Managing amidst mosaic: Integrating values and rationalization in the nonprofit arts

• Author: Leah M. G. Reisman
• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21300
• Published date: 01 June 2018

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Managing amidst mosaic: Integrating values and

rationalization in the nonprofit arts

Leah M. G. Reisman

Princeton University

Correspondence

Leah M. G. Reisman, Department of Sociology,

Princeton University, Wallace Hall 107, Princeton,

NJ 08540.

Email: lreisman@princeton.edu

This ethnographic study of visionary art environment Phi-

ladelphia’s Magic Gardens (PMG) draws on theories of

rationalization in nonprofits to explore factors that influ-

ence the impact of this process on organizations. Respond-

ing to theories that rationalization attenuates expressive

drivers of nonprofit activity, an analysis of PMG is used to

explore and contextualize a literature-derived theoretical

framework that suggests variables that may influence the

outcome of rationalization processes in organizations. The

PMG case supports and adds nuance to a notion that the

strength of expressive and rationalizing impulses and the

convergence or divergence of intra-organizational values

influence whether growing nonprofits are able to integrate

instrumental structures and expressive motivations.

KEYWORDS

arts/culture, ethnography research, museums, nonprofit

leadership, structure organizational

1|INTRODUCTION

The Magic Gardens emerge from a bustling commercial block on the outskirts of Center City Phila-

delphia. To one side is a tiny hair salon boasting healing cleanses on a yellowed sign, while a mas-

sive Whole Foods dominates the next corner. Between them sit the Gardens, a tangled labyrinth of

bottles, glass shards, tiles, wheels, and clay figurines, fused together with a layer of crusted grout.

Every inch of is covered with images—two interior galleries are filled with framed articles and

sketches (some of which are for sale), along with the omnipresent mosaic. Outside, twisting caverns

of stuff fill three levels, with phrases, faces, and household objects sprinkled throughout—all

embedded in cement.

Isaiah Zagar, the artist who created the Gardens, is a constant, both in texts placed throughout

and in visitor conversations. Framed newspaper articles alternately hail him as a genius and commu-

nity man or as a selfish “well of insanity.”Zagar and his wife Julia settled in the neighborhood in

Received: 28 April 2017 Revised: 3 November 2017 Accepted: 7 November 2017

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21300

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2018;28:453–470.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 453

1968, opening a folk art gallery nearby the Gardens’eventual site. Signs and brochures at PMG

proudly proclaim that Zagar’s work focuses on fighting for “our families, our community, our ideals

of a beautiful life: spiritual, cultural, and healthy living.”Zagar, initially created mosaic murals on

dilapidated buildings as part of the “South Street Renaissance”that transformed the area, then

marked by urban decay, into a “popular cultural center”—his murals now dot walls all over the city.

Work began on the Gardens in 1994, and continued for the next decade. When in the midst of this

(and neighborhood gentrification), the owner of the lot the Gardens occupied decided to sell the

space for development, thousands of locals (as well as City Council) successfully petitioned to save

the installation; Zagar accumulated enough donations to buy the lot. PMG concurrently incorporated

as a volunteer-run nonprofit museum in 2004 with an initial goal simply to preserve the space. A

part-time executive director was hired in 2007, and the first professional staff member started work-

ing in 2009; that same year, the PMG mission was revised to include an educational component.

PMG now has a full-time executive director and more than 15 staff, while Isaiah’s involvement con-

tinues to shape the organization. These professional characteristics, along with a recent doubling of

the organization’s visitor numbers and 400% budgetary increase, mark it as occupying a “growth

phase”in popular nonprofit lifecycle frameworks (e.g., Sharken Simon, 2001).

This ethnographic study of PMG illuminates the day-to-day considerations of a growing organi-

zation undergoing rationalization. I will illustrate how, through the work of key actors in the organi-

zation, field-wide rational structures and organization-specific expressive values at PMG are

organized into an integrated system of principles that guide organizational life. This system is, I will

show, manifested in visitor and employee behavior and talk, emerging organizational regulations,

and the organization’s structure and physical space.

This case is particularly relevant to recent arguments about rationalization in the U.S. nonprofit

sector. According to Hwang and Powell (2009), due to pressures from stakeholders, competition,

political drives toward accountability, and the rise of social entrepreneurship “one sees a broad, seis-

mic shift toward organizational rationalization underway in the nonprofit sector”(pp. 271–272). Pro-

fessional management practices and the ability to measure results have become increasingly

important in nonprofits’efforts to secure funding (Alexander, 2000). Salamon (2012) asserts that the

movement toward professionalization in the nonprofit sector has “at least partially”displaced volun-

tarism as a cornerstone of nonprofit activity (p. 16) and been accused of constraining artistic innova-

tion (p. 54). Similarly, Frumkin (2002) inquires whether “the trend toward professionalization

within nonprofit organizations […has] begun to rob nonprofit activity of some of the individual

values and commitments that are so critical”(p. 100). Many of these accounts suggest that tension

results when rationalization collides with the voluntaristic, values-based character of some nonprofit

organizations.

While we know in broad strokes about such changes as they are taking place in the nonprofit

sector, we have less information about the on-the-ground realities of rationalization—what the pro-

cess looks like as it unfolds in organizations, and the elements that shape how it occurs. By applying

an immersive ethnographic methodology, the present study aims to provide such a glimpse of the

rationalization process in action, with particular attention to the interaction between rational pro-

cesses and PMG’s expressive values. Maier, Meyer, and Steinbereithner (2016) assert that “research

[on this topic] should go beyond documenting conflicts or harmonious combinations and aim to

identify the organizational and environmental factors that promote one or the other”(p. 79).

Responding to this charge, the PMG case will be used to explore and contextualize a literature-

derived theoretical framework that suggests variables—related to the strength of expressive and

rationalizing impulses and the convergence or divergence of intra-organizational values—that may

matter in understanding the outcome of rationalization in growing nonprofit organizations, and to

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