Nonprofit organizations interested in collaborating with other entities find it difficult to strike a balance between keeping their autonomy and reaping the benefits from collaborating with other organizations. Although interorganizational collaborations come with various benefits, such as reducing competition over limited resources, participating in collaborative relationships can also damage the autonomy of individual nonprofits. Using an original survey of 275 nonprofits, we examine how various dimensions of collaborative relationships affect an individual nonprofit’s autonomy. Our findings suggest that having highly specified administrative arrangements and stronger trust as well as reciprocity among partner organizations serve as critical factors to secure the autonomy of individual organizations. We also find that nonprofit organizations engaged in mostly informal relationships and in partnerships across sectors feel less threatened about maintaining their autonomy. Our post hoc analysis further suggests that organizational autonomy is a significant antecedent for seeking more collaborations. To this end, we discuss how nonprofits can keep their organizational autonomy without giving up collaborating with other entities by strategically managing several aspects of the collaborative relationships.

有兴趣与其他实体合作的非营利组织发现，在保持自主性与从与其他组织合作中获得收益之间很难取得平衡。尽管组织间的协作具有各种好处，例如减少对有限资源的竞争，但是参与协作关系也会损害单个非营利组织的自主权。通过对275个非营利组织的原始调查，我们研究了合作关系的各个方面如何影响单个非营利组织的自治。我们的研究结果表明，在合作伙伴组织之间具有高度明确的行政安排和更强的信任以及互惠互利，是确保单个组织自治的关键因素。我们还发现，从事非正式关系和跨部门伙伴关系的非营利组织对维持自治的威胁较小。我们的事后分析进一步表明，组织自治是寻求更多合作的重要先决条件。为此，我们讨论了非营利组织如何通过策略性地管理协作关系的多个方面来保持其组织自主权而又不放弃与其他实体的协作。