Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Nonprofit organizations – Czech Republic'

All organizations are concerned with survival and effectiveness, but for third sector and public organizations these issues are acute; they hinge on the organization’s ability to establish and sustain its legitimacy. Legitimacy has been defined as a manifestation of value congruence between an organization’s activities and the social system within which it functions (Dowling and Pfeffer, 1975). This study oxamines the multi-dimensionality of organizational legitirnicy in a comparative case study of nonprofit service organizitions (NSO’s) which provide HIV education and support services for women. Processes of seeking organizational legitirnacy are identified and organizational relationships analyzed within the environmental networks of clientele and the interorganizational network. The study also seeks to identity tte focus and progression of legitimating efforts over tho course of the organization’s existence. Tw. Community based organizations are included; one in the United States and one in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean. The organizations studied are directed to women in a variety of circumstances: sex workers, drug users, and women who self-identify as being at risk. The majority of clients were Hispanic, although a few were Caucasian and African-American. The study is intended to generate theory as to how organizations address legitimacy in a multidimensional environment, and how this challenge has been confronted in the case of NSO’s serving women at risk for HIV. The study identifies strategies for preserving the organization’s internally defined objectives and processes and its active relationship with the client community.
Ph. D.

By analysing the multifarious concepts of NPOs' functions in literature and the definitions of the particular functions, the paper frames an overarching theoretical concept to structure the functions of NPOs. The framework delivered displays a triangle with the three main functions of NPOs, service delivery, public advocacy, and community building in its corners, which is empirically grounded in findings from a qualitative study in Austria and the Czech Republic. Although data show that NPOs in both countries fulfil identical functions, the relative importance of them varies: Austrian NPOs tend to specialize on one or two functions - mainly service and advocacy, while NPOs in the Czech Republic are multi-function oriented with a strong focus on community building. Against the background of the democratic development in both countries, the paper discusses possible explanations for these differences and raises ideas for the measurement of NPOs' functions on the organisational level. (author´s abstract)
Series: Working Papers / Institut für Sozialpolitik

This study is titled Role of Small States in International Relations: Comparative Analysis of the Czech Republic and Israel and its main purpose is to analyze a typical small state's behavior in the international arena on the examples of the Czech and Israeli foreign policy. It is divided into four respective sections -- a theoretical framework, historical background, and the two case studies, and it strives to answer a foundational question whether the Czech Republic and Israel can be considered small players in international relations based on the theoretical definition of the notion of a small state as well as the countries' current foreign policy approaches and tools.

The main purpose of this thesis is to analyze how Global Organizations work with Gender Equality, what type of challenges they experience and how they can be addressed. Secondarily, it addresses how Global Organizations can create an international Gender Equality strategy and how Gender Equality work differs among four countries. Earlier research has focused on gender equality as a stand-alone topic, and few models exist to incorporate such work in global organizations that efficiently manages to address the complexity of gender equality across varying cultures and business units. By surveying current research in gender equality, change management, and cultural management, this thesis proposes a framework for change that more adequately manages the inherently subjective nature of gender, together with the cross-cultural complexities of global organizations. The results, analysis, and discussion are based on a literature review enumerating the components of the synthesized framework and on interviews with two Swedish multinational companies, one construction company, and a mining company. Countries of interest are Czech Republic, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States. Analyzed through this framework, the results indicate an increasing gap between different business units across the organizations, despite an overall increase of Gender Equality in total. The framework suggests that informal systems need to be addressed more explicitly and that centralized initiatives need to better account for geopolitical contexts to stay relevant when educating, informing and dictating change initiatives. The nature of the problem suggests it be managed by a shaping type of strategy with an emphasis on international networks dedicated to the issue. The similarities between Gender equality-specific models, selected change-models and cultural descriptive models indicate that there is possible to amalgamate insights from different academic fields more coherently. Utilizing the definition of gender and confirming the subjective nature of Gender Equalityissues leads to strategy models and cultural descriptions that - independent of Gender Equality work - confirm and strengthens the key takeaways from each model. The research shows that there are overlapping interests and areas of interest between academia and the industry, which is something that can be further developed.
Huvudsyftet med denna masteruppsats är att analysera hur globala organisationer arbetar med jämställdhet, vilken typ av utmaningar de upplever och hur de kan hanteras. Den behandlar även hur globala organisationer kan skapa en internationell jämställdhetsstrategi och hur jämställdhetsarbetet skiljer sig mellan fyra länder. Tidigare forskning har fokuserat på jämställdhet som ett fristående ämne och det finns få modeller som adresserar jämställdhetsarbete i globala organisationer och som effektivt hanterar jämställdhetens komplexitet över olika kulturer och affärsenheter. Genom att kartlägga aktuell forskning inom jämställdhet, förändringsledning och kulturhantering, föreslår denna uppsats ett ramverk för förändring som hanterar könens inherent subjektiva karaktär tillsammans med de globala organisationernas tvärkulturella komplexitet. Resultaten, analysen och diskussionen baseras på en litteraturöversikt som sammanfattar komponenterna i ramverket och intervjuer med två svenska multinationella företag, ett byggföretag och ett gruvbolag. De länder som analyseras är: Tjeckien, Sverige, Storbritannien och USA. Genom en analys utifrån ramverket indikerar resultaten ett ökande gap mellan olika affärsenheter i hela organisationen, trots en total ökning av jämställdheten inom organisationerna. Ramverket tyder på att informella system måste adresseras tydligare och att centraliserade initiativ behöver anpassas bättre utifrån geopolitiska sammanhang för att kunna förändringen ska vara relevant för de olika enheterna. Problemets karaktär tyder på att det hanteras av en formgivande typ av strategi med tonvikt på internationella nätverk som är avsedda för frågan. Likheterna mellan jämställdhetsspecifika modeller, utvalda förändringsmodeller och kulturella beskrivande modeller visar att det är möjligt att sammanfoga insikter från olika akademiska områden till att bli mer sammanhängande. Att utnyttja definitionen av kön och bekräfta den subjektiva karaktären av jämställdhet leder till strategimodeller och kulturella beskrivningar som - oberoende av jämställdhetsarbete - bekräftar och stärker de viktigaste delarna från varje modell. Forskningen visar att det finns överlappande intressen och intresseområden mellan akademin och industrin, vilket är något som kan vidareutvecklas.

The corruption and the fight against it falls among very frequently discussed topics appearing on the front pages of media, also this phenomenon is currently being intensively discussed and plays an ever increasing role in the civil society as well. Recently, the civil society has shown a new trend which manifests itself in the birth of new anti-corruption organizations, new projects and other activities. Because of all the reasons, the paper deals with the anti-corruption non-governmental organizations (NGO's) and their activities in the Czech Republic. The text is divided into four chapters constituting two parts having two chapters each. The first part contains a summary of theoretical knowledge, the first chapter describes the non-profit sector and NGO's activities theory, the second chapter summarizes the basic theoretical information about the corruption phenomenon. The second part focuses on the description of the anti-corruption organizations, employs the theoretical knowledge and provides an analysis of the anti-corruption NGOs. The third chapter describes particular organizations, analyzes their activities and, based on some common characteristics recognized, outlines the division of the organizations into several groups. The fourth chapter contains an analysis on cooperating between different anti-corruption NGOs and handles a case study of a so called Pankrácká výzva(Pankrácká challenge).

A Corruption is perceived as a threat of the economical and political stability worldwide therefore a lot of anti-corruption steps are taken and the priority is given to international cooperation. To minimize the potential risk of corruption it is necessary to interconnect the systems of anti-corruption fight. In my thesis, the stress is put on the link between the law regulation of European Union and law regulations of member states aiming the Czech Republic measures. The anti-corruption legal framework set by the European Union has the preventive and represive character and it gives to every member state a space for its own anti-corruption iniciative to make the whole anti-corruption system more effective. The thesis is focused on criminal law, but there is also mentioned other areas of law as well as the relevant EU organizations and authorities. In the end I give specific results and recommendations.

Defence date: 25 September 2013
Examining Board: Professor László Bruszt (European University Institute) (Supervisor) Professor Donatella Della Porta (European University Institute) Professor Helmut K. Anheier (Hertie School of Governance) Professor Jerzy Hausner (Cracow University of Economics).
PDF of thesis uploaded from the Library digital archive of EUI PhD theses
In this thesis I study patterns of inter-organisational collaboration among nonprofits in Czech Republic and Poland. Point of departure constitutes puzzling divergence in patterns of collaboration between these two countries. Cluster analysis conducted on unique set of quantitative data revealed that in Czech Republic significantly more nonprofits manifest "strongly collaborative" pattern than in Poland. Those nonprofits have particularly well developed collaborative ties to the government. Interestingly, close collaboration with government do not come at the expense of local ties and accountability to the citizens. Existing regional nonprofit literature has not captured national differences in this respect. Explaining this puzzling divergence constitutes the main goal of this thesis. Building on rational choice and sociological institutionalism I assume that two actors played a central role in shaping patterns of inter-organisational collaboration of nonprofits in Central Europe, i.e. domestic government, through its "nonprofit policy", and the European Union, through its main developmental instrument, European Union Structural Funds ("EU SF"). Based on the extensive literature review, analysis of secondary data and more than 50 semi-structured interviews conducted in Poland and Czech Republic I argue that divergence in patterns of collaboration is a consequence of differences in resources and opportunities provided to the nonprofit organizations by domestic governments and EU. Strong ties to the government of the significant part of Czech nonprofit sector are a consequence of relatively generous and centralised public funding available for those organizations, institutionalized opportunities for participation in policy making and activism of the nonprofit community in the pre-accession period. Weak collaborative ties of Polish nonprofits are a result of scarcity and decentralisation of public funds, very limited opportunities for shaping public policy and general distrust towards collaboration with government among the leaders of Polish nonprofit community as well as their limited activism during pre-accession period.

The aim of this thesis is to describe the institutional and financial security of the gender equality policy from 1998 to the present in the background of the interactions and relationships between its key actors - Gender Equality Unit (Office of the Government of the Czech Republic), Gender Equality Advisory bodies (Office of the Government of the Czech Republic), Department of Family and Ageing Policy (Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs), Division of Gender Equality Projects (Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs) and Gender Equality Nonprofit Organizations (Gender Equality NGO). Theoretical support of this thesis is the state/market feminism theory and theoretical concepts policy and governance. The outcomes of the analysis and expert interviews show the institutional and financial security of the gender equality policy is continual, horizontal and fragmented process created by internally and externally different actors. These actors implement their gender equality policies differently and their work is parallel. However, at the same time they are mutually dependent through different sources thereby different interactions (both cooperation and coaction) and relationships (both formal and informal) as well as tension and problems arise. Negotiations about funding of the policy measures and...

In the first part of this study we describe different ways of view of the definition and analysis of party network in the Europe and the USA. The theoretical part deals also with evolutionary theory of political parties and different definitions of political parties. The practical part of the study focuses on the description of selected organizations that have a demonstrable relationship with the Czech Social Democrats and the few exceptions are surveyed organizations subordinate to them, or are very closely related with this party. This study therefore describes and analyses various organizations in terms of their focus, the number of members or the way of financing, but also in terms of interconnection with the party and among themselves. We mentioned also the unions, whose connection with the CSSD is based on history background. The aim of this study is to provide a comprehensive description of the surveyed organizations and at least generally assess their personal connections and influence of the direction of the CSSD. Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)

Master thesis called Factors Determining the Allocation of Czech NGOs' Development Assistance Projects aims to find out what are the factors that determine the allocation of development assistance projects funded from private sources. The study is based on the humanitarian and development discourses that both have their origins in the constructivist theory. The study uses data from the year of 2013 provided by Czech NGOs that work in total of 34 countries. In order to achieve its aim, the master thesis uses a method of regression analysis. The first chapter provides a broader overview of the theory of development and presents the constructivist theory with both discourses. The second chapter explains the anchoring of Czech NGOs engaged in the field of the development assistance. In the third chapter, dependent and independent variables are introduced alongside with their descriptive characteristics. The fourth chapter provides tests and the empirical analysis of the models. The estimated results of both models confirm the humanitarian hypothesis, which states that the allocation of resources for development assistance projects by NGOs is greater in countries with a higher poverty level. The development hypothesis is, however, disproved and it can be concluded that the level of democracy and...

Research on political parties and their organizational stability presents one of the most important research agendas in modern comparative politics. Especially among newly democratized countries of the Central and Eastern Europe, the consolidation of democratic political institutions used to be considered as a key factor for the successful finishing of the whole transitional process. Despite the fact that most of the transitologists optimistically perceived the consolidation of the new democracies as a one-way process, the most of party systems in the eastern countries experienced serious changes and periods of instability within the last ten years. The most notable change was definitely the unexpected electoral success of genuinely new political parties and movements usually led by a political entrepreneur and formed without solid organizational background or solid ties to society. This tendency further turned into a new wave of unpredictability even within the party systems commonly perceived as fully stabilized and consolidated. Based on such new conditions, the contemporary party researchers turn their attention towards possible interpretations of this unprecedented phenomenon. This dissertation contributes to this discussion by the attempt to operationalize and explain the level of...

Legitimation and professionalization of a Romani NGO in the Czech Republic Hana Synková This PhD. thesis maps strategies of legitimation and survival of non-governmental organizations working with people that use to be categorized as "socially excluded" or "Roma". It attempts to answer the question: "What NGOs do to be able to look successful, gain resources, and create organizational reputation?" This work does not treat organizations as "things", but as processes and social networks influenced by state and European policies, funding mechanisms and internal competition. Despite the organizations being discursively divided into those preferring more ethnic or social definition of their clients, they have to cope with the same pressures in the shape of social services law, standards of quality or control systems that come with projects. Organizations are far from devoting their time to "work with clients"; they are also involved in enlarging social capital of their members and in production of "texts" that serve their legitimation claims towards control bodies, other organizations and public. In order to research these publicly less visible processes, the authoress uses methods of organizational anthropology - fieldwork inside organization and at many places which are contextually linked to the...

This diploma thesis deals with the relationship between immigrants and the immigration authorities in the Czech Republic. The thesis is divided into two parts - theoretical and practical. The first one summarizes the facts about immigration authorities - the Ministry of the Interior of the Czech Republic, the Foreign Police and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. It also discusses the causes of migration, the legal aspects and the non-governmental organizations that serves as a mediator between immigrants and the authorities. The practical part deals with the topic of immigrants and the authorities in the media and literature. It also includes a field resarch made by a qualitative method of directed interviews with the immigants, the representatives of non-governmental organizations and the representatives of the immigration authorities. The research is supplemented by an observations at Prague office of the Ministry of the Interrior. The most criticized problems of the Ministry of the Interrior is the failure to meet the statutory deadlines during the processing of applications for long-term stay, the behavior of officers and the queues of immigrants associated with a long waiting. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has a problem with VISAPOINT - an internet operation system for...

The thesis deals with the theme of human rights. It offers a basic survey of the development of human rights. It explores a historical development of human rights and contemporary conception of this term. It analyses sources of human rights and documents on human rights; it focuses on protection of human rights in the World. The fourth chapter focuses on protection of human rights in the Czech Republic and on the activity of non-governmental organizations working in the field of human rights in the Czech Republic.

Non-governmental non-profit organisations (NGOs) constitute an important actor and partner in implementing gender equality and formulating gender-related public policies. Their functioning and thematic portfolios are for the most part influenced by existing possibilities for funding, which have been significantly transformed by the Czech Republic joining the European Union. This research project aims to determine how EU frameworks established in the area of gender-related policies and financial resources derived from them have been influencing the thematic portfolios of gender- focused NGOs in the Czech Republic. It is divided into two sections. First, it discusses the theoretical basis of the research, introducing the problematics, identifying main gender-focused themes and embedding them within the EU agenda while defining aspects of their practical implementation through mechanisms of the structural politics of the EU. Further, the research paper concentrates on describing the means through which gender-related topics have been treated on the national level, how they are being defined and how the EU setting is being translated into the national context through the offered funding opportunities. The empirical part analyses information data provided by participating NGOs and consists of interviews...

The main goal of this diploma paper was to analyze the tourist guide of the Czech Republic after joining The European Union, characterize their competence, claims and possibilities. The analysis relates especially to Czech, European and world organizations associating tourist guides and possibilities of tourist guides education in the Czech Republic. Another aim was to map utilization of tourist guides services in travel agency working.