The Dark Side of Nonprofit Management: Trends, Changes, and Paradoxes

This book offers a critical examination of contemporary nonprofit organisations, challenging prevailing assumptions about their inherently positive social role. This book offers a critical examination of contemporary nonprofit organisations, challenging prevailing assumptions about their inherently positive social role. It explores the evolving functions, contradictions, and emerging “anti-functions” of the third sector within broader socio-economic transformations. Drawing on perspectives from critical management studies, it analyses how processes such as neoliberalisation, neocolonial dynamics, projectification, and the growing business-like orientation reshape nonprofit practices, governance, and organisational identities. Particular attention is given to the often overlooked “hidden side” of nonprofit activity, including managerial tensions, pathologies, and unintended consequences that affect organisational effectiveness and social impact. Bridging theoretical reflection with critical insight, the book provides a nuanced understanding of the sector’s internal dynamics and external pressures. It will be of interest to researchers, students, and practitioners in nonprofit studies, management, and organisation studies, as well as those engaged in leadership and policy who seek a deeper and more reflexive perspective on the challenges facing contemporary nonprofits.