Abstract
The topic of Governance is an emerging research area within the Third Sector. However, the majority of bibliometric analyses in the field of governance tends to focus on the corporate dimension rather than on the nonprofit field. A bibliometric analysis on governance of nonprofit organizations (NPO) was conducted to identify publication trends. The sample consists of 71 articles selected from the Web of Science database based on the theme “nonprofit governance”. Publications included were published between 1996 and 2021. The bibliometric analysis was conducted using the VOSviewer software involving, among others, the analysis of co-citations. The results of this study show the most productive countries, journals, and authors in this area. Cluster analysis highlighted two major research themes in nonprofit entities governance: the functioning of Boards and the relationship between Boards' characteristics and organizations’ Performance. Our findings are limited by the use of a single database and the type of publication chosen (articles). Notwithstanding the limitations, this research offers valuable insights to the literature, providing a theoretical map of the intellectual structure of Nonprofit Governance.
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Acknowledgements
Amélia Carvalho, João Domingues, Jaime Teixeira and Vanda Lima gratefully acknowledge financial support from FCT—Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (Portugal), national funding through project UIDB/04728/2020. Cecilia Carmo gratefully acknowledge the support to GOVCOPP (Research Unit on Governance, Competitiveness and Public Policies), ISCA-UA.
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Domingues, J., Carvalho, A., Carmo, C., Lima, V., Teixeira, J. (2023). Scientific Contribution in the Field of Nonprofit Governance: A Bibliometric Analysis. In: Soares, A.M., Casais, B. (eds) Uniting Marketing Efforts for the Common Good—A Challenge for the Fourth Sector. IAPNM 2022. Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-29020-6_4
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