Strategic responses to Performance Measurement in Nonprofit ...

III. Methodology
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The paper is based on a mixed approach as one empirical study included meets the standards
for quantitative research in management accounting (Anderson and Widener 2007) and the
other empirical study meets the criteria for a qualitative research design (Ahrens and
Chapman 2007). By applying Oliver‟s typology of strategic responses to institutional pressure
the paper also includes conceptional elements which may serve as an input for further
empirical research.
The quantitative empirical study is based on 343 questionnaires on the state of the art of
performance measurement in German health care and social non-profit organisations. Those
two industries were chosen for their relative size, measured by the number of people
employed and the return on investment. According to a non-profit sector statistic
(Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Freien Wohlfahrtspflege 2006: 14) the average number of
employees in German non-profits is 14.3 (in full-time equivalents). The organizations which
returned the questionnaire employed on average 310. That the bigger non-profits participated
is also obvious when one looks at the annual turnover. Their average annual turnover was
EUR 35.74 million. If one compares this to the criteria how the Swiss GAAP FER 21 classify
that a non-profit organisation is regard as a large company, then most of the participating non-
profits meet the criteria.
In the German non-profit sector, organisations in the health and social care sector are
traditionally regarded as frontrunners concerning modern management accounting
instruments (Seminar für Vereins- und Verbandsforschung 1998, Wendel 2001, Greiling
2010). That size matters is a result which can be also found in empirical research on the
design of management control instruments in the for-profit sector (Chendall 2007, Langfield-
Smith 2007).