Transformational Leadership, Organizational Culture, Organizational Effectiveness, and Programme Outcomes in Non-Governmental Organizations

This study examines whether transformational leadership influences organizational culture that furthers NGOs?? effectiveness. It also examines whether transformational leadership at the top directly influences NGOs?? effectiveness. Further, it tests whether NGO effectiveness improves the programme outcomes in terms of health, income, education, and happiness of villagers. Data were collected from 312 NGOs in Jharkhand state (India). Transformational leadership, organizational culture, and NGO effectiveness were assessed from NGO personnel using standard instruments, and programme outcomes on health, income, education, and happiness were evaluated from villagers using wooden cubes. Findings reveal that transformational leadership builds organizational culture that furthers NGO effectiveness. Transformational leadership does not influence directly NGO effectiveness but it enhances NGO effectiveness promoting organizational culture. Furthermore, NGO effectiveness improves the outcomes of programmes undertaken by NGOs in terms of better health, income, education, and happiness of beneficiaries.     

Sources of Volunteer Motivation: Transformational Leadership and Personal Motives Influence Volunteer Outcomes

We examined the separate influences of volunteers' personal motives and their team leaders' behaviors on volunteer satisfaction and contributions, along with mediating processes suggested by self‐determination theory. Participants were 302 volunteers who worked in teams at various sites through a central agency. As predicted, both personal motives for volunteering and transformational leadership influenced volunteer satisfaction through enhanced work meaningfulness and higher‐quality team relationships. However, motives that predicted volunteer contribution were different from those that predicted satisfaction. Whereas satisfaction was positively associated with motives concerning esteem enhancement and value expression, contribution was positively associated with motives to gain understanding and negatively related to motives pertaining to esteem enhancement and social concerns. Transformational leadership was positively associated with volunteer satisfaction, but not with volunteer contributions. The theoretical ramifications of these findings are discussed, along with practical implications for the recruitment and retention of volunteers.     

Leadership and Gender in Public Relations: Perceived Effectiveness of Transformational and Transactional Leadership Styles

This study used a quantitative survey and qualitative focus groups to examine perceptions of leadership styles, sex differences in these perceptions, and opinions about the gendered nature of leadership in public relations. In summary, the focus group data supported survey results that indicated a strong preference for transformational leadership style over transactional leadership. However, there was also strong evidence for a preference for situational leadership. Findings are interpreted within the frameworks of public relations theory and gender theory.     

Linking Autonomy-Supportive Leadership to Volunteer Satisfaction: A Self-Determination Theory Perspective

This study examines the development of volunteer satisfaction within the framework of self-determination theory (SDT). Therewith, autonomy-supportive leadership—as an influential part of the organizational context—is studied as an antecedent of volunteer satisfaction. The hypothesized model suggests that the link between autonomy-supportive leadership and volunteer satisfaction is serially mediated by general need satisfaction and autonomous motivation. Volunteers (N = 113) working closely together with their supervisors completed a paper-based questionnaire. As predicted, both general need satisfaction and autonomous motivation serially mediated the link between autonomy-supportive leadership and volunteer satisfaction. The results indicate that autonomy-supportive leadership is an important factor of the organizational context, increasing both volunteers’ autonomous motivation and satisfaction. Practical implications for volunteering organizations, as well as implications for further research, are discussed.     

The Effects of Authentic Leadership on Strategic Internal Communication and Employee-Organization Relationships

This study examines how strategic leadership influences excellent internal public relations by establishing the linkage between authentic leadership, symmetrical and transparent communication, and employee–organization relationships. The results showed that authentic leadership as an antecedent factor plays a critical role in nurturing an organization's symmetrical and transparent communication system, which in turn, cultivates quality employee–organization relationships. An organization's symmetrical communication worldview greatly fosters its day-to-day transparent communication practice. Transparent communication, characterized by information substantiality, accountability, and employee participation, largely contributes to employee trust, control mutuality, commitment, and satisfaction. The impact of symmetrical communication on employees' relational outcomes is fully mediated via transparent communication. Significant theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Restructuring Uganda's Coffee Industry: Why Going Back to Basics Matters

After experiencing a boom during the mid‐1990s, the performance of Uganda's coffee industry has been disappointing. Most existing analysis sees the sector's problems as quality deterioration, a poor marketing position in the global market, a weak regulatory framework, and poor infrastructure. Recommendations range from setting up a coffee auction to increasing the share of specialty coffees. This article concludes that such advice has been largely inconsistent with the stylised facts of the Uganda coffee industry, and it argues that coffee wilt disease and the effectiveness of the coffee replanting programme are the two key issues on which policymakers and the donor community should focus their activities and allocate their resources.     

Vertical and Lateral Information Processing: The Effects of Gender, Employee Classification Level, and Media Richness on Communication and Work Outcomes

Data from 666 employees of a large midwesterntelephone company were analyzed to identifycommunication pattern differences between: (a) males andfemales; (b) exempt and nonexempt employees; and (c)employees using rich and lean communication media. MANOVAand discriminant function analyses results indicatedfemales sent less information to supervisors andexperienced less information overload than males. Exempt employees interacted more with department headsand sent less information to peers than nonexemptemployees. Those using the richest media communicatedmore with supervisors while those using the leanest media received most of their information fromdepartment heads. Additionally, interaction effects weredetected. Discussion is advanced on how these findingsmight be used to improve intraorganizational communication.     

Race Matters: Child Protection and the Communication Process

It is well-known that, in the United States, African-American children are disproportionately represented in the child welfare system and that disparities in the provision of services exist. The debate over contributing factors to this overrepresentation and these disparities is ongoing as researchers seek explanations and practitioners pursue solutions. This qualitative inquiry finds that within the context of the child protection system and the juvenile court process, racial dynamics emerge between respondent parents and system representatives that may affect the process and, in turn, the outcomes for the thousands of children of color in the foster care system.     

Why Immigrant Background Matters for University Participation: A Comparison of Switzerland and Canada

This article extends our understanding of the difference in university participation between students with and without immigrant backgrounds by contrasting outcomes in Switzerland and Canada and by the use of new longitudinal data that are comparable between the countries. The research includes family socio‐demographic characteristics, family aspirations regarding university education, and the student's secondary school performance as explanatory variables of university attendance patterns. In Switzerland, compared with students with Swiss‐born parents, those with immigrant backgrounds are disadvantaged regarding university participation, primarily due to poor academic performance in secondary school. In comparison, students with immigrant backgrounds in Canada display a significant advantage regarding university attendance, even among some who performed poorly in secondary school. The included explanatory variables can only partly account for this advantage, but family aspirations regarding university attendance play a significant role, while traditional variables such as parental educational attainment are less important. In both countries, source region background is important. Possible reasons for the cross‐country differences are discussed.     

Doing Culture with Girls Like Me: Why Trying on Gender and Intersectionality Matters

Gendering is not a one‐size‐fits‐all process. Girls try on gender. In particular, girls – conditioned to value connections – search their cultural surroundings for ‘girls like me’ to answer the weighty question, Who am I? However, girls are not simply passive beneficiaries of culture, but actively construct their gendered selves by engaging in or ‘doing’ culture; girls activate certain features salient to their experiences. This paper examines how race, ethnicity, and class arbitrate girls’ gendered identities, emphasizing the concept trying on gender to capture the intersectional and experimental character of these processes. As girls try on gender –a local and culturally specific endeavor – they engage in a fluid, multifaceted, and sometimes tentative gendering process. Cross‐over literature by and for girls lends empirical support to how girls accomplish this multi‐constructed sense of self. The article concludes with implications for studies of girls, including a cautionary note about overemphasis on individualistic agency.     

The Social Construction of Child Social Control via Criminalization and Medicalization: Why Race Matters

Scholars point to two trends in the social construction of child social control: criminalization and medicalization. To control child behavior, schools and parents turn to strategies motivated by both the criminal justice and mental health systems. For example, school suspension and expulsion rates in the United States have increased alongside the use of therapy or medication for children diagnosed with behavior disorders. Despite these concurrent trends, research rarely considers how criminalization and medicalization operate as opposing or collaborative approaches to child misbehavior. In this article, I take advantage of a prospective longitudinal panel study to examine patterns of school punishment and/or the medicalization in a sample of children between the ages of 5 and 14 over 25 years. Findings demonstrate that black children have higher odds of experiencing punishment than white children, but Hispanic children do not. Additionally, black and Hispanic children have lower odds of receiving therapy or medication than white children. Furthermore, racial/ethnic disparities in punishment or therapy/medication use vary across children with higher or lower behavior problem scores. I discuss these findings in light of historical trends in the social construction of child behavior and social control     

Internal Communication,Information Satisfaction,and Sense of Community: The Effect of Personal Influence

This study examined how employees of a multi-campus university view information flow from top administrators in positions of personal influence, employees' communication preferences (amount, channels, types of information), their sense of community within the organization, and the relationship between those perceptions and their willingness to advocate for the university. Open-ended interviews with 147 employees found the personal influence of the chancellor and top administrators has an effect on information satisfaction. Employees who have a relationship with the chancellor are more satisfied with the information they receive and feel a greater responsibility to advocate for the organization. Even the perception of a relationship with top administrators leads to satisfaction. The direction dimension of internal communication, as well as the channel dimension is important. Although e-mail is efficient for information exchange, the preference for communication among all groups of employees is face-to-face, interpersonal, dialogic interactions. Meetings, despite being acknowledged as time-consuming, were valued as a channel for feedback and providing face time with top managers. Electronic channels, if used thoughtfully, can flatten the traditional, hierarchical structure of internal communication and give employees at all levels of the organization the sense of hearing things first-hand, from the top.     

Sterilization in Alberta, 1928 to 1972: Gender Matters*

En 1928, la province canadienne de l'Alberta a adopté une loi sur la stérilisation sexuelle et, jusqu'à son abrogation en 1972, plus de 2,800 personnes ont été stérilisées. De ce nombre, les femmes ont été surreprésentées. Cet article examine comment des regards changeants portés sur l'eugénique ont conduit à une transformation subtile d'où a émergé un système à deux volets qui a ciblé des hommes ayant une déficience mentale, souvent un danger pour la société, et des femmes normales du point de vue mental mais anormales moralement qui ont accepté la stérilisation. Le geste s'est avéré un succès en ce qui concerne le type et le nombre de personnes stérilisées, et la pérennité du programme. Alberta, Canada, passed a Sexual Sterilization Act in 1928 and up until its repeal in 1972, over 2,800 people were sterilized. Women were overrepresented in the number of sterilizations performed. This paper explores how changing understandings of eugenics led to a subtle transformation which resulted in a “two‐pronged” system that targeted mentally defective men, often a danger to society, and mentally normal but morally abnormal women who consented to sterilization. The end result was success for the movement in terms of the types and numbers of people sterilized, and in the longevity of the program.     

White Matters: When,Where, and How?

The author reflects on the qualitative research process as both a first‐time researcher and as a white woman doing research on African American men. This includes reflections on the assumption that the primary motivation for the researcher is romantically motivated, a discussion of racist sexism, and the nature of qualitative evidence, in particular that collected in a cross‐race researcher‐participant relationship. The research process and experience reinforces the importance of considering the context of the research when thinking about insider‐outsider positionality.