ABSTRACT
Writers on organisations define what they are dealing with m different ways In this book, the simplest method would be to declare that the organisations of concern are the nongovernmental, non-profits involved in the aid system. Unfortunately, two negative (non this and that) and one positive criteria (part of the aid system) tell us nothing useful about NGDO characteristics. An alternative approach is to look widely at a variety of relevant organisations and search for common features. A drawback is that subsequent results can be strongly biased by the initial selection. 1 A further option is to begin with mote general, abstract undet standings of organisations and then nariow down the selection by progressively identifying features which correspond most closely to those being analysed.
