Activity and Identity: Uncovering Multiple Institutional Logics in the Nonprofit Sector

Abstract

Nonprofit organizations are influenced by multiple institutional logics. However, data and methodological limitations have restricted scholars to classifying organizations solely according to activity-based logics and hindered investigation of alternative logics. This article presents a method for measuring organizational identity—a critical component of the multiple logics framework. To illustrate our method, we focus on religious identity. Using dictionary-based text analysis, we analyze Form 990 data to identify nonprofit organizations that share the same activity-based logic (e.g., education, arts, and health care) but operate with different identity-based logics (religious vs. secular). To demonstrate the value of measuring organizational identity at scale, we compare religiously identified organizations with their secular counterparts. Results suggest there are approximately 670,000 religious and religiously identified organizations in the nonprofit sector and illustrate the importance of operationalizing multiple institutional logics for nonprofit research. Extensions include creating additional dictionaries and large-scale measures of other organizational identities, including race/ethnicity, gender, LGBTQIA+, and politics.

Keywords

institutional logics religion mission text processing organizations

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