Full Description
Reviewed here is global research on how 13 types of Voluntary Membership Associations (MAs) have significantly or substantially had global impacts on human history, societies, and life. Such outcomes have occurred especially in the past 200+ years since the Industrial Revolution circa 1800 CE, and its accompanying Organizational Revolution. Emphasized are longer-term, historical, and societal or multinational impacts of MAs, rather than more micro-level (individual) or meso-level (organizational) outcomes. MAs are distinctively structured, with power coming from the membership, not top-down. The author has characterized MAs as the dark matter of the nonprofit/third sector, using an astrophysical metaphor. Astrophysicists have shown that most physical matter in the universe is dark in the sense of being unseen, not stars or planets.
Contents
Editorial Introduction: The Beat of a Different Drum—Voluntary Associations as an Alternative and Neglected Voluntary Sector Paradigm
Colin Rochester
Author Biography
David Horton Smith
The Global Historical and Contemporary Impacts of Voluntary Membership Associations on Human Societies: A Literature Review
David Horton Smith
Abstract
Keywords
Synopsis
A Overview
B Definitions
C Scientific Paradigm Shifts, Metaphors, and Broader Meanings of Global Impact
D Historical Background of MA Impact Research
E Key Association Types for Global Impact
F Conclusion
G Recent Trends and Research Needed
H Usable Knowledge
I Bibliography
