Date

10-14-2026

Department

Graduate School of Business

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration (PhD)

Chair

Cheryl Washington

Keywords

new managerialism, nonprofit membership organizations, nonprofit leadership, mission alignment, knowledge sharing, organizational conflict

Disciplines

Business

Abstract

Nonprofit membership organizations increasingly adopt new managerialism and for-profit-style business practices to strengthen sustainability, improve performance, and respond to changing revenue conditions. However, these practices may create tension when they appear to conflict with member-focused mission, collaborative decision-making, knowledge sharing, volunteer capacity, and leadership loyalty. The purpose of this flexible, multiple-case study was to explore the challenges nonprofit human resource membership organizations faced when adopting new managerialism and to investigate how this business model influenced organizational mission, leadership values and practices, knowledge sharing, organizational conflict, and leadership loyalty to the nonprofit mission. Guided by a constructivist paradigm, the study explored how participants constructed meaning from their lived experiences of organizational change. Data were collected through 28 semi-structured interviews across two bounded cases. The findings suggested that participants did not uniformly reject business discipline and that business discipline and nonprofit mission may not be inherently incompatible. Rather, participants indicated that new managerialism became most challenging when communication, onboarding, governance, and leadership infrastructure did not keep pace with the business practices being adopted. The study contributes to the literature by extending new managerialism research into nonprofit human resource membership organizations and offers research-informed guidance for nonprofit boards and executives seeking sustainability without compromising mission.

Download

Included in

Business Commons

Share

COinS