- 2015-03-09 (x)
- Aversano, Nina (x)
- Nonprofit organizations--Research (x)
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Show moreNon profit collaboration has long been identified as an effective approach to meeting community needs. It is particularly recognized as a solution to the challenges encountered by non profits during periods of economic duress. This study examines the relationship between the sense of ownership felt by non profit collaborative partners and their intent to sustain collaboration. We posit that three particular behaviors: rule breaking, rule making, and appreciative behavior encourage participants to develop a sense of ownership leading to collaborative sustainability. Our findings indicate that rule breaking and rule making behavior reinforces a sense of collaboration ownership which contributes to collaboration sustainability.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreNonprofit organizations have a history in the United States of fostering pluralism, diversity and freedom. They play vital roles as advocates and in identifying and addressing unmet human needs in their communities. Most of the recent major social and political movements such as AIDS, civil rights, environmental protection, etc., that have animated American life have all operated through private, nonprofit organizations. Across the United States there are approximately 11 million nonprofit employees, 70 percent of whom are female, who act as the guardians of social justice and community values, and as champions of high quality, equitable, diverse and affordable service delivery. The workers in nonprofit organizations unfailingly bring creativity, passion, and hard work to communities all across the nation every day. Executive leadership in the nonprofit sector is professional, ambitious, entrepreneurial and in the most influential organizations, disproportionately male. At its face this gender segmentation is no different from the profit and government sectors, where discrimination has always stood as a challenge to women. Every prestigious or high paying profession in the United States is dominated by men, numerically and in terms of who yields power (Valian, 1999). However, rather than being defined by power, profit or statute, the nonprofit sector is defined in large part by its provision of service to the most vulnerable in our society. Nonprofit organizations have emerged throughout history as the anti-corporation, the sector motivated by mission not greed. It is startling that discrimination based on sex exists in a sector that places the value of humans over profit, but clearly gender inequity and discrimination in the workplace is not bound by sector. The nonprofit sector is described as gendered female and the symbols, images, values and typical activities of the sector are “‘female and ‘soft’—providing service, being concerned with morality and ethics, producing beauty, and helping people” (Odednedal & O’Neill, 1994, p. 14). Even in the caring sector, and one that is gendered female, it appears that gender continues to be an asset for men but remains a liability for women. Nonprofit organizations in the United States number approximately 1.2 million, according to the latest numbers compiled by The Independent Sector, a nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition of national organizations, and in 1997 they generated $664.8 billion dollars in revenue (Independent Sector, 2001). Nonprofit organizations represent much that is fine and good about our communities. Half of all hospitals; half of all colleges and universities; almost all symphony orchestras & museums; eighty percent of all social service organizations; most civic organizations and most religious organizations are nonprofit corporations. These organizations employed almost 11 million paid workers in 1998, or over 7 percent of the workforce in the United States. The nonprofit sector is a major economic, social and political force in this country and one that employees approximately 7.7 million women, roughly twelve percent of all working women in this country. Paid employment in the nonprofit sector is three times that of agriculture, twice that in wholesale trade and nearly 50 percent greater than that in construction and finance, insurance, and real estate (Salamon, 2003). This essay examines why women, in such large numbers choose careers in the nonprofit sector. It is evident from the statistics that women face career and salary discrimination no matter where they work, so why flock to this sector—one that has been traditionally underpaid and undervalued by a profit driven society? Women are limited in their career choices, by employers and society, to a narrower range of options than men (Reskin & Padavic, 1994), but does that alone explain the gendered nature of the nonprofit sector?
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show more“The chief executive is pivotal and essential, and the future of the nonprofit sector depends on the ability of nonprofits to attract and retain talented and visionary chief executives who have a clear understanding of their role and who perform it well.” (Moyers, 2006: 30) “Not in his goals but in his transitions man is great” (Ralph Waldo Emerson) A leadership crisis in the nonprofit sector is portended by sector growth, turnover at the top and a smaller cohort of leaders coming up from behind. Crossovers from the corporate sector present an alternative source of CEO talent, but a dearth of empirical research about top executives who cross the boundaries of sector, organization, and, at times role, stymies our understanding of the transition process of for-profit to non-profit leaders. In depth interviews with U.S. nonprofit leaders – both crossover CEOs and CEOs hired from within the nonprofit sector ? compared and contrasted transition experiences. Rather than significant differences between the two groups, our research revealed surprisingly striking similarities in early work approaches. Findings revealed factors other than origin influence non-profit CEO success. Implications for candidates making more informed career choices to boards and search committees striving to improve selection and induction processes are noted.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreTo effectively support the empowerment of marginalized and resource-poor communities, the nonprofit sector must not only anticipate, but embrace and support transition of their programs with community partners towards greater autonomy. The aim of this ethnographic inquiry is to create opportunities for social change grantees to reflect on their interactions with their grantors, social change philanthropists, which fund their movement oriented goals of social justice and systemic change. Social change philanthropists turn the traditional, donor-controlled approach to philanthropy on its head by transferring grant-making decisions from the donors to community activist boards selected to reflect the make-up of prospective grant recipients. This inquiry is constructed to explore this phenomenon of social change philanthropy from the perspective of the grantees, indigenous empowerment organizations, and how they negotiate to broaden the repertoire of approaches to grant-making collaborations which bring about the kinds of lasting changes desired by the beneficiaries themselves. Through phenomenological interviews with the social entrepreneurs providing leadership to these organizations, we will explore the unwritten social contracts embedded in this non-traditional grantee-grantor relationship. By elucidating and contributing to a model on the interactive dynamics of social change philanthropy, this inquiry would be useful to grassroots organizations and their funding sources committed to evolving infrastructure and processes in support of the practice and diffusion of effective grant-making for social change. Under these circumstances, community development aid can remain perpetually valid through continuous dialogue with community stakeholders, facilitating ownership instead of fostering dependency.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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Show moreSemi-structured interviews with 21 partners of three long-standing, non-profit collaborations in the health and human services sector emphasize the role of constituents’ sense of “ownership”– and their continuous reproduction of it on collaboration sustainability. The data suggests that enduring collaborations are characterized, on the one hand, by employee behaviors typically considered aberrant – including rule breaking and rule making – and on the other, “appreciative” participant behaviors. Findings imply non-profit governance and leadership can purposefully foster environments in which collaboration ownership can reproduce.
Doctorate of Management Programs
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