Exploring a model of servant leadership,empowerment, and commitment in nonprofit organizations

This study examined a model of servant leadership's relationship to organizational commitment through structural and psychological empowerment, focusing on leader–follower dyads in a nonprofit organization. Survey data was collected from 128 employees of a nonprofit organization in a northeastern U.S. city. After model re‐specification, a well‐fitting model emerged, indicating that structural empowerment mediates the relationship between servant leadership and organizational commitment. Moreover, the model suggests that structural empowerment's effect on organizational commitment is both direct and indirect—the latter occurring through the meaning dimension of psychological empowerment. This study provides initial support for structural empowerment being a mechanism through which servant leadership impacts organizational commitment in nonprofits. In addition, the role of meaningful work is highlighted as an antecedent to organizational commitment for nonprofit employees. Servant leaders are suggested to create structurally empowering working environments, which support employees' stronger commitment to the organization.     

Why Leadership Matters to Internal Communication: Linking Transformational Leadership,Symmetrical Communication,and Employee Outcomes

This study examines how organizational leadership influences excellent internal communication by building the linkage between transformational leadership, symmetrical communication, and employee attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The results showed that transformational leadership positively influences the organization's symmetrical communication system and employee–organization relationships. The effects of transformational leadership on employee relational outcomes are partially mediated by symmetrical internal communication. Symmetrical communication demonstrates large positive effect on the quality of employee–organization relationships, which in turn leads to employee advocacy. Effects of symmetrical internal communication on employee advocacy are fully mediated by employee–organization relationships. Significant theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Sariling Gawa Youth Council as a Case Study of Youth Leadership Development in Hawai'i

SUMMARY

This article describes Sariling Gawa Youth Council as a case study of youth leadership development in Hawai'i. Since 1980, thousands of young people-primarily Filipino youth-have participated in Sariling Gawa activities which have developed their leadership skills. Many of them have continued to lead the organization and utilize what they learned with numerous local organizations and state agencies. The authors examine Sariling Gawa's growth, structure, and other factors that contribute to its longevity. The model includes (1) youth empowerment through building their leadership skills, (2) fostering and strengthening peer social support and social networks, (3) promotion of positive ethnic identity, and (4) community capacity building by involving youth in civic and community affairs.     

Let's do it! Advocacy,young people and social work education

This paper evaluates a pilot project that aimed to promote the participation of young people in the education and training of social care professionals. An accredited training programme for young people was developed and delivered. The young people involved then participated as educators in a Diploma in Social Work programme. The paper draws on the experiences of project staff, the young people and the social work students, and locates its analysis within the literature on citizenship, children's rights, advocacy and empowerment.     

Family Group Conferences and youth advocacy: The participation of children and young people in family decision making

The notion of independent advocacy does not sit easily with the principles of Family Group Conferences (FGC). The integrity of conferencing is in the competence of family members to make their own decisions. The challenge of enabling the voice and agency of children and young people within their own family networks however is formidable. The familial nexus can be as institutionally excluding as any other adult forum. This paper focuses on the work of a FGC project in Wiltshire, England, which used a small grant to provide independent advocacy for children and young people involved in conferences. Drawing on an evaluation of the project, the article argues that distinguishing children and young people's power from parental and professional power permits their empowerment through the use of advocacy.     

How Children and Young People Influence Policy‐Makers: Lessons from Nicaragua

This article describes a participatory research project, which explored four case studies of children and young people's successful political advocacy in Nicaragua. The analysis combined a human rights‐based approach and a human development approach, and included concepts of multiple settings and levels, interrelated participation spaces, children and young people's citizenship, inclusion and exclusion, democracy, advocacy and empowerment. The main problems faced by children and young people seeking to influence policy‐makers were identified as adultism, dependency and lack of accountability. The research identified pre‐conditions, participation spaces and ways of organising for effective advocacy, and facilitation methods that had proved effective. It concludes that children and young people who achieve effective advocacy are generally self‐empowered, but can count on effective adult support and facilitation. They work through coordination with the authorities and not by clashing with them, but need to ensure effective follow up if they want politicians to keep their promises.     

Changing generations in today's workforce: Leadership skills for Millennials

The focus of traditional leadership expectations is the individual leader's developmental experience. However, Millennials are seeking to take on leadership roles more quickly than previous generations. The Practice‐Immediacy Model provides a framework where Millennials can take on these leadership roles while continuing to develop their own behavior and skills. The present article expands on the four basic behavioral components of leadership—vision building, standard‐bearing, integrating, and developing. The article then describes the associated specific skills within each behavioral component. Finally, the article proposes an interdisciplinary model that professionals can use to develop leadership skills for Millennials.     

When transparent leadership communication motivates employee advocacy: Testing the mediator roles of employee attributions in CEO activism

This study examined employees’ self-serving and genuine attributions of CEO activism as mediators, focusing on how they explain the process through which CEO’s transparent leadership communication impacts employees’ company advocacy and issue advocacy behaviors. With a survey of U.S. full-time employees, results showed that genuine attribution mediated the influence of transparent leadership communication on both advocacy variables. However, self-serving attribution was not identified as a significant mediator. Furthermore, though transparent leadership communication was not significantly associated with self-serving attribution, the latter was positively related to both issue advocacy intention and company advocacy intention. Highlighting the mediating roles of employee attributions, the findings of this study provide an advanced understanding of employee advocacy behaviors as impacted by transparent leadership communication in CEO activism.     

Building Community Leaders in Underserved Communities: An Exploration of the Role of Seed-Funding for Community Projects by Program Graduates

Investing in community leadership development (CLD) remains a strategy with promise in creating vibrant communities. Although many low-income CLD programs teach effective leadership skills, these often lay fallow due to lacking opportunities for graduates to apply the skills. This study explores how providing competitive minigrants fuels the creation of value-adding community projects. In-depth interviews were conducted with 55 graduates of a low-income CLD program, 19 facilitators, and 12 community members knowledgeable about the program. The study observed that by providing seed money for graduate projects, CLD programs can help translate skills into practice thereby increasing community engagement and socio-economic wellbeing.     

Challenges in framing women's rights as human rights at the domestic level: A case study of NGOs in the post-Soviet countries

This case study examines framing as an essential communication strategy used by women's rights NGOs at international and domestic levels. The article uses a theoretical framework of transnational advocacy networks, originally developed by political scientists Keck and Sikkink (1998), to demonstrate the importance of public relations’ efforts in political communication campaigns of women's rights NGOs around the world. Supported by the United Nations, these NGOs play an important role in democracy building and contribute to women's empowerment efforts. However, an examination of communication strategies used by these NGOs to help implement the Platform for Action—the UN-promoted agenda for women's empowerment—showed that the existing frame of women's rights as human rights may not be successful in all contexts. This study argues that at the domestic level the issue of women's rights needs to be presented in greater detail than the current human rights frame allows it to be.     

Effects of ‘women empowerment’ on household food security in rural KwaZulu‐Natal province

Understanding the dimensions of ‘women's empowerment’ that influence food security among rural households is crucial to inform policy. This study uses the Household Food Insecurity Access Scale (HFIAS) to identify the food security status of 300 primary female‐headed households in Msinga, South Africa. Principal Component Analysis was then used to identify the various dimensions along which the rural women sampled were empowered. Finally, the Ordered Logit model was used to identify the dimensions of women's empowerment that influence their household food security status. It was found that households headed by women with higher levels of economic agency, physical capital empowerment, psychological empowerment and farm financial management skills empowerment were more likely to be food secure.     

Search (f)or Work: Der Übergang vom Studium in den Beruf

Previous research shows that college graduates in the humanities face a notably difficult college-to-work transition compared to graduates from other disciplines. Their transition to work not only takes longer; graduates in the humanities are also more likely to wind up in atypical employment. This paper asks, what factors explain the difficulties in the college-to-work transition for graduates in the humanities. Taking an interdisciplinary perspective, graduates in the humanities are compared to two reference groups: law and economics as well as engineering. Using data from the HIS Absolventenpanel 1997, separate piecewise constant hazard regression models were estimated to identify the determinants of the college-to-work transition for each discipline. Drawing on Spence’s theory of signaling and Rosenbaum’s tournament theory, we find that tournaments and signals structure the college-to-work transition differently in each discipline. While selection processes are weak in the humanities, graduates need to acquire additional occupationally useful skills before or during their studies in order to make a smoother transition into the labor market.     

Understanding youth transition system in Poland through the analysis of partnerships between vocational upper secondary schools and industry

This paper examines the current youth transition system in Poland focusing on the role of industry partnerships with vocational upper secondary schools. On the example of the aviation cluster in the south-eastern Poland, this paper assesses the strong industry-led partnership established in 2007 with local schools and authorities in delivery of aviation-specific programmes, and its impact of local youth transitions to labour market. In contrast to Poland's national trend towards weak cooperation between industry and the vocational education sector, three major dynamics regarding the aviation cluster's influence on vocational education are observable. The region benefits from: strong leadership from local industry in influencing the supply of particular skills by local vocational education and training (VET) schools and universities; a high level of willingness of local government authorities at the mayor's and municipality's offices to support the aviation cluster's influence on VET; and a free-market model of student choice influencing the practice of local VET schools and training centres. Such cooperation is valuable for businesses and local institutes of education. However, these processes affect the equal chances of successful school-to-work transitions for graduates stratified in different educational pathways, and successful transitions are still constrained by the structure of Poland's system, which is increasingly assuming ‘education logic’.     

Spirituality-Based Social Work Values for Empowering Human Service Organizations

Abstract

This paper is based on three premises: (1) Spirituality is seen as an asset from which the client system draws its innate strengths to empower itself, (2) Just as it is important for social work clients to build on individual spiritual strengths to overcome personal challenges, it is equally crucial for human service organizations to implement spirituality-based professional values in organizational contexts, and (3) Spirituality issues need to be examined from the perspective of macro social work education. Based on these premises, the goal of this paper is to construct a conceptual framework that links spirituality-based social work values to empowerment strategies that can be employed in macro social work practice. Adding to the existing dimensions of social work knowledge relating to spirituality, this paper examines spirituality as empowerment issues. Also, the author explores spirituality-centered social work skills, focusing on organizational management and leadership skills.     

'Woman,Speak with a Loud Voice!'

This paper seeks to contribute to the critique of mainstream development discourse by conveying the ideas and issues raised by rural South African women. Building upon feminist and post-colonial discourses, this paper shifts the epistemological location of knowing to the women affected by development programmes and policies. Based upon interviews and discussions with over 600 women in rural communities, we offer a brief characterization of the South African context of rural women's lives, followed by rural women's comments about development, their daily struggles, and empowerment. Rural women's comments reveal a conception of development that is tied to their localized problem-solving skills and opportunities. Their response to the absence of development opportunities within their communities is to forge a space where they can negotiate between institutional spheres of power in order to address their needs. We argue that traditional development approaches overlook the space, or interstice, rural African women occupy between the modern state and traditional authority. For persons interested in development issues, rural women's experiences direct our attention to the in-between spaces as potential sites of empowerment.     

Common Agency in Nonprofit Advocacy Organizations

Most theories of nonprofit organizations and nonprofit leadership recognize the multitude of stakeholders—including board members, donors and volunteers, funders, the media, and policy makers—that organizational leaders must contend with in doing their work. For nonprofits engaged in advocacy, demands from stakeholders may be even more challenging to meet. Although stakeholder theory recognizes the effect of various groups on an organization, it does not explain how leaders manage the preferences of their often‐competing stakeholders while they make choices for the organization. This study develops a common agency framework, evaluating the roles of three groups crucial to nonprofit advocacy organizations: the organization's board of directors, elected officials, and donors/members. The common agency framework is then illustrated with interviews with leaders of nonprofit advocacy organizations in California. Findings suggest that the leaders of these groups have a significant amount of discretion in guiding their organizations’ activities and operations.     

Social work leadership: reflections on a student-led conference

Servant leadership encompassing collaborative mentorship, empowerment and a faculty/student partnership approach contributed to the success of an international social work conference led by undergraduate students and supported by faculty members. Using a retrospective case study design, data were collected from social work undergraduate students on the conference planning committee, reflections of faculty, and documentation from conference evaluations. This paper explores the findings of the conference planning experience and considers how social work principles can foster student engagement and build capacity for undergraduate students to practice leadership skills within higher educational settings.     

Building Community Capacity to Advocate for Policy Change: An Outcome Evaluation of the Neighborhoods Working in Partnership Project in Detroit

This article presents results of the outcome evaluation of Neighborhoods Working in Partnership (NWP), a community-based participatory research project of the Detroit Community–Academic Urban Research Center, designed to enhance policy advocacy skills through training and support, thereby increasing community capacity, engagement, and empowerment of Detroit residents to change policies. Focus groups and conversational interviews were conducted with NWP participants. Results indicate that the workshop empowered participants and enhanced dimensions of community capacity. Participants reported engaging in policy advocacy activities and various policy successes. Participants identified challenges and facilitating factors to their policy campaigns. Recommendations for similar trainings are provided.     

The Power of Peer Support: The Development of the Empowerment Center

ABSTRACT

This article discusses the events and influences that led to the author’s contribution to the development of a mental health consumer-run organization, The Empowerment Center in Mount Vernon, NY. The author traces some events that influenced him personally and the evolution of the Empowerment Center from an organization that provided advocacy services (to those with mental health problems who were hospitalized) and community-based support services to people in mental health recovery, to an organization focusing on economic empowerment and economic development for the community of those in recovery. The transition of the Empowerment Center into an organization focused on economic empowerment underscores the importance of economic independence for people in recovery and the consumer-run organizations that support them. The Empowerment Center endeavors to demonstrate that mental health consumer-survivors can take control of their economic health as well as their physical and mental health.