Which Resources Matter? : Resources And The Impact Of North Carolina Environmental Organizations

Abstract

This paper focuses on the role that resources have in predicting the impact of an environmental organizations. This study contributes to an emerging stream of research literature on social movements that explicitly uses these recent refinements in resource mobilization theory (RMT) to examine the importance of resources for understanding social movements and social movement organizations (SMOs). Two broad questions will be answered in this study. 1) To what extent do SMOs with access to greater amounts of varied resource types have greater impact on policy and gain increased recognition and support? 2) Are some resource types more strongly associated with impacts than others? SMOs are able to survive and create outcomes through the mobilization of resources. However, relatively little attention has been given to the study of the relationship between movement organization impacts and the variations in resources mobilized, organizational form, social change strategies, and activities. In keeping consistent with RMT, I expect that access to social capital, organizational form, material resources, human resources, cultural resources, and moral resources are important factors for explaining organizational outcomes. I hypothesize that social capital, organizational form, material resources, human resources, cultural resources, and moral resources are positively related to perceived organizational impact. Additionally, I expect to find that some resources play a bigger role in organizational impact than others. North Carolina environmental organizations are used as the sample since North Carolina is an average state when it comes to environmental standards. This thesis will analyze the relationship between resources and the impact of environmental organizations by using OLS regression models. Resources have been proven to be necessary in SMO emergence and other aspects; however, this study has reiterated the importance of resources in organizational impact. Resources are vital for organizations to meet their goals. Without a combination of social capital, organizational form resources, material resources, human resources, cultural resources, and moral resources, organizations are less likely to have an impact on policy and recognition and awareness. In other words, obtaining only one category of resources is not enough for achieve organizational impact.