Location, Location, Location: What Factors Drive Where U.S.-Based NGOs Go?

Abstract

This dissertation advances our understanding of how U.S.-based transnational nongovernmental organizations (TNGOs) with international scopes of work navigate decision-making related to country-level location choices. It accomplishes this by conducting a comparative cross-sector and multinational examination of 554 organizations across 194 countries between 2008 and 2012. It proposes that location selection is a more complex process than existing theories allow and hypothesizes that organizations are influenced by both internal and external factors beyond resources. By examining the political, economic, and organizational factors that influence location decisions, it systematically tests existing theoretical explanations for nonprofit location while also expanding the scope cases in public administration and nonprofit studies. It finds evidence that 1) country characteristics make a location more or less attractive, particularly the political and operating environments; 2) U.S. government attention to a country differentially impacts the presence of U.S. based TNGOs in that country if they already receive government support; 3) the type of work in which an TNGO engages influences how it sets and communicates location priorities.