Social origins

Abstract

Social origins theory marked a major development in nonprofit scholarship when it was published in 1998 and is one of the most important theories on nonprofit organizations to emerge in the past decade. This chapter examines social origins theory and the theoretical context from which it was developed. The chapter then presents the main critiques of social origins theory and, from there, applies the theory to the case of Ireland using data from the largest-ever survey of nonprofit organization in Ireland carried out in 2005. It concludes that while social origins theory is, indeed, a major step forward, a more qualitative approach and the utilization of different variables would deepen and strengthen the analysis. © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010.