Trigger events and change agents: how non-profit boards improve their governance
Despite active research on the performance of boards of directors, very little scholarship exists on how they intentionally recognise and act on the need for governance change. This gap has resulted in weak conceptual guidance for researchers and practitioners alike who are interested in change management. This article employs a multiple case study phenomenological analysis of member-serving organisations based in the United States that achieved substantive change at the board level, sometimes reshaping their boards and cultures in profound ways. Focused on the catalysts, agents and processes of governance change, the findings generally support the prevailing contingency theory perspective by describing patterns of change, stakeholder behaviour and goals that varied considerably from case to case. A change management lens is weakly supported in finding limited patterns in how leaders made change happen. A discussion follows of other potential conceptual lenses that may help explain successful strategic change management in non-profit boards.
-
Argyris, C. (1990) Overcoming Organizational Defenses, Boston, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
-
Balogun, J. and Hailey, V.H. (2008) Exploring Strategic Change, London: Pearson Education.
-
Beatty, R.W. and Ulrich, D.O. (1993) Re-energizing the mature organization, in T.D. Jick (ed) Managing Change: Cases and Concepts, Boston, MA: Irwin/McGraw-Hill.
-
Bovey, W.H. and Hede, A. (2001) Resistance to organizational change: the role of cognitive and affective processes, Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 22(8): 372–82.
-
Bradshaw, P. (2009) A contingency approach to nonprofit governance, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 20(1): 61–81. doi: 10.1002/nml.241
-
Bradshaw, P., Murray, V. and Wolpin, J. (1992) Do nonprofit boards make a difference? An exploration of the relationships among board structure, process, and effectiveness, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 21(3): 227–49. doi: 10.1177/089976409202100304
-
Brudney, J. L. and Murray, V. (1998) Do intentional efforts to improve boards really work? The views of nonprofit CEOs. Nonprofit management and leadership, 8(4): 333–48.
-
Burnes, B. (2004) Kurt Lewin and the planned approach to change: a Re‐appraisal, Journal of Management Studies, 41(6): 977–1002. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2004.00463.x
-
By, R.T. (2005) Organisational change management: a critical review, Journal of Change Management, 5(4): 369–80. doi: 10.1080/14697010500359250
-
Chait, R.P., Holland, T.P. and Taylor, B.E. (1993) The Effective Board of Trustees, Phoeniz, AZ: Oryx Press.
-
Collier, D. (1995) Translating quantitative methods for qualitative researchers: the case of selection bias, American Political Science Review, 89(2): 461–6. doi: 10.2307/2082442
-
Dion, D. (2003) Evidence and inference in the comparative case study, in G. Goertz and H. Starr (eds) Necessary Conditions: Theory, Methodology, and Applications, Washington, DC: Roman & Littlefield, pp 95–112.
-
Donaldson, L. (2001) The Contingency Theory of Organizations, London: Sage Publications.
-
Freiwirth, J. (2014) Community engagement governance: engaging stakeholders for community impact, in C. Cornforth and W.A. Brown (eds) Nonprofit Governance: Innovative Perspectives and Approaches, New York, NY: Routledge, pp 183–209.
-
Gazley, B. and Bowers, A. (2013) What Makes High-performing Boards Effective: Governance Practices in Member-serving Organizations, Washington, DC: ASAE Association Management Press.
-
Gazley, B. and Guo, C. (2020) What do we know about nonprofit collaboration? A systematic review of the literature, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 31(2): 211–32. doi: 10.1002/nml.21433
-
Gazley, B. and Kissman, K. (2015) Transformational governance: How boards achieve extraordinary change, Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
-
Gill, M.J. (2014) The possibilities of phenomenology for organizational research, Organizational Research Methods, 17(2): 118–37. doi: 10.1177/1094428113518348
-
Goodstein, J. and Boeker, W. (1991) Turbulence at the top: a new perspective on governance structure changes and strategic change, Academy of Management Journal, 34(2): 306–30.
-
Groenewald, T. (2004) A phenomenological research design illustrated, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 3(1): 42–55. doi: 10.1177/160940690400300104
-
Hameed, I., Khan, A.K., Sabharwal, M., Arain, G.A. and Hameed, I. (2019) Managing successful change efforts in the public sector: an employee’s readiness for change perspective, Review of Public Personnel Administration, 39(3): 398–421. doi: 10.1177/0734371X17729869
-
Harrison, Y.D. and Murray, V. (2015) The effect of an online self-assessment tool on nonprofit board performance, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 44(6): 1129–51. doi: 10.1177/0899764014557361
-
Herman, R.D. and Heimovics, R.D. (1990) The effective nonprofit executive: leader of the board, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 1(2): 167–80. doi: 10.1002/nml.4130010207
-
Isabella, L.A. (1992) Managing the challenges of trigger events: the mindsets governing adaptation to change, Business Horizons, 35(5): 59–67. doi: 10.1016/0007-6813(92)90055-E
-
King, P.J. and Roberts, N.C. (1992) An investigation into the personality profile of policy entrepreneurs, Public Productivity & Management Review, 16(2): 173–90. doi: 10.2307/3380990
-
Lewin, K. (1943) Psychological ecology, in D. Cartwright (ed) Field Theory in Social Science, London: Social Science Paperbacks.
-
Mento, A., Jones, R. and Dirndorfer, W. (2002) A change management process: grounded in both theory and practice, Journal of Change Management, 3(1): 45–59. doi: 10.1080/714042520
-
Miller-Millesen, J.L. (2003) Understanding the behavior of nonprofit boards of directors: a theory-based approach, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 32(4): 521–47. doi: 10.1177/0899764003257463
-
Ostrower, F. and Stone, M.M. (2010) Moving governance research forward: aA contingency-based framework and data application, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 39(5): 901–24. doi: 10.1177/0899764009338962
-
Piderit, S.K. (2000) Rethinking resistance and recognizing ambivalence: a multidimensional view of attitudes toward an organizational change, Academy of Management Review, 25(4): 783–94. doi: 10.2307/259206
-
Reid, W. and Turbide, J. (2012) Board/staff relationships in a growth crisis: implications for nonprofit governance, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41(1): 82–99. doi: 10.1177/0899764011398296
-
Rosenbaum, D., More, E. and Steane, P. (2017) A longitudinal qualitative case study of change in nonprofits: suggesting a new approach to the management of change, Journal of Management & Organization, 23(1): 74–91.
-
Sabatier, P.A. (1988) An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein, Policy Sciences, 21(2): 129–68. doi: 10.1007/BF00136406
-
True, J.L., Jones, B.D. and Baumgartner, F.R. (1999) Punctuated-equilibrium theory: explaining stability and change in American policymaking, in P. Sabatier (ed) Theories of the Policy Process, London: Routledge, pp 97–115.
-
Vito, R. and Sethi, B. (2020) Managing change: role of leadership and diversity management, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 33(7): 1471–83. doi: 10.1108/JOCM-04-2019-0116
-
Wilson, A.O. (2019) The role of storytelling in navigating through the storm of change, Journal of Organizational Change Management, 32(3): 385–95. doi: 10.1108/JOCM-12-2018-0343
-
Yin, R.K. (2013) Case Study Research: Design and Methods, London: Sage Publications.
-
Zhu, H., Wang, P. and Bart, C. (2016) Board processes, board strategic involvement, and organizational performance in for-profit and non-profit organizations, Journal of Business Ethics, 136(2): 311–28. doi: 10.1007/s10551-014-2512-1
| May 2022 onwards | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 34 | 34 | 34 |
| Full Text Views | 46 | 46 | 4 |
| PDF Downloads | 25 | 25 | 3 |
We are a leading social science publisher
committed to making a difference.
Bristol University Press and
Policy Press
bristoluniversitypress.co.uk