Abstract
In this article I review some of the major changes in the management of International Development Organizations (INGOs) in the UK in the last three decades, as an example of what might be happening more broadly in Third Sector Organizations (TSOs). In doing so I realize the danger of making large generalizations. I discuss what I take to be the limitations of current abstract ways of thinking and learning which have come to dominate, given the nature of international development, which I regard as an improvisational activity undertaken with specific groups of people, in a particular context and at a particular time.
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Notes
- 1.
More latterly, and perhaps with a view to rendering tight financial requirements more apposite to the context, there is a move to develop thinking on achieving a ‘social return on investment’. Whether this is really helpful or merely one response to the hegemony of financialized thinking is a moot point.
- 2.
One corollary of the turn towards quantitative methods is the increased objectification of the recipients of international aid, or ‘beneficiaries’ as they are increasingly termed. Attempts are made to measure the ‘dose-response’ to the ‘treatment’ of social development intervention.
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Mowles, C. (2020). Complexity and the Management of Civil Society Organizations. In: Schröer, A., Engel, N., Fahrenwald, C., Göhlich, M., Schröder, C., Weber, S. (eds) Organisation und Zivilgesellschaft. Organisation und Pädagogik, vol 24. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-18005-8_21
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