Suchergebnisse

AbstractThe interactional dynamics of the board‐executive relationship in the typical nonprofit agency are not well understood. This article first examines conflicting viewpoints in the literature and then describes an in‐depth study of the board‐executive dyad at four nonprofit organizations, using decision making as the focus. The data suggest that, in noncrisis situations, internal factors and the nature of the issue under consideration influence which pattern will be adopted and that the stability arising from this kind of leadership accommodation strongly contributes to organizational effectiveness.

AbstractThe authors undertook a comparative study of three recent mergers of nonprofit organizations in a Midwestern urban center, within the context of political‐economy theory. The research explored the impact of the same environmental factor, managed care, on the initial decisions by organizational leaders and the effects of these early decisions on subsequent actions taken to implement the merger. The study tested the authors' model of the motivations for merging, which proposes that the relationship between the decision‐making style of the leadership and the internal and external resources of the prospective partners determines whether the merger is driven primarily by mission, practicality, stability, or fear. Although the findings provide initial support for the hypotheses derived from the model, a demonstration of the differences in the approach to the merger by each organization indicated that other factors emerged as important driving forces during the various phases of the process.

AbstractThis article describes the planning, decision‐making, implementation, and evaluation phases of a recent, successful merger of five small social service agencies in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The merger was undertaken as a conscious strategy to enable the newly formed Arbor Circle Corporation to cope more effectively with environmental uncertainty, especially in regard to government contracting. The successes and the struggles encountered in the merger are instructive for other nonprofits that may be contemplating this kind of organizational restructuring as well as those interested in the impact of contracting on the government‐nonprofit relationship.