1. Corporate Governance and Social Impact of Non‐Profits: Evidence from a Randomized Program in Healthcare in the Democratic Republic of Congo
- Author
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Bertrand Quelin, Caroline Flammer, Marieke Huysentruyt, Anicet Fangwa, Groupement de Recherche et d'Etudes en Gestion à HEC (GREGH), Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC Paris)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), and HEC Research Paper Series
- Subjects
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ,History ,Polymers and Plastics ,corporate governance ,Developing country ,Context (language use) ,Audit ,JEL: D - Microeconomics/D.D6 - Welfare Economics ,JEL: A - General Economics and Teaching/A.A1 - General Economics ,Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering ,randomized experiment ,JEL: G - Financial Economics/G.G3 - Corporate Finance and Governance ,JEL: F - International Economics/F.F6 - Economic Impacts of Globalization/F.F6.F63 - Economic Development ,JEL: I - Health, Education, and Welfare/I.I1 - Health ,Health care ,Business and International Management ,health care economics and organizations ,JEL: D - Microeconomics/D.D1 - Household Behavior and Family Economics ,JEL: Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics • Environmental and Ecological Economics/Q.Q0 - General/Q.Q0.Q01 - Sustainable Development ,JEL: D - Microeconomics/D.D2 - Production and Organizations ,Public economics ,JEL: D - Microeconomics/D.D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty ,business.industry ,Corporate governance ,healthcare ,developing countries ,Incentive ,non-profit organizations ,Scale (social sciences) ,JEL: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth ,social impact ,Corporate social responsibility ,[SHS.GESTION]Humanities and Social Sciences/Business administration ,Business - Abstract
How can non-profit organizations improve their governance to increase their social impact? This study examines the effectiveness of a bundle of governance mechanisms (consisting of pro-social incentives and auditing) in the context of a randomized governance program conducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo's healthcare sector. Within the program, a set of health centers were randomly assigned to a governance treatment while others were not. We find that the governance treatment leads to i) higher operating efficiency and ii) improvements in social performance (measured by a reduction in the occurrence of stillbirths and neonatal deaths). Furthermore, we find that funding is not a substitute for governance—health centers that only receive funding increase their scale, but do not show improvements in operating efficiency nor social performance. Overall, our results suggest that corporate governance plays an important role in achieving the non-profits' objectives and increasing the social impact of the funds invested.
- Published
- 2020