identified for high and low autonomy. The findings indicate how weaker nonprofits strategically use diverse sources of inter-organizational power to gain autonomy when facing significant power imbalances, and reveals the government’s intricate and indirect control tactics, offering insights for building more effective government-nonprofit partnerships in public services delivery.