Transcript Measuring Deficiencies in Nonprofit Management Lawrence C. Hunt, Organisational Scientist, Faculty of Business, Education, Law and Arts, University of Southern Queensland, Australia Mehryar Nooriafshar,

Measuring Deficiencies
in Nonprofit Management
Lawrence C. Hunt, Organisational Scientist, Faculty of Business,
Education, Law and Arts, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
Mehryar Nooriafshar, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Business,
Education, Law and Arts, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
Chandrasekhar Krishnamurti, Professor, Faculty of Business,
Education, Law and Arts, University of Southern Queensland, Australia
The Annual International Conference on
Cognitive - Social, and Behavioural Sciences
icCSBs 2015 January
Introduction
• The Problem: The boards of nonprofit organisations need a
simple, practical technique that will measure their performance.
• Traditional, analytical approaches to solve this complex, multidimensional problem have failed to find a solution that has broad
acceptance.
• The Approach: Focus on individual competencies, select
management deficiency as the dimension of management performance
to measure and adopt a heuristic methodology.
• The Objective: Identify factors associated with nonprofit
management performance and build a heuristic model to measure
individual management deficiency in nonprofit boards.
icCSBs 2015 January
Methodology
• Build a model framework to identify factors associated with management
performance.
• Develop techniques to quantify the factors.
• Adopt the heuristic methodology known as simulated annealing to:
Build an initial form of the heuristic model to obtain an initial
solution.
Refine the model to obtain new solutions.
Plot the solution path mapped out by each new solution.
Continue until an optimal state is reached.
• Validate the solution produced by the model by establishing that there is
an alignment of the model results with an assessment of individual
management deficiency obtained by an individual performance ratings
method.
icCSBs 2015 January
Results
Board Members’ Deficiency Ratios
Factors
Average
1
2
3
4
5
6
Age
0.50
0
0.75
0.25
0.25
0.25
0.33
Resistance to Change
0.17
0.33
0.42
0.17
0.33
0.08
0.25
Commitment
0.17
0.33
0.33
0.33
0.33
0.25
0.29
Skills
0.15
0.39
0.45
0.23
0.45
0.37
0.34
Experience
0.25
0.50
0.67
0.17
0.42
0.83
0.47
Knowledge
0.03
0.65
0.28
0.33
0.35
0.80
0.40
Individual Deficiency
0.35
0.59
0.64
0.41
0.55
0.67
0.54
• The heuristic model produced a detailed assessment of management
deficiency across the factors for each board member.
• The results produced by the model for a large sample enabled the
relationships between each factor and management performance to be
analysed.
icCSBs 2015 January
Results
Validating the Model’s Results
Random Sample: 50 NPO board members
Average management deficiency ratios:
Heuristic model: 0.337
Performance rating method: 0.317
T-test for significance of the difference between two means:
Null hypothesis: There is no significant difference between the two means
Critical region: t < - 1.961 and t > 1.961
Computed value of t: t = 0.794
Conclusion: Do not reject the null hypothesis
This statistical analysis established that the results are aligned
which effectively validated the results produced by the model
icCSBs 2015 January
Results
Summary of Results: Primary Factor Average Deficiency
Average
Board
Deficiency
Primary Factor Average Deficiency*
Age
Resistance
To Change
Commitment
Skills
27%
39%
58%
52%
Experience Knowledge
37%
42%
50%
*Average management deficiency results for a random sample of
57 NPO board members
icCSBs 2015 January
Implications for Policy/Practice
• Future research into NPO board performance should focus on
individual board members’ competencies and personal
attributes.
• The methodology adopted in this study:
Provides a foundation for the application of heuristic
modelling to further research in this and related fields.
Could be applied to solve the long standing problem of
measuring nonprofit organisation performance.
• The development of an online application of the model will
provide NPO boards with a performance measurement
technique that is easy to use and produces immediate,
practical results.
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Conclusions
The heuristic model below does produce an acceptable,
approximate measurement of individual management
deficiency, D, for an NPO board member:
D = 0.165 + 0.286 a + 0.238 b + 0.167 c + 0.167 d + 0.071 e + 0.071
where
a = skills factor
c = knowledge factor
e = resistance to change factor
f
b = experience factor
d = commitment factor
f = age factor
icCSBs 2015 January
Conclusions
The analysis of the detailed results produced by the
model for a random sample of 57 NPO board
members led to the following conclusions:
• The main competencies an NPO board member
should possess are management skills, management
experience, relevant knowledge and commitment.
• There is a positive relationship between age and
management performance.
icCSBs 2015 January
Conclusions
• For volunteer-only NPOs, sound management
practices and long term planning are not related to
management performance.
• In general, the experience gained from years of
serving on the board, combined with the
accumulated knowledge of the organisation’s norms
and management processes, forms the means by
which the organisation is managed.
icCSBs 2015 January
Identify and Measure Management Deficiency
in Nonprofit Organisations
Lawrence C. Hunt, Organisational Scientist, University of
Southern Queensland.
Mehryar Nooriafshar, Senior Lecturer, University of
Southern Queensland.
Chandrasekhar Krishnamurti, Professor, University of
Southern Queensland.
The Annual International Conference on
Cognitive - Social, and Behavioural Sciences
icCSBs 2015 January