Civil Society Versus Local Self‐Governments and Central Government in V4 Countries: The Case of Co‐Creation

The rersearch concept.

NGOs play a key role in all economies. Their activities include, but are not limited to, environmental, social, advocacy and human rights work. They can work to promote social or political change on a broad scale or very locally. NGOs are critical in developing society, improving communities, and promoting citizen participation. At the same time, NGOs are currently faced with multiple challenges like the growing role of the nongovernmental organization (NGOs) sector, the increasing expectations of public donors regarding performance and social and economic value creation, decrease in number of volunteers or the outflow of qualified paid staff from organizations as well as the precarious employment phenomenon among NGOs. Moreover, NGOs struggle with insufficient financial and programming resources and the staff necessary for accessing additional funds, including private capital. Unlike for-profit entities, their financial condition strongly depends on the support of external donors, public aid, or image and the level of trust in their social activities.

Entrepreneurial orientation can be a way to face the above challenges, increasing NGOs’ efficiency and effectiveness in fulfilling and co-creating social goals. However, growing entrepreneurial orientation may have some side-effects which need to be examined; perhaps it makes it more difficult to navigate “mission-market tension”; maybe some side-effects are even positive (cf. Vacekova et al. 2017) Although, there is an intense discussion in the literature on entrepreneurial orientation that may affect NGOs’ performance, so far this topic has been poorly empirically verified. The identified gap in the current state of literature concerns mainly institutional conditions (specifics) influencing the entrepreneurial behavior of NGOs and the relationships of entrepreneurial orientation with the performance of NGOs at different aspect of their functioning. It may also appear crucial presently during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thus the research gap is twofold: 1) how can entrepreneurial orientation help Polish and Czech NGOs to live through the pandemic; 2) what are the possible longer-term impacts of entrepreneurial orientation. The identified research gap is further radicalized by the major exogenous shock of the Covid-19 pandemic, for three reasons. First, the impacts of the pandemic on NGOs, both inthe Western and Central and Eastern Europe, still remain largely unknown. Second, the political and economic responses to the pandemic all over the globe vary widely depending on the prevalent institutional regimes. This means that the governance implications of the pandemic, in different parts of the world, and within Europe in particular, will widely differ. These differences can be profitably illuminated by historical institutionalist lens, which is uniquely suited for appreciating institutional diversity and heterogeneity (cf. Plaček et al., 2018).

In the Czech Republic alone, the applicant had already identified a complex typology of public responses to the pandemic (Plaček and Vacekov. et al., 2021). Third, by bringing numerous individuals into various difficult circumstances, the pandemic heightens the societal significance of NGOs, which have the potential to offer much-needed social services. In the Czech Republic, NGOs and other organizations of the third sector are known to be actively involved in the delivery of such services, often at the cost of experiencing considerable financial stress (seehttps://mapaneziskovek.cz/ and The Czech Satellite Account of Non-Profit Institutions). The Western debates about entrepreneurial orientation are insufficient to fill this research gap for Polish and Czech NGOs. Czech and Polish cases are examined together due to some parallels. Both countries are located in East- and Central Europe and have similar historical identities. Both countries belong to the post-communist countries, which determines the economic and social functioning of non-governmental organizations.

The transformation after 1989 also shaped a similar institutional framework for their activities. Poland and the Czech Republic joined the European Union in 2004, significantly changing the reality of non-governmental functioning. Among other things, non-governmental organizations gained access to public funds from structural funds. The financial situation of non-governmental organizations in the Czech Republic and Poland strongly depends on European subsidies. In both countries, non-governmental organizations are characterized by a weaker financial condition compared to Anglo-Saxon countries and developed countries of Western Europe. 

The research results can be used to make recommendations for public authorities on shaping the institutional environment of non-governmental organizations and for NGO leaders to build entrepreneurial orientation in their organizations and raise awareness of its impact on performance, including co-creating social value with local and central government.

We must state that recruiting the focus group par‐ ticipants in Poland and Hungary faced difficulties, as potential participants perceived the topics as politi‐ cally sensitive.