The trickle‐down effect of ethical leadership in nonprofit soccer clubs

Nonprofit soccer clubs are currently facing many ethical challenges, such as abuse, doping and match fixing. While research suggests that organizational (board) ethical leadership may be effective to tackle these ethical issues, empirical support in the context of sport remains limited. Drawing on the perceptions of a sample of nonprofit soccer players (n = 438) and coaches (n = 106), we indicate that the coaches play an important mediating role regarding the associations between board ethical leadership and ethical climate. The theoretical underpinnings of ethical leadership—formed by social learning theory and social exchange theory—and the social distance between the board and the players in nonprofit soccer clubs provide support in this regard. In sum, our results demonstrate that the influence of board ethical leadership in nonprofit soccer clubs partly trickles down to the players via coach ethical leadership. Finally, practical implications for nonprofit soccer club management are discussed.     

Organizational innovativeness and its determinants in South Korean nonprofit human service organizations

This study compares the level of organizational innovativeness and its determinants in different types of nonprofit human service organizations. Based on theoretical conceptualizations of organizational innovation, it was hypothesized that community service organizations (CSOs) would be more innovative than residential service organizations (RSOs), and determinants of organizational innovation (such as organizations' characteristics, internal and external properties, and executive leadership) would influence innovativeness. Data from a survey of two types of human service organizations in South Korea (127 RSOs for children and 220 CSOs) revealed that the level of innovation in both types of organizations was not significantly different. The determinants of decentralization and formalization showed significant impacts on innovativeness in CSOs. Decentralization also had a significant positive effect on innovativeness in RSOs. However, executive leadership was a significant determinant of organizational innovativeness in CSOs only. Based on these results, administrative implications are suggested for the facilitation of organizational innovation in nonprofit human service organizations.     

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.     

Scarce as hen's teeth: Women CEOs in large nonprofit organizations

This study examines an underlying mechanism behind the gender gap in nonprofit executive leadership, focusing on the link between the representation of women on governing boards and the hiring of female CEOs. The analysis of 340 human services organizations with gross receipts greater than $10 million in GuideStar's database reveals that organizations where women make up between one third and half of the board are more likely to have a female CEO compared to organizations where women account for less than one third or a majority of the board. The findings suggest that nonprofit organizations are more likely to hire a female CEO when women constitute a “substantial minority” of the governing board.     

Voluntary contributions and wages in nonprofit organizations

Voluntary work provides a major source of labor for many nonprofit organizations. Consequences of volunteers and paid staff working alongside each other in nonprofits are well documented. This article contributes to this strand of literature and investigates whether the presence of volunteer work influences paid employees' wages in nonprofit organizations. We estimated a multilevel wage equation accounting for personal characteristics of workers and characteristics of nonprofits. The analysis revealed that nonprofit organizations engaging volunteers pay lower wages to their employees. Our findings contribute to the understanding of wage‐setting behavior of nonprofits and improve the methodological approach of empirical research in this field.     

Promoting social innovation amidst organizational complexity: Case study evidence from the German Red Cross

Social innovation is concerned with the creation and implementation of new solutions to social problems. Although research commonly frames social innovation as the domain of small, entrepreneurial organizations, an increasing number of large and well-established nonprofit organizations have started actively launching their own innovation initiatives. Using a case study of social innovation ventures within the German Red Cross (GRC), this study identifies organizational hurdles and viable management strategies targeting the promotion of social innovation within particularly complex organizations. Based on our results, we develop a conceptual framework highlighting that promoting social innovation in established organizations requires simultaneous attention to multiple dimensions of leadership and governance. Our study thereby offers a blueprint for management strategies that can guide nonprofit leaders in their quest to promote social innovation from within their organization.     

Identity and integration: The roles of relationship and retention in nonprofit mergers

Prior research suggests that nonprofits are flexible and possess multiple identities, although we know less about how transformative changes, such as mergers, shape nonprofit identity. This qualitative study draws upon in‐depth interviews from 13 nonprofit merger cases to explore factors that influence postmerger identity and integration. In particular, we focus on the roles of organizational similarity and relationships, program and personnel retention, and rebranding. Ultimately, we derive a typology of postmerger integration in nonprofits and suggest that postmerger identity may be classified in terms of absorption, preservation, or creation. Implications for nonprofit leaders are discussed.     

Construction of organizational identity claim and understanding in nonprofits: Evidence from Pakistan's voluntary organizations

There is a substantial research literature on nonprofits identity claim and identity understanding but much less on how these identities are constructed in the first place. This article explores how identity claim and identity understanding are constructed in the nonprofits and reasons for such constructions. Exploratory multiple case study analysis was conducted with two voluntary organizations. The results showed that three factors play a significant role in construction of identity claim; founders, funding, and power of stakeholders. The construction of identity understanding is influenced by the claim and is often in sync until the funding source changes leading to a dissimilar identity understanding. The members, however, showed reluctance to embrace the new identity due to the power of stakeholders and fear of mission drift. The unsynchronized claim and understanding caused confusions among the members as they juggled between adopting the new identity understanding and keeping a dissimilar claim. This confusion hinders the nonprofits growth and they struggle to answer what they want to be in future.     

Art in the Time of Frugality: Scarcity,Cooperation, and Change in American Art Museums

Funding for American art museums has undergone significant changes in the past 20 years. In particular, federal and corporate giving have substantially declined following the Great Recession. These changes impact museums’ ability to secure funding for exhibitions. This study addresses how funding scarcity affects American art museums, specifically with regard to staff’s ability to execute their own tasks and the strategies of action they use to compensate for these changes. Drawing from literature on resource scarcity, I explore how funding declines have prompted museum staff to use “strategic cooperation” as a means of diversifying limited financial resources. Moreover, using interviews with curators and development officers, I identify three cooperative strategies they may use: coordinating inter‐professional activities, pooling professional knowledge, and finding creative financial solutions. These findings add to work on resource scarcity by identifying inter‐group cooperation as a diversification strategy. More importantly, I add to this literature by specifically identifying multiple forms of strategic cooperation individuals may employ to combat resource scarcity. Finally, while literature on the arts has focused on museums’ propensity for inter‐professional conflict during times of duress, my work demonstrates that, despite this, cooperative action is a present and viable strategy in cultural organizations.     

Research trends in nonprofit graduate studies in China: An inside perspective

This paper explores the growth of the academic study of nonprofit management and organizations in China by examining theses and dissertations written in China between 2000 and 2018. Using a keyword search, we collect and review 5,346 abstracts available in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure Thesis and Dissertation database. The number of these theses and dissertations accelerated between 2000 and 2015 and slowed thereafter. Most theses and dissertations focus on the external context of nonprofit organizations (78%) and fewer on nonprofit management per se (22%). Thematic analysis reveals several broad subjects of study including organizational development, the character of the external environment and internal operations, financial and other resource support, and organizational performance. Trends across the 19‐year study period relating to national regions of origin, discipline, and theme are also explored. The development of nonprofit studies in China in some ways resembles the growth of this field in the United States and other western countries in past decades, but with distinct Chinese historical, sociocultural, and geographical characteristics.     

Leadership succession and the performance of nonprofit organizations: A fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis

Leadership succession is critical to the performance of nonprofit organizations. Existing research has mostly treated leadership succession as an instantaneous event, and it has examined the independent effects of certain factors on organizational performance. However, little research has focused on the combinations of causally relevant factors. This article integrated organizational life cycle, resource dependence, and institutional theories, as well as the organizational fit literature, to explain how contextual and strategic factors combine to affect postsuccession performance. A fuzzy‐set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) was used to analyze 15 succession events in Chinese environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The study identified four pathways to good NGO performance after succession. It also highlighted that it is not succession per se but the succession context (i.e. founders' control, board governance, professionalization, and political environment) and the strategic orientations of the successor that affect postsuccession performance in nonprofit organizations.     

The Missing Organizational Dimension of Prisoner Reentry: An Ethnography of the Road to Reentry at a Nonprofit Service Provider

Prisoner reentry has received great interest in political sociology, criminology, and beyond. Research documents the struggles of individuals trying to find their way back into society. Less attention has been given to the organizational aspects of reentry. This is unfortunate given the rapid growth of nonprofit reentry organizations in the United States, which introduces a new set of questions about the context and challenges to prisoner reentry. Drawing on an ethnography of Safe, a nonprofit reentry organization in the Northeast, I describe the organization's pivotal role in institutionalizing the pathway to prisoner reentry: a road to reentry, which takes former prisoners through a process that reconfigures their morality, identity, and social relationships. The road‐to‐reentry concept helps bring together scholars of the welfare state and criminology by highlighting how the challenges of prisoner reentry rely on how this process is organized. The way in which prison reentry is organized, in turn, affects former prisoners’ agency and shapes the relationship between these men and women and their respective families and communities.     

Ratings and rankings: reconsidering the structure of values and their measurement

Despite extensive discussion and analysis over the past three decades, researchers are still divided over the preferability of rating or ranking systems for measuring values. However, the debate originates from the false premise that one method must be used to the exclusion of the other. A conceptualization of the value structure that uses characteristics of both rating and ranking systems opens up theory and research to a more complex understanding of values. Data from the 1995–1997 World Values Survey demonstrate how using both rating and ranking systems can lead to distinct and equally valid conclusions about the differences in value importance among the nations of the world. This suggests that either method by itself provides an incomplete understanding of the value structure. While the potential methodological complications of using both ratings and rankings must be explored, the additional cost would be a productive investment for moving beyond the rating–ranking impasse.     

Sacred time: Ensuring the provision of excellent supervision

In this study, the authors explore the beliefs and attitudes regarding what constitutes “excellent supervision” from the perspectives of frontline workers and supervisors employed by one voluntary services organization in Northern Ireland. Several themes emerged from focus group narratives, regardless of participants’ agency position, and a concept map provides an understanding of the relationships of the identified themes. This study reflects the important role of organizational context and culture in relation to staff’s ability to provide excellent supervision, as well as in sustaining organizational change efforts regardless of organizational setting. The potential of peer and/or group supervision to address improving staff support with limited resources is also suggested.     

Resource Dependence Patterns and Organizational Behavior/Structure in Korean Nonprofit Organizations

This article examines the relationships among the three dimensions of resource dependence patterns (RDPs) and organizational formalization and goals in nonprofit organizations (NPOs). These three RDPs (that is, the appearance of the financial resource inflow) are resource dependency, resource diversity, and resource competitiveness. The empirical findings suggest that high dependency on government funding (high resource dependency) is positively associated with organizational formalization, although resource diversity does not have any explanatory power on organizational behavior and structure, and that a very competitive environment for resource acquisition significantly affects goal setting in NPOs. In particular, resource competitiveness well explains goal clarity and goal change in NPOs. NPOs with high resource competitiveness present clearer organizational goals or missions and are likely to experience frequent goal change.     

Book Review: The Death Knell of the Utilitarianism: A Review and Theoretical Implications of To Profit or Not to Profit

This paper uses the edited volume To Profit or Not to Profit; The Commercial Transformation of the Nonprofit Sector as an opportunity to review the theories of the nonprofit sector based on the utility maximization behavioral model linked to neoclassical economics. The existence of a large nonprofit sector and its increasing commercialism undermines the logical sufficiency of these theories to explain organizational behavior. The book in question is an effort to solve that problem and reconcile the utility maximization model with seemingly contradicting evidence. In the end, however, these efforts are not very successful and lead to the partial acceptance of an alternative model, grounded in the neo-institutional theory of organizations.     

An application of the nonprofit virtual accountability index: Accountability in sport for development and peace

In this research note, we examine web-based accountability practices of human service nonprofits. Data were collected directly from the organizational websites of an international sample of 532 organizations involved in operating sport for social change programs, more commonly known as the field of sport for development and peace. Websites were coded using the nonprofit virtual accountability index—a theoretically grounded and robust tool—to measure information and interactivity available for stakeholders across five dimensions of accountability. Analyses of variance and independent t-tests were used to test potential group differences based on geographical region, the thematic types of social change efforts, and the type of sport used to deliver programming. The results of this analysis highlight the critical importance of geographical location and other organizational variables for web-based accountability practices. Furthermore, the results allow nonprofit leaders to identify common areas in need of improvement for smaller and emerging nonprofits.     

Mission and Advocacy Structure: A Perspective from Human Service Organizations

Nonprofit organizations are expected to advocate for the needs of their clients. However, advocacy is often not part of organizational structure, which can create reactive rather than proactive responses. To explore this issue, this qualitative study examined the macro advocacy practices of a small group of organizations committed to advocacy. Using a mission-driven perspective, results showed that they had a common perception of advocacy, advocacy was implicit in their mission, and that while structure was elusive, decision making around advocacy was clear and issue selection was broadly informed. Recommendations such as harnessing the value placed on advocacy to create structures that can ensure it takes place and giving the charge to do advocacy to a specific staff person are included.     

Leadership Style in Relation to Organizational Change and Organizational Creativity: Perceptions from Nonprofit Organizational Members

As the environment within which organizations act continues to change and becomes increasingly competitive, maintaining an organizational climate that supports change and encourages creativity is a key objective for organizational leaders. This article examines the relationship between leadership style (transformational, transactional, laissez‐faire) and members' perceptions of the psychological climate for organizational change readiness and psychological climate for organizational creativity. Results indicate that transformational leaders have a direct positive relationship with psychological climate for organizational change readiness and organizational creativity, while laissez‐faire leaders have a negative relationship.