Nonprofit Organization and the Division of Labor : A Theoretical Perspective

The paper asks whether nonprofit organization can have a positive rationale in an economy based on the division of labor, taking into account that the process of the division of labor occurs through profit-motivated economic behavior. By reconsidering existing economic theories of nonprofit organization in the context of the theory of the division of labor, the paper shows nonprofit organization to be an institutional consequence of two limitations on the division of labor: high coordination costs among interdependent agents and the existence of production-related, as opposed to consumption-related, preferences. These limitations prevent the system of the division of labor from fully gratifying the consumption preferences of economic agents, and thereby create a functional niche for nonprofit organization