By now, mission drift is established as one of the cardinal sins of hybrid organizing (Jones, 2007). Broadly defined as the perceived discontinuity between organizational goals and actions, mission drift is inextricably linked to nonprofit marketization (Eikenberry & Kluver, 2004). Not just one thing, different forms of nonprofit marketization can induce different forms of mission drift. For instance, when pressured to meet contractual targets, NPOs may engage in cherry-picking or creaming practices shifting focus from those in need to those who (a) are able to participate (Hustinx & De Waele, 2015), (b) are (more) easy to serve (Dart, 2004), and/or (c) can afford (Khieng & Dahles, 2015). Likewise, rising levels of resource uncertainty due to competitive tendering is likely to stimulate vendorism among NPOs. Lastly, NPOs can decide to strategically cut back on their advocacy efforts due to the introduction of business-like practices. Baines (2010, p. 14) for example notes that the introduction of performance measurement and process standardization resulted in “paid nonprofit staff hav[ing] little or no time to devote to advocacy”. In a similar vein, Dong, Lu, and Lee (2022, p. 9) observe that high levels of commercial income diminished nonprofit advocacy efforts by Chinese NPOs, reasoning that “engagement in mission-related but unprofitable activities becomes less attractive” to commercialized NPOs.

Despite the widespread belief that marketization can induce mission drift, large-N research examining the relationship between different manifestations of (a) nonprofit marketization and (b) mission drift remains largely absent to date. This is important, as it provides insight to what extent mission drift is in fact likely, and which specific dynamics underlying both dynamics are in fact associated. In this study, we aim to tackle this issue by analyzing primary survey data collected from nonprofit executives in Sweden, Belgium and the US (N = 831). In addition to basic organization information (size, task, age), questions included indicators of both nonprofit marketization and mission drift.