Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2011
Abstract
During the recent Great Recession and its aftermath, from 2007 - 2010, nonprofit organizations had to carry out their charitable missions to larger and needier constituencies despite endowment erosion, dwindling contributions, reduced staff, and severe funding cuts. Findings from our qualitative research guided this quantitative study, which used PLS to analyze results from 351 online surveys to discern how executive nonprofit leaders and their boards influenced organizational resiliency during this critical period, by employing protective / anticipatory measures and defensive / containment practices, as well as coping strategies. In this exploratory study, leaders' previous experience and external task focus, and demonstrated allegiance by boards were analyzed as causal agents for reliable, defensive performance. Our model, based on social psychology, organizational behavior theory, and actual nonprofit practice, provides a mission-defensive framework for analyzing connections between these predictors and risk resolution, mindful practice, coping and enterprising interventions, and financial resiliency. Findings reveal the influence Mindfulness and Mission-Defensive Posture exert on constructive outcomes during times of economic adversity, and substantiate a dynamic list of strategies that may be employed to counter the next recession's impact. In addition, we found that organizations used resourceful enterprises to generate new revenue, and also chose retrenchment options, including deficit spending, as a means to continue serving constituents. Further, we establish a scale for measuring 18 Mindfulness construct items postulated by Weick & Sutcliffe (2007).
Keywords
entrepreneurs, Great Recession, adversity, mindfulness, mission-defensive, reliability, resilience, leadership, risk, crisis, ethics, task orientation, board commitment, coping, enterprising, entrepreneurial.
Rights
© The Author(s). Kelvin Smith Library provides access for non-commercial, personal, or research use only. All other use, including but not limited to commercial or scholarly reproductions, redistribution, publication or transmission, whether by electronic means or otherwise, without prior written permission is strictly prohibited.
Department/Center
Design & Innovation
Recommended Citation
Roche, Kathleen, "Nonprofit Performance During the Great Recession: Damned If You Do and Damned If You Don't - Mission-Defensive Paradox" (2011). Student Scholarship. 319.
https://commons.case.edu/studentworks/319