Stakeholder communication in service implementation networks ...

International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Marketing Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 19: 301–313 (2014) Published online 12 September 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.1506

Stakeholder communication in service implementation networks: expanding relationship management theory to the nonprofit sector through organizational network analysis Sarah P. Maxwell1* and Julia L. Carboni2 1

Public Affairs and Social Policy, University of Texas at Dallas, USA School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University—Purdue University Indianapolis, USA

2

•

Nonprofits increasingly participate in government-funded service implementation networks (SINs). However, extant research does not explore how organizations might strategically tailor communication to different stakeholder groups or use different communication tools for management. Stakeholders are not a monolithic group, and communicating with stakeholders within SINs is hypothesized to involve different forms of communication than communicating with stakeholders outside of the network. In this paper, relationship management theory is used to examine strategic communication with stakeholder groups within and outside of SINs. Both traditional and emergent (e.g., social media) forms of communication are examined. Survey and interview data on communication within and outside communication networks are analyzed using organizational network analysis techniques. The findings indicate strategic communication in the network differs from strategic communication with stakeholders outside the network. Within the network, organizations place varying emphasis on the use of traditional and emergent forms of communication for management, implying nonprofit managers funded under government grants continue to rely on face-to-face and phone communication and have yet to adopt emerging communication strategies to assist in the management of their programs with their partner organizations. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction *Correspondence to: Sarah P. Maxwell, Public Affairs and Social Policy, University of Texas at Dallas, Richardson, TX, USA. E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Over the last two decades, scholars have documented increased use of organizational networks to deliver

Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., November 2014 DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

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government-funded services (Alter & Hage, 1993; Milne, Iyer, & Gooding-Williams, 1996; Austin, 2000; Milward & Provan, 2000; Provan, Isett, & Milward, 2004). Organizational networks are a set of three or more organizations with ties, or relationships, among the organizations; relationships represented by ties vary by context (Brass, Galaskiewicz, Greve, & Tsai, 2004). In this study, we focus specifically on communication practices in service implementation networks (SINs). SINs are organizational networks funded by government to deliver services to clients (Milward & Provan, 2006). Increasingly, government also contracts out management of SINs to nongovernmental organizations, resulting in a shift of administrative responsibility (Milward & Provan, 2000). For example, a juvenile diversion program to prevent at-risk youth from entering the justice system might include the nonprofit grantee to administer the network along with multiple associated partners to deliver services. These partners might refer at-risk youth to the program, provide job-assistance, find shelter for the youth who might be homeless, or assist the youth with after-school tutoring. Organizations within a SIN communicate frequently. Communication within SINs allows organizations to effectively coordinate programs, make decisions regarding placement opportunities for program participants, and coordinate fundraising or programmatic events. Rapidly changing technology allows organizations to communicate effectively with a vast range of stakeholders; yet nonprofit and communication practitioners have little understanding of how nonprofits utilize social media as a strategic communication tool within SINs. Extant scholarship does not fully address communication practices in SINs either. Relationship management theory addresses the process of managing relationships with internal and external publics, or stakeholders. Relationships are defined as “the state which exists between an organization and its key publics in which the actions of either can impact the economic, social, cultural, or political well-being of the other” (Ledingham, 2003, p. 184). In this theory, communication is a


Sarah P. Maxwell and Julia L. Carboni

strategic tool to manage relationships. This theory offers a unique lens for viewing communication among networked organizations and key stakeholders, in that it emphasizes the role of relationships with key constituents—“publics”—in an organization’s environment and views communication as a strategic management tool for attaining organizational goals (Dozier, Grunig, & Grunig, 1995; Ledingham & Bruning, 1998; Ledingham, 2003). Stakeholders are not a monolith, nor do they all require the same level or type of communication strategies. This study considers traditional and emergent (e.g., social media) communication strategies with stakeholders within and outside of the SIN. Nonprofit organization managers are hypothesized to communicate differently using traditional and emergent (e.g. social media) forms of communications with two types of stakeholders—fellow SIN members and external stakeholders of the network. Data for this study come from two federally funded youth mentoring programs. These programs are implemented by an SIN with one organization serving as the network administrative organization (NAO) that manages the grant and oversees contracts with partner organizations on behalf of the funder. Data are analyzed using organizational network analysis. Network analysis is a methodology used to understand the structure and content of relationships among organizations. It is a powerful way to understand the way organizations interact with each other within the network and to understand how the entire network of organizations functions together (Brass et al., 2004; Provan, Fish, & Sydow, 2007). Network analysis allows communication managers to understand patterns of interactions and to think more strategically about how the entire organization communicates with various publics. Communications and marketing practitioners within the voluntary sector may benefit from research efforts to distinguish how organizations communicate with different types of stakeholder groups. Building on this study, future research may examine which types of communication are most effective with different stakeholder groups. For example, communications related to management


Stakeholder communication in SINs

decisions may be best suited to dialogic communication through specific channels, rather than simple information dissemination. The primary research questions guiding this study are as follows: Are social media used for communication as a management tool? Alternatively, are traditional forms of communication employed over social media as a management tool? Do uses of media vary by stakeholder group? This study examines these questions in two nonprofit SINs that implement large-scale government programs in the human services field. Using a network perspective to measure communication within and outside of SINs, the findings indicate that strategic communication in the SIN differs from strategic communication with stakeholders outside the SIN. Within the network, organizations place varying emphasis on the use of traditional and emergent forms of communication.

Literature review Public relationship management theory

Public relationship management theory is concerned with effectively managing common interests and shared goals to result in mutual understanding and benefit for organizations and their public—or stakeholders. Stakeholders are actors in the environment that may influence organizational success or failure (Cutlip, Center, & Broom, 1994; Ledingham, 2003). The meaning of public is extended to include organizations within the SIN in this study. Relationships within the SIN may be characterized as organization-public relationships because the success or failure of an organization is partially dependent on its relationships with other organizations in its network environment. Relationship management has evolved in both the fields of Public Relations and Public Affairs into a management perspective that steers far beyond the simple approach of message bombardment to a monolithic group of stakeholders (Ledingham, 2003). Ledingham and Bruning (2000) suggest that stakeholder relationship management is part of the organization’s larger goals and a necessary function within


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strategic planning. In limited research to date, underlying differences among organization-public relationships are identified with differences in communication and interaction types between organizations and various publics (Hung, 2005; Waters & Bortree, 2012). However, work on operationalizing these concepts is limited. The ability to collaborate effectively not only includes communication; it specifically requires purposeful communication, and many nonprofits have turned to social media to better communicate with stakeholder groups. A review of the latest ENonprofit Benchmark study (M+R & NTEN, 2012) shows dramatic increases in both Facebook and Twitter interactions among nonprofits and their stakeholders. The industry study states that “Nonprofit Facebook fan bases have seen phenomenal growth between 2010 and 2011, with the average nonprofit increasing its fan base by 70%” (p. 1). However, it is not clear how nonprofits differentiate among stakeholder groups in regard to communication types. This study examines traditional and emergent forms of communication with stakeholders. Traditional communication forms include phone communication, email communication, and face-to-face communication. These communication forms are likely to be used within SINs to communicate about clients and programmatic elements although the form of communication within SINs has received limited scholarly attention. Emergent communication forms include social media. Social media are distinct from traditional means of communication in three significant ways: (1) social media allow for one person to share a message with a very large number of others at very low cost; (2) social media allow for low-cost, sustained interaction among members of a social network; and (3) social media allow messages in a wide variety of forms (e.g., text, audio, animation, and video) to be traded easily among members of a network. Social media strategies among organizations and their stakeholder groups within and outside of networks are fundamental tools in organization-public relations. In practice, social media are touted as marketing tools for nonprofits in the voluntary sector’s


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competitive world of funding, donations, and advocacy because of their potential to vastly increase the reach of nonprofits’ message and mission (Waters, 2010). As a relationship management practice, social media are used as tools to reach stakeholders that might have been previously out of range. However, little is known about how nonprofit organizations use social media within SINs and whether social media can enhance operational effectiveness (Weare, Loges, & Oztas, 2007). Practitioners and scholars alike can benefit from understanding how social media are used to inform, manage, educate, or otherwise communicate with different sets of stakeholder groups. Current research focuses on social media adoption in nonprofit and public agencies (Guo & Saxton, 2014; Mergel & Bretschneider, 2013) but does not consider how social media can be used as a management tool within SINs. A network perspective is taken to understand how organizations communicate with various stakeholder groups using traditional and emergent forms of social media.

Networked collaboration

Strategies and tactics employed to better serve clients and coordinate efforts among government agencies and nonprofits in networks include collaboration (Milward & Provan, 2003). Collaboration, by definition, includes communication (Ball-Rokeach & Loges, 2000). The media available to members of a network affect the network’s communication structure, and potentially, its performance (Weare et al., 2007). However, coordination and information sharing across organizational networks where relationships are horizontal rather than hierarchical remains a major management challenge for government and nonprofits (Agranoff & McGuire, 2006). This is evidenced by epic coordination and information sharing failures among organizations in disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. In the case of SINs, multiple organizations must communicate to effectively serve a client. A network perspective facilitates an understanding of the



communication structures in which networks are embedded, in ways not possible when focusing on individual actions of organizations or bilateral communications outside the network context (Provan et al., 2004, 2007). At the whole network level, centralization and density of communication networks can provide insight as to how information is spread through a network. Centralization is a network level measure that reflects variance in individual actor centrality in the network. More central actors are better connected to the network and may be crucial for sharing information. Density is a network level measure that reflects the proportion of all possible ties that are present. More dense communication networks reflect a greater degree of ties among all organizations, potentially facilitating the spread of information through redundant paths among organizations in the network. Density is related to centralization in that centralized networks tend to be less dense than decentralized networks. However, the measures are not perfect correlates. Centralization is an index of individual actor centrality scores, whereas density accounts for the percentage of all ties in a network irrespective of the distribution of ties among specific actors. Social media seem by default designed to minimize centralization and maximize density in social networks. Services such as Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn encourage new tie creation and information sharing (e.g., updates to your wall on Facebook). Constant, deliberate control of who learns what about your status is difficult to exercise and in many ways defeats the purpose of the service. Given the nature of the work within a SIN, those who are planning day-to-day operations for clients or programs will have decentralized communication networks. Although one main organization coordinates the network, other actors in the network will communicate with each other using traditional media forms. For example, organizations may need to speak to one another to organize an event, coordinate services, or discuss other programmatic issues. These forms of communication are more secure, even though they can be cumbersome and



repetitive. Face-to-face communication, along communication through other traditional media such as telephone, email, and face-to-face contact, will be prevalent within the SIN, resulting in a less centralized, denser communication network. Following this, Hypotheses 1 and 2 are offered: H1: Intra-SIN communication networks using traditional forms of communication will be decentralized.(centralization hypothesis). H2: The density of an intra-SIN communication network using traditional forms of communication will be high (density hypothesis). The communication capacity of social media— especially their ability to distribute information in many different formats—makes them potentially valuable tools in the communication management within the SIN and with external stakeholders. Although social media provide a potentially transformative way to share information, intra-SIN communication is unlikely to take place through social media because such media diminish the information-management capability of the central node in the SIN. Social media use still has a number of unknown implications, particularly for sharing and controlling sensitive client information. Whereas organizational communication with external stakeholders may occur frequently, intra-SIN communications through social media are likely to be sent through the coordinating agency. Control over social media is important in government-funded programs for vulnerable populations (e.g., juvenile offenders). Social media are anticipated to be highly centralized by coordinating organizations. Hypotheses 3 and 4 follow: H3: Social media forms of intra-SIN communication will be highly centralized through the coordinating organization (centralization hypothesis). H4: Density of an intra-SIN communication network will not significantly increase when social media use is considered (density hypothesis).


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Social media can play a valuable role in establishing and maintaining ties outside the SIN, with stakeholders who could benefit from knowing the status of the SIN’s projects. Generally, social media are a one-way form of communication used for information sharing. In SINs, partner organizations may employ social media to highlight the work of the program, but social media are less likely to be used to build management communication and cohesion among partner publics. Hypothesis 5 follows: H5: SINs will use social media more frequently for external communication than for intra-SIN communication. In sum, organizational communication strategies will vary by stakeholder group. Intra-SIN communication is more likely to employ traditional forms of communication as purposive tools to manage programs and clients, including sharing information, which may be sensitive. Intra-SIN social media use within the network will be tightly controlled by the coordinating agency. Communication with external stakeholders is more likely to employ social media strategies. External stakeholders do not need to know the details of intra-SIN deliberations and decision processes but may evaluate potential collaboration, donation, and referrals based on a profile on social media sites such as Facebook or updates on Twitter.

Methods Participants and procedures

Data come from semi-structured interviews and network surveys conducted with members of two SINs that share basic structural characteristics (Milward & Provan, 2006). The networks studied are both working under a US Department of Justice grant to provide mentoring to at-risk youth. The core organization is the main contact under the grant and coordinates the network. It must establish partnerships with other organizations to effectively implement the grant. SIN 1 has four members representing two nonprofit organizations, one school district,


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and one local government agency. SIN 2 has six members, representing four nonprofits, one school district, and one local government agency. There was a 100% response rate for each SIN. Semi-structured interviews included the network survey and were conducted by phone. Each call lasted about 45 min. Questions covered how frequently, in the month prior to the interview, the core organization has been in contact with the following: (1) direct members of the SIN—that is, other members of the network who are providing services under the supervision of the core organization; and (2) stakeholders that are not members of the SIN but have an interest in the work that the SIN is doing (e.g., potential donors, sympathetic organizations, and other organizations with similar clientele). The media through which such contact took place was noted—face-to-face contact, telephone contact, email contact, and social media contact—and recorded separately in order to calculate the impact on network density of each medium. This method of comparing contributions to network density from a variety of media is closely based on that used by Weare et al. (2007). The questions were phrased as the following: “We’d like to know about your communication with the members of your program. We’ll ask about each member organization. We’re only interested in your communication with people you count on to make decisions or commitments on behalf of the organization.” The interviewer then read the organizations previously listed by the interviewee as serving as a member of the SIN, asking about contact via phone, email, face-to-face, and social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn, or other). Next, the interviewer asked the interviewee to focus only on their use of social media. The interviewer asked for any additional comments the interviewee would like to add following the survey. The use of social media for communication outside the SIN was also measured. Respondents were asked about phone, email, face-to-face, and social media communication with stakeholders outside the SIN. Stakeholder groups were foundations, potential donors,



other nonprofits, community members in general, government agencies, potential consumers of the organization’s services, and other community-based organizations. Besides learning whether social media were used to communicate inside and outside the network in the previous 2 weeks, respondents were asked about how the coordinating organization makes use of social media for both internal and external communication.

Results Two network level measures were derived to analyze intra-SIN communication patterns and communication with external stakeholders. The measures are network centralization and network density. Both measures were introduced in the literature review and given detailed treatment in the succeeding text. Each SIN has five scores: network centralization based on traditional communication use, network centralization based on social media communication use, network density based on traditional communication use, network density based on social media communication use, and network density based on both traditional communication and social media communication use. Communication with external stakeholders was also analyzed. Centralization

Centralization is a network level measure that reflects variance in individual actor centrality. High centralization scores indicate many links connected to only one or few nodes in the network. The formula for Freeman’s (1979) centralization index is given as follows: g

g

i ¼1

i ¼1

C a ¼ ∑ ½C a ðn*Þ C a ðni Þ= max ∑ ½C a ðn*Þ C a ðni Þ

where Ca is the general centralization index set between 0 and 1 (reported as a percentage); g

∑ ½C a ðn*Þ C a ðni Þ

i ¼1

is the sum of differences



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between the largest individual actor centrality and the g

other observed values; and max ∑ ½C a ðn*Þ C a ðni Þ i ¼1

is the theoretical maximum sum of differences in actor centrality, pairwise between actors. In highly centralized networks, one actor may have high degree centrality (many connections), whereas other actors have low degree centrality (few connections). Centralization can increase the efficient distribution of information, and thus hasten network members’ learning of news (such as a meeting agenda sent from one person to the entire network). Centralization can also allow greater control over intra-network communication by coordinating organizations, so that information is not shared with those who should not have it (for legal reasons, if no other). In highly decentralized networks, there is less variance in the degree centrality of individual members of the network—all members have about the same number of ties. Skocpol (1999) notes that decentralized networks are more democratic and distribute the various burdens of network membership among the members. Hypothesis 1 considers intra-SIN network centralization in communication networks using traditional forms of communication. It predicted that centralization would be low for intra-SIN communication network using traditional forms of communication. Centralization was calculated using Freeman’s (1979) network centralization index for each SIN communication network taking into account all traditional types of communication (phone, email, and face-to-face contact) in the network. As expected, the centralization score for SIN 1 is 38.89%, indicating relatively low centralization (less than 50%). The centralization score for SIN 2 is 34%, similar to the SIN 1. These findings lend support to Hypothesis 1. Figure 1 provides a visual representation of the communication network with traditional types of communication for the SIN 1. Figure 2 provides a visual representation of the communication network with traditional types of communication for the SIN 2.


Figure 1. Service implementation networks 1—traditional forms of communication.

Figure 2. Service implementation networks 2—traditional forms of communication.

In Figures 1 and 2, squares (nodes) represent individual organizations. Node size reflects the in degree centrality of nodes or the number of ties that node has with other organizations as reported by its ties. Lines between nodes indicate that the organizations communicate via traditional types of communication (phone, email, and fac- to-face). Organizations used multiple types of traditional communication forms. Line thickness indicates the number of types of communication employed between organizations. Thicker lines indicate increased types of communication between organizations. Hypothesis 3 considered social media forms of intra-SIN communication. It predicted that social media forms of intra-SIN communication would be highly


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centralized through the coordinating organization. Again, centralization was calculated using Freeman’s (1979) network centralization index for each SIN communication network taking into account social media forms of communication. The centralization score for SIN 1 is 0%, indicating social media is not used within the SIN. The centralization score for SIN 2 is also 0%. Although only the coordinating agencies used social media as a communication tool within the network, there was not sufficient use of social media among other actors to create an index score for either network. This finding lends support for Hypothesis 3. Density

Density is a network level measure that reflects the number of actual ties in the network divided by the number of possible ties in the network. The formula for density is given as follows: Δ¼

g

g

!

∑ ∑ x ij =ðgðg 1ÞÞ

i ¼1 j¼1

where Δ is the density measure set between 0 and 1; ∑gi¼1 ∑gj¼1 x ij is the sum of all ties in the network; and g(g 1) is the total number of ties in the network (Wasserman & Faust 1994). Density is related to the developing shared knowledge and experience and building trust in networks along with information exchange (Coleman, 1988; Monge & Contractor, 2003; Weare et al., 2007). Although density may promote information exchange among many actors, it can also have negative effects on communication. For example, information exchanges may become redundant in dense networks because an actor may receive the same information from multiple ties (Burt, 1992). Hypothesis 2 considered intra-SIN network density within SINs using traditional forms of communication. It predicted that the density of intra-SIN communication networks using traditional forms of communication would be high. The intra-SIN density


score for traditional forms of communication SIN 1 is 0.75 indicating that 75% of all possible ties use traditional forms of communication. The intra-SIN density score for SIN 2 is 0.667 indicating that 66.7% of all possible ties use traditional forms of communication. This lends support to Hypothesis 2. Hypothesis 4 considered how the addition of social media as a communication strategy would affect intra-SIN network density. It predicted that the addition of social media as a form of communication in the SIN would not significantly increase network density. The intra-SIN density score for social media communication alone in SIN 1 is 0.083, indicating low social media usage, or that about 8% of possible ties use social media. The intra-SIN density score for SIN 1 with both traditional and social media communication is 0.75. In SIN 1, the intra-SIN density did not change with the addition of social media forms of communication, indicating that the social media tie that existed was used in conjunction with traditional forms of media. The intra-SIN density score for social media communication in SIN 2 is 0.033, also indicating low social media usage, or that only about 3% of possible ties use social media. The intra-SIN density score for SIN 2 with both traditional and social media communication is 0.70. In SIN 2, the intra-SIN density increased slightly with the addition of social media forms of communication (from 0.677 to 0.70), indicating that the addition of the social media tie reflected a new connection between two non-core organizations. In both SINs, social media were not a widely used form of communication. These findings provide support for Hypothesis 4. Comments from interviewers confirmed the density associated with traditional media use. As these program managers are also responsible for overseeing social media with their programs, it was clear that, as program managers, they are trained to run nonprofit grants, work with youth, and coordinate their nonprofit partners. One respondent commented: “I am satisfied generally with our social media, as we use it to obtain the word out about events for our youth.” Such comments indicate the role social media might play outside of the SIN but notes the limits on



two-way dialogic communication with the SIN. Another respondent noted the practicality of social media limits: “We don’t use social media. There are too many regulations from the organization [in which I work] such as privacy concerns and logo copyrights. Every time I want to use social media, I have to go through our communications department at our national headquarters.” Such comments provide considerable insight into how and why nonprofit program managers fail to adopt the larger organizational communication strategies.

Communication with external stakeholders

Hypothesis 5 suggested that social media are used more frequently for external communication with outside stakeholder publics, rather than inside the SIN. Stakeholder groups included foundations, potential donors, nonprofit organization outside the network, community members, government agencies, clients, and other community organization. In SIN 1, the coordinating agency indicated that it used traditional forms of communication with six of these seven stakeholder groups. SIN 1 reported using social media forms of communication with three of these seven stakeholder groups. In SIN 2, the coordinating agency indicated that it used traditional forms of communication with seven of these seven stakeholder groups. SIN 2 reported using social media forms of communication with three of these seven stakeholder groups. Respondents seemed much more willing to engage in social media use to share general information with groups outside the network. Respondent comments reinforce these findings. One respondent stated as follows: “Social media are not really needed. We use it to inform kids at school about announcements.” Another said the following: “[Social media] are just not part of our organization’s overall strategy.”

Discussion This study applied public relationship management theory to SINs operating programs under federally


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funded grants using a network analytic perspective. Research questions concerned traditional and emergent forms of communication among various publics or stakeholder groups. Our findings indicate that intra-SIN communication is largely accomplished using traditional communication forms while use of emergent communication forms is limited. Communication with stakeholders outside the network is more likely to employ emergent forms of communication but still relies more heavily on traditional forms of communication than emergent forms. Hung (2005) expanded the organization-public relationship definition to include management, suggesting that interdependence produces consequences that, in turn, need to be addressed or managed by the organizations (see Waters, 2008, p. 40). The literature has not considered varying communication strategies for different stakeholder groups though. This study demonstrates that intra-SIN communication is different from communication with external stakeholders and that usage of communication form (traditional or emergent) varies by group. Findings concerning centralization and density of communication networks provided support for the hypotheses. To date, literature on social media use suggests that nonprofits are not using Facebook and other forms of social media for interactive purposes (Waters, Burnett, Lamm, & Lucas, 2009), although it is well established that social media can be catalysts for collective action as evidenced by the Arab Spring that began in 2010 and 15-M Movement in Spain in 2011–2012 (Khondker, 2011; Casero-Ripolles & Feenstra, 2012). Findings in this study support recent scholarship that suggest social media are generally used for limited, one-way, rather than dialogic communication. Importantly, not only is dialogic communication low across all forms of communication in this study but also the opportunity for increased, two-way, strategic communication is not exploited. The organizations in this study are already existing partners within the SINs and therefore do not face the additional challenge of forming relationships with their publics through social media and


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other forms of communication. In this study, the SINs within network organizations are existing partners that strategically organized to apply for the initial grant. Management-focused and decision-focused communication that could improve programmatic operations does not include social media use nor are program managers using social media to convey information to their stakeholder publics outside of the immediate operational network. These stakeholders may be potential donors, other nonprofits, community members, and potential consumers of the grant services. Overall, there is a disconnection among program staff for potentially adopting communication campaigns or strategies that move beyond informing the public of an event and creating a new platform for two-way, decision-making communication. By analyzing their own Facebook, Twitter, or other social ties, program managers and communications professionals within one organization can use network analysis tools to communicate strategically. From a marketing perspective, understanding network centralization and network density can provide organizations with tools to understand strengths and weaknesses in communication networks and to communicate strategically. It should be the first step in planning efficacious communication, with an emphasis on the unique nature of organizational publics and where those stakeholders fit within organizational strategic goals. At present, SINs operating under large-scale federally funded grants tend to shy away from the opportunities to connect with partner agencies and nonprofits to market the overall grant, improve communication among the network of providers, or share best practices, for example. Respondent comments and network data confirmed the expectation that operating youth programs is easily performed via traditional forms of communication. If a young person needs a mentor, the program manager may email or simply pick up the phone to call a partner organization for the referral, although social media may be more efficient. Government-funded programs require ongoing and often horizontal organizational management structures, as decisions are made rapidly at times and



within the context of changing environments. For managers of these complex programs that require ongoing communication with their partner publics, social media as a decision-making tool are not deemed helpful by the grantees. From a practical perspective, it makes little sense to have every member of the SIN participating in every minor decision associated with a program, but a certain level of collaboration and information dissemination would be expected among nonprofits. In this case, that collaboration is not occurring through social media. In sum, this study highlights the importance of continued research in the role of social media to spark two-way, dialogic communication among programmatic partners and community members. As highlighted by a few of the respondents comments, communication staff tends to place limits on social media use within the organizational protocol, thus limiting social media communication among programs from the initial point of contact. Social media are conceivably too transparent, as many participants in the program may prefer not to be identified. Offering Facebook communication among agencies opens the risk for lawsuits or possible misuse of social media by nonprofit managers. The field is still young, and few handbooks exist to either facilitate effective communication for program managers and their partners or to educate those nonprofit managers who are not assigned to the communications department within the organization.

Conclusion This study combines the nonprofit management and public relations fields, as a starting point for continued analyses regarding social media use in effective management of SINs. Given the unique nature of SINs, social media use may not be widely adopted among the internal SIN’s stakeholders in comparison with the same nonprofit’s social media use with other stakeholder groups such as potential donors. Management of these networks is critical to implementation effectiveness of the service being



provided, making Twitter, Facebook, and other types of social media complicated in an environment of sensitive client information, program operation communication, and other types of interaction that could require private conversation. More work is needed on this topic, as preparing nonprofit managers to communicate effectively and strategically offers the potential to improve overall organizational communication under complex funding arrangements and with varying stakeholder groups. One limitation is that the study does not delineate among organizational types within and outside of the SINs. Waters and Bortree (2012) suggest the use of networks for this purpose. Presently, studies continue to treat organizational types as equal, assuming that the same public relations strategy will work across a nonprofit or a government agency. This limitation may prove especially important to further studies, as principal-agent problems are inherently difficult in nonprofit-government relationships. The SINS are working as agents, for the government principal, which, by definition, skew the power. Indeed, nonprofits may be more inclined to foster communication with the funding principal rather than other agents under the grant. This study is also limited in that it includes only two networks. The small sample problem is endemic in network research (Provan et al., 2007). In future studies, a larger sample of networks and comparison of networks to each other is warranted. It is difficult to draw conclusions comparing a small sample of networks because of variance in context and other conditions. These networks were used to illustrate hypotheses and offer evidence of communication types in SINs but did not compare the networks or analyze the data statistically because of the small sample size. It appears that nonprofits in these networks are not actively engaged in social media in ways that help them manage programs. Bortree and Seltzer (2009) summarize the use of social media by nonprofits, suggesting that nonprofits erroneously believe that the simple creation of social networking sites is sufficient; rather, nonprofits miss the opportunity to “build mutually beneficial relationships


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with stakeholders” (p. 318). Continued research into the practical aspects of managing networks under federal grants, and ways to improve effective communication among all partners, is still needed. Nonprofit management studies remain ill-informed about social media use as a management tool, especially in managing grants with multiple and diverse stakeholder groups. It is unfortunate that research on social media use is lacking. Waters et al. (2009) suggest that social networking could be adapted as a strategic tool to communicate with different stakeholder groups. Instead, nonprofits report that social media are, in fact, overseen by college interns or others who would have no management function within the organization (Westcott, 2007). Evidence does not support a widespread movement toward the adoption of new communication strategies through virtual collaborative interaction between government and stakeholder groups. Indeed, in their study, much of the communication continued to exist on a more traditional level (Brainard & McNutt, 2010). This study suggests that social media are employed by nonprofits, but not in a manner that supports mutual or substantive communication that might be required in a management setting. As organizations seek to manage horizontally across SINs, two-way communication could be improved among stakeholders within the network, as well as those outside. As a management tool, social media use could be advanced to improve communication, while maintaining confidentiality. Future research should examine specific messaging within and outside of SINs. For example, questions about what SINs communicate with stakeholders in addition to how they communicate are worthwhile pursuits.

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