Richard D. Heimovics

A cross-national study of a method for researching non-profit organisational effectiveness

Are there criteria that define non-profit organisation effectiveness? If the criteria can be identified, is it possible to use them in a comparative study to assess whether and in what way the use of the criteria may vary between nations? This study addresses both questions. The study uses the factorial survey method and is based on the social constructionist conception that effectiveness is created as an ongoing and sometimes contested outcome of a social judgement process. We illustrate the method with samples from the US and UK and compare the results. The results establish the value of the factorial survey method. Analyses show that both US and UK respondents use percentage expenditures on fund-raising, advocacy emphasis, change in financial surplus and unit cost of services as effectiveness criteria. There is evidence that voluntarism is a more important criterion in the US and that advocacy is more important in the UK.

An Investigation of Leadership Skill Differences in Chief Executives of Nonprofit Organizations

The increasing recognition of the public nature of nonprofit organizations and the changing relationships between governments and nonprofit organizations provide the context for, and underline the importance of, understanding effective executive leadership in such organizations. A study of 50 nonprofit organization chief executives revealed that reputationally effective executives engaged in more reported leadership behaviors in relationship to their boards of directors than executives not so reputed. No difference was found in reported leadership behaviors directed at staff. The results suggest that “board-regarding behaviors” are an important and distinct cluster of skills for effective leadership by nonprofit chief executives. The results are consistent with a resource-dependence perspective, and the authors argue that effective executives work with and through their boards in order to affect the constraints and dependencies in the nonprofit organizations environment.

The Salient Management Skills: A Conceptual Framework for a Curriculum for Managers in Nonprofit Organizations

As the definition of public affairs and administration expands to encompass nonprofit organizations and as more university programs in public administration begin to develop curricula in nonprofit organization management, questions of what such curricula should include have become increasingly important. Based on a program of research on nonprofit management skills, the questions that have been raised about appropriate curricula are reviewed, the literature and research program that serve as foundations for the proposed approach to curriculum are described, four executive roles for nonprofit organizations and the implications of each for curriculum are specified, and four sets of behaviorally oriented skills are proposed as useful and appropriate components of nonprofit management curricula.

Critical Events in the Management of Nonprofit Organizations: Initial Evidence

Interviews with forty-five chief executives of nonprofit organizations in the Kansas City area provide evidence about the nature of man agement in nonprofit organizations suggesting, first, that adapting programs to shifts in funding patterns has been a major challenge and, second, that fundraising and board-executive relations-issues generally regarded as distinctly characteristic of nonprofit organiza tion management-are often experienced as critical.

Gender and the attributions of chief executive responsibility for successful or unsuccessful organizational outcomes

This study addresses the effects of gender upon the attributions of responsibility for success and failure by chief executives in an organizational setting. Prior laboratory studies verify that some sex-related differences exist, although their importance and causes have been subject to controversy. In general, gender seems to make a difference in two respects. Men tend to make stronger attributions to their own ability than women and men are less likely than women to attribute their own performance to luck. In short, women are more likely to derogate their own efforts than are men. In this study no major gender-related differences were found in the patterns of attribution of the causes given for success or failure. These results indicate that if a general model of gender-related attributional differences is to be developed, additional studies from natural settings are needed.

Researching non-profit organisational effectiveness: whose criteria? A rejoinder to Osborne and Tricker

We appreciate the interest of Osborne and Tricker in our work on a factorial survey approach to t h e study of the social construction of non-profit organisational effectiveness. We welcome this opportunity to respond to their appraisal of our work, and to further the debate about conceptualising and researching the complex issue of non-profit organisational effectiveness. In their response to our recent paper, Osborne and Tricker take issue with our approach and sketch an alternative method for researching non-profit organisational effectiveness. In this reply we first suggest that their criticisms reflect a different understanding of the goals of our paper than our own. Next we briefly review their proposed alternative in relation to some consequences of that alternative. We close with observations about promising lines for future research on non-profit organisational effectiveness.