In order to realize a sustainable society at the regional level and to achieve various objectives related to regional environmental policy, it is essential to build partnerships between local governments and environmental NPOs. Indeed, there are successes of such attempts. This paper analyses local government-environmental NPOs partnerships through a case study of the public expenditure in Kyoto City, expanding this to an examination of the present situation and associated problems in Japan at large. The paper reports that, first, most of contracts and grants in these partnerships are, in reality, connected with environmental quasi-governmental organizations (gaikaku dantai), while many specified nonprofit corporations (tokutei hieiri katsudo hojin) and voluntary groups (nin-i dantai) are mainly engaging in transient projects or events. Secondly, it is shown that a conflict between autonomy and accountability seems not to be so serious in the partnership as is often mentioned, for very few partnerships advance to a strategic stage with a long perspective. Finally, taking issues of quasi-governmental organizations into consideration, we can probably expect less positive effects of grants in these areas.

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There is a need for research on management to progress such that clarification of the managerial role in nonprofit associations can be based on analysis of the organizational principles, even as specialties trend toward differentiation. Clarification of this role have in the past lacked a discussion of the social entrepreneur, an executive type that emerged in the latter half of the 1990s. Attempts at present tend to draw the social entrepreneur as a variegated manager. It is important to ask whether such a social entrepreneur understands his or her own existence as a versatile manager, different in each growth stage of the organization. This article investigated these question in the case of a civic group in such a problem setting, clarifying the validity of such considerations.

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This study examined the empowerment processes of volunteer members and community in community partnership activities in a Japanese city. Narrative data collected from 14 volunteer members was analyzed using Modified Grounded Theory Approach. The analysis identified four major categories of volunteer empowerment process and four major categories of community empowerment process. The former consisted of “existence of the scenery of community,” “a dialog which becomes inward-directed,” “a dialog with others” and “acquisition of self-image related to community.” The latter consisted of “a dialog with others,” “making a look in the community,” “enhancement of the community actuality” and “formation of power to solve in the community.” Moreover, the research pointed to such community empowerment activities forming small publicness.

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This article is a survey of academic papers related to NPO management in Japan up to 2005. While a number of papers on the NPO-related management topics have been published in NPO-theme journals, primarily by The Nonprofit Review, it is meaningful to note that NPO-theme workshops have been convened by several major management-related associations in Japan and articles on NPO-related management themes have been published in such journals. While noting the gains that have been made, the paper concludes by expressing hope for expansion of this research area in the near future.

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