BU Sociology

BIO AND RESEARCH
I received a B.A. in history and sociology from the University of British Columbia (1991), a MA (1994) and PhD (2002) in sociology from the University of Chicago. My research focuses on the social organization of altruism and philanthropy. Rather than take it for granted that altruistic giving is the simple and straightforward outcome of individuals’ benevolence, my research probes how social organization can impede or facilitate such giving, structure the direction and patterns of philanthropy, and shape the very goals that nonprofit organizations pursue. For example, in my book, Contesting Communities (winner of the 2007 best book award from the National Association of Fundraising Professionals), I show how society’s changing conceptions of community have fundamentally transformed the goals and practices of workplace charity.

I am in the midst of a book-length project that investigates the shifting meanings and metrics of success for nonprofit organizations. With funding from the American Sociological Association/National Science Foundation Fund and The Boston Foundation, the book focuses on the history of nonprofits’ use of quantification as the means by which to demonstrate they are doing well at doing good. Drawing from archival, survey, and interview-based research, I argue, contrary to the general view, that NPOs have never been free to engage in social welfare without providing some numerical account of their activities. However, the criteria of success have changed over time – the history of the nonprofit sector in the US is replete with shifting and often conflicting metrics of organizational performance and success. These shifts in practices of measurement result from contestations between actors over the meaning of and control over the proper role and purpose of the nonprofit sector.

Future research will continue to investigate the social organization of philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. My next project will analyze the provision of humanitarian goods and services to afflicted areas and populations by non-governmental organizations. While we often think of humanitarian aid as altruistically motivated and driven by need, this project examines international development as a market in which goods and services are bought and sold. It investigates questions such as how funders and charities act as buyers and sellers of humanitarian goods and services, how the provision of assistance to afflicted regions and populations get constituted as purchasable goods and services, how NGOs’ activities get marketed, and how the prices of goods/services get set. In all, the project asks whether and in what ways the classical model of a free market can be used to account for the actions and exchanges found in the field of international development and how and in what ways the values of altruism, voluntarism, and philanthropy shape the funding and provision of goods and services to those in need.

PUBLICATIONS: Books
Barman, Emily. 2006. Contesting Communities: The Transformation of Workplace Charity. Stanford University Press. Winner, 2007 AFP Skystone Ryan Research Prize.

PUBLICATIONS: Articles & Chapters
Barman, Emily. 2008. “With Strings Attached: Nonprofits’ Adoption of Donor Choice.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly 31(1):39-56.

Barman, Emily. 2008. “Organizational Genesis in the Nonprofit Sector: An Analysis of Demand, Supply, and Community Characteristics.” International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior 11(1):40-63.

Barman, Emily. 2007. “An Institutional Approach to Donor Control: From Dyadic Ties to a Field-Level Analysis.” American Journal of Sociology 112(5):1416-1457.

Barman, Emily. 2007. “What is the Bottom Line for Nonprofit Organizations? A History of Measurement in the British Voluntary Sector.” Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations 18(2):101-115.

Barman, Emily and Alya Guseva. 2005. “What a Weberian Approach to Interests can Contribute to Economic Sociology: A Review Essay.” Theory and Society 34(1):93-103.

2005. “Strategy and Restructure at the United Church of Christ” (with M. Chaves). Pp. 466-492 in Church, Identity and Change: Theology and Denominational Structures in Unsettled Times, edited by D.A. Roozen and J. Nieman. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company.

Barman, Emily. 2002. “Asserting Difference: The Strategic Response of Nonprofit Organizations to Competition.” Social Forces 80(4):1191-1222.

2001. “Lessons for Multi-Site Nonprofits from the United Church of Christ” (with M. Chaves). Nonprofit Management and Leadership 11(3):339-352.

1999. “The National Congregations Study: Background, Methods, and Selected Results” (with M. Chaves, M.E. Konieczny and K. Beyerlein). Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 38(4):458-76.

1997. "Reply to Comments" (with A. Abbott). Sociological Methodology 27: 165-67

<>1997. “Sequence Comparison via Alignment and Gibbs Sampling: A Formal Analysis of the Emergence of the Modern Sociological Article” (with A. Abbott). Sociological Methodology 27:47-89.

Book Reviews, Newsletters, and Other Publications
2006 Book Review of Unequal Partnerships: Beyond the Rhetoric of Philanthropic Collaboration by Ira Silver. American Journal of Sociology 112:938-939.

2002 “The Rise of the Donor: Organizational Strategies, Environmental Constraints, and the Field of Workplace Giving.” Aspen Institute’s Working Paper Series.

2000 Book Review of Congregations in Conflict: Cultural Models of Local Religious Life by Penny E.
Becker. Social Forces 78:1589.