Book Review: Tobie S. Stein, Workforce Transitions from the Profit to the Nonprofit Sector, Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2002, 194 pp., $75.00 (hardcover)

Book Reviews 251sustainability is twofold economic viability and social responsibility coupled with

organizational stability.In light of above-mentioned attributes of NGO sustainability, Fowler constructs an ideal type of NGO sustainability the virtuous spiral. He argues that

every organization sets goals and to achieve those desired goals, it has to perform

to the best of its ability and capacity. Positive performances ensure NGDOs commitment towards their goals, leading other organizations to so emulate. Thus, a

learning process begins which necessitates the process of adaptation. A virtuous

spiral works where all the attributes are interwoven, each contributing to the maintenance of the whole mechanism. Put differently, increasing insight and agility

are key to attaining efficiency and sustainability.By constructing a methodological device the virtuous spiral on the theoretical footing of system analysis and suggesting some venturesome propositions, the

author has provided much-needed guidance for NGO sustainability. However, an

area, which receives little attention, is the issue of the corporatization of NGOs.

The author elaborates upon the issue of financial sustainability and the generation

of resources from commercial firms but does not adequately address the aftereffects of such interactions. One can raise a series of questions such as: Might it

not lead to appeasement and corruption issues within the NGO sector? Might it not

create an identity crisis for NGOs? These apprehensions remain unanswered in this

volume. The reader does not get real definitional clarity concerning the concept

NGDO that might have been stated more comprehensively. But, methodologically

speaking, the author has studied a tricky issue sustainability with a very broad

universe and sample.All told, the volume is a useful addition to the knowledge of voluntary research

that offers a practical solution to the problem of NGO sustainability. Further, from

a readers point of view, the diagrams and tables make this volume presentable

and readable. Apart from scholars undertaking research on NGOs, the personnel

of NGOs and social activists will find this work well worthwhile.Biswambhar PandaDepartment of Sociology

North-Eastern Hill University

Shillong, Meghalaya, IndiaTobie S. Stein, Workforce Transitions from the Profit to the Nonprofit Sector,Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, 2002, 194 pp., $75.00

(hardcover).Every day, we read in the newspapers stories of corporations downsizing and

closing. At the same time, the nonprofit sector retrenches, facing post-9/11 funding

reductions and decreasing private donations. With the United States economy252 Book Reviewscontinuing to teeter between recovery and recession, people are demanding more

services from nonprofits. With a call for better management in the nonprofit sector

and corporate downsizing in the private sector, why have many managers in forprofit industry been unable to successfully transition into analogous nonprofit

positions? Tobie Stein addresses this question in her book on workforce transition.The author discusses the changing work environments managers face as they

attempt to move from for-profit to nonprofit organizations. Steins qualitative study

examines a workforce transition program she designed and facilitated over the

course of five years involving 117 displaced managers. Using extensive participant

observation and qualitative interviews, she gleans insight into the barriers managers

face when attempting to switch sectors, exposing the stereotypes from both sides.The managers in her study have many reasons for moving into the nonprofit

sector. Many of them had been laid off from their for-profit management positions

and are now considered too old for future work there. Attempting to take advantage

of the different employment demographics (e.g., an older management workforce,

better opportunities for minorities and women), these managers decide to take

what they know about running an organization to the nonprofit sector. While some

managers can make this transition seamlessly, others have difficulty, necessitating

retraining programs such as the one Stein studies. Successful socialization into the

nonprofit sector, Stein finds, ultimately relies on the managers ability to realign

themselves with the values of their new reference group, a task that reshapes

participants identities in the process.The managers in Steins study often have some experience in the nonprofit

sector, most frequently in the form of volunteer service. They quickly find this

is not enough. Whereas the for-profit organizations saw their skills as outmoded

and unnecessary, the nonprofit sector devalues their professional skills, seeking

ideological compatibility over technical abilities. One manager notes the difficulty

of having to adjust to the nonprofit managers attachments to 1960s activism,

in which she had taken no part. Stein describes in great detail the features of

the program with which she worked, as well as the re-socialization process the

managers undergo as they complete it.The book is rife with examples and peppered with revealing quotes and anecdotes from respondents. Methodologically, Stein covers her bases; her choice of

site selection and methods reveal a well-constructed research design. However, the

sociological and organizational theories from which she draws are dated. Stein attempts to explain her findings in terms of decades-old sociological insights. While

there are merits in such attempts, she does not take as her task a rewriting of sociological theory. Rather, for example, she relies on Mertons theories of insiders and

outsiders (a concept expounded in the 50s and 60s) to explain some of the difficulty

managers have when attempting to get along in their new employment scenarios.

Organizational theory since then has had much to say about identification within

the workplace. The sociology of professions, on which she touches superficially,Book Reviews 253has been intensely concerned with how people attempt to reconcile their personal

and work identities, an issue that needs to be more fully explored in relation to the

nonprofit sector.As managers attempt to move from the bottom-line driven world of forprofits to the values driven world of nonprofits, they are faced with the challenge

of reorienting more than just their work styles. As Stein points out, they must also

reorient their identities in fundamental ways. This book provides valuable insights

to for-profit managers attempting to make the transition to the workforce. It also

has much to say to managers already in the nonprofit workforce about how their

values are embedded in the actions and structures of their organizations.Paul-Brian McInerneyDepartment of Sociology

Columbia University

New York, New York, U.S.Adrian Wood, Raymond Apthorpe, and John Borton (eds.), Evaluating International Humanitarian Action: Reflections from Practitioners, Zed Books,

London, 2001, 224 pp., $22.50 (paperback).Evaluating International Humanitarian Action: Reflections from Practitioners is a welcome collection analyzing aid efforts. Rather than finding that all

aid is good or all aid is bad, the authors engaged in an insightful evaluation

of aid efforts. Their mission was not to rationalize what their employers had

done, but to ascertain whether what their employers were attempting had actually

occurred.The volume is a product of the Active Learning Network for Accountability

and Performance in Humanitarian Action (ALNAP). ALNAP is a forum whose

members are donor organizations, including government representatives, nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), and international organizations. ALNAPs

Chair, Wayne MacDonald, remarks in the foreword that the performance and

accountability bar has been raised from a preoccupation with doing to one of

achieving results that address client needs (p. xix).The editors wrote introductory and concluding chapters. In between are case

studies of aid from The Netherlands to Somalia; Sweden in the Horn of Africa;

Sweden in Cambodia; donor organizations from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the

United Kingdom, and United States in Rwanda; World Food for Peace in Liberia;

the International Federation of the Red Cross in Tajikistan; AusAID in Papua New

Guinea; a French inter-NGO network providing aid to Honduras and Nicaragua

following Hurricane Mitch; and Danish and UNICEF aid in Kosovo. Each chapter was written by an evaluator, and in each case they provided suggestions for