Determinants of non-profit commercialism. Resource deficits, institutional pressures or organizational contingencies?

Resource competition is assumed to encourage commercial behaviour by publically funded non-profit organizations (NPOs). However, this widespread assumption falls short as empirical findings remain equivocal. In this study, we theorize that non-profit commercialism can indeed emerge from resource deficits but also from institutional pressures and organizational contingencies. Using logistic regression analyses on two-wave survey data of Flemish NPOs, we explain the presence, intensity and nature of non-profit commercialism. While resource dependency indeed explains the presence and extent of non-profit commercialism, we find that institutional pressures and organizational contingencies also have a role to play.