Determinants of Nonprofit Board Size and Composition (original) (raw)
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Nonprofit boards: Size, performance and managerial incentives
Journal of Accounting and Economics, 2012
We examine relations between board size, managerial incentives and enterprise performance in nonprofit organizations. We posit that a nonprofit's demand for directors increases in the number of programs it pursues, resulting in a positive association between program diversity and board size. Consequently, we predict that board size is inversely related to managerial pay-performance incentives and positively with overall organization performance. We find empirical evidence consistent with our hypotheses. The number of programs is positively related to board size. Board size is associated negatively with managerial incentives, positively with program spending and fundraising performance, and negatively with commercial revenue, in levels and changes.
Understanding the Behavior of Nonprofit Boards of Directors: A Theory-Based Approach
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2003
The literature on nonprofit boards of directors is rich with prescriptive advice about the kinds of activities that should occupy the board’s time and attention. Using organizational theory that has dominated the empirical investigation of private sector board behavior (agency,r esource dependence, and institutional),this article contributes to the literature on nonprofit board governance in three important ways. First,it provides a link between theory and practice by identifying the theoretical assumptions that have served as the foundation for the “best practice” literature. Second,the article presents a theory-based framework of board behavior that identifies the environmental conditions and board/organizational considerations that are likely to affect board behavior. And finally,it offers a set of hypotheses that can be used in future empirical investigations that seeks to understand the conditions under which a nonprofit board might assume certain roles and responsibilities ove...
Determinants of Nonprofit Board Size and Composition: The Case of Spanish Foundations
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 2009
Recently, many empirical studies have examined the determinants of corporate boards of directors. Using an agency theory framework, the authors explain how nonprofit boards are structured. Although nonprofits cannot disburse profits to their contributors, the role played by their boards of trustees in monitoring and advising managers is analogous to that of corporate boards of directors. Using a sample of Spanish foundations, the authors show that nonprofit board determinants, such as organizational complexity and financing structure, are similar in many ways to those of corporate boards. However, nonprofit age illustrates the different natures of these organizations and their voluntary boards.
The literature on nonprofit boards of directors is rich with prescriptive advice about the kinds of activities that should occupy the board's time and attention. Using organizational theory that has dominated the empirical investigation of private sector board behavior (agency, resource dependence, and institutional), this article contributes to the literature on nonprofit board governance in three important ways. First, it provides a link between theory and practice by identifying the theoretical assumptions that have served as the foundation for the "best practice" literature. Second, the article presents a theory-based framework of board behavior that identifies the environmental conditions and board/organizational considerations that are likely to affect board behavior. And finally, it offers a set of hypotheses that can be used in future empirical investigations that seeks to understand the conditions under which a nonprofit board might assume certain roles and responsibilities over others.
Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 41(6), pp. 1117–1136., 2012
This paper examines some of the main limitations of research on the governance of nonprofit organisations. It argues that there are limitations in both the way governance has been conceptualised and the ways in which it has been researched. It suggests that research has focussed too narrowly on the boards of unitary organisations, and ignored both the wider governance system and the more complex multi-level and multi-faceted governance structures that many organisations have evolved. It also argues that the dominant research designs employed have been cross-sectional and positivist in orientation. As a result too little attention has been paid to board processes and change and how they are influenced by contextual and historical factors. Based on this analysis some new directions for nonprofit governance research are briefly mapped out.
Power in and around nonprofit boards: A neglected dimension of governance
Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 1992
In this article we propose five patterns of board governance based on the distribution of power in and around boards of nonprofit organizations. The typology proposed grew out of our findings in in-depth case studies in which the dispersion of power became the critical variable for making sense of the patterns of governance observed. These governance patterns were then incorporuted into a survey of boards in the voluntary sector. We present the results of this latter phase of the research by focusing on the associations between the five patterns and the background characteristics of board members, organizational and environmental variables, and board and organizational effectiveness. The results of the study suggest that power is an important while largely neglected aspect of board governance in the not-for-profit sector. INCE its inception, Nonprofit Management and Leadership has reflected a growing interest in the nature and impact of S nonprofit boards of directors. The five articles on boards published between Fall 1990 and Spring 1992 provide a useful identification of the issues, an excellent review of the literature, and a number of interesting new insights into this vitally important, yet still underresearched, subject (Drucker