An economic perspective of the Austrian and Czech Nonprofit Sector: Challenges and opportunities for a joint, comparative research program

The aim of this project was to develop common research questions and instruments for comparative the analysis of nonprofit organizations in both countries and to submit a research proposal to implement such a joint program. To this end, the partnering research groups (Nonprofit researchers from the Vienna Economic University, from the Masaryk University Brno and from TRIALOG Brno) discussed ongoing research projects and successfully submitted a research proposal under the program “New direction for democracies in Europe – NODE”. The focus of this research endeavor will be nonprofits’ “service” and “voice” funcrions in society. Recent research reveals that these two contributions of the nonprofit sector may assume different priorities in different countries. Mapping and understanding the specific roles and functions which the public authorities, private for profit organizations and nonprofit organizations respectively assume in Austria and the Czech Republic will be the focus of our joint NODE research project in the years 2006-2008.