Doctoral Dissertation Research: Decision-Making in Civil Society Organizations: A Systematic Social Observation Approach

This research directly observes participants in civil society organizations as they attempt to make decisions to answer questions about how they make decisions about what actions to take. Civil society organizations—things like chambers of commerce, hobby clubs, neighborhood associations, and congregations—make decisions that can affect local citizens and communities.

They can directly affect the health and well-being of their participants, and they often contribute funds, services, and support to other local people and organizations. Despite the importance of these organizations for communities, little is known about how their participants make decisions, such as how often they consider a wide array of options, make a clear choice, deal effectively with dissenting opinions, and develop a plan for implementation.

Understanding how civil society organizations currently make decisions will lead to useful guidance on how such organizations can make better decisions in the future.

This project uses a new application of systematic social observation—a rigorous, quantitative approach to observational research. Trained research assistants attend roughly 1,000 meetings, events, and activities held by more than 50 civil society organizations. Research assistants carefully and unobtrusively observe what goes on at each meeting and complete a more-than 100-item form about what they see—including an extensive set of items about opportunities that arise for participants to make decisions.

Researchers analyze the combined data to describe how often key decision outcomes occur and to explain what kinds of organizations and meetings lead to better outcomes. In addition to helping scientists better understand how organizations work and helping civil society organization leaders and members make better decisions, this project also provides hands-on research experiences for many students.

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This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.