Managerial Development Programs for Executive Directors and Accountability Practices in Nonprofit Organizations

Abstract

Facing the potential leadership deficit and mounting pressures for performance and accountability, government and nonprofit organizations have become more interested in providing training and development programs for their executives. However, existing research falls short in explaining the utility of managerial development programs in achieving performance and accountability in public and nonprofit contexts. This study examines how executives’ participation in various managerial development programs is associated with the adoption of organizational practices for financial, client-service, and performance accountability, using a survey of nonprofit human services organizations. The results reveal that organizations whose executives participated in managerial development programs are more likely to have such practices. In particular, the results show that participation in general management and administration training and regular mentoring is positively associated with accountability practices in all three areas. Overall, the findings suggest that providing incumbent executives with training and development opportunities is as important as recruiting qualified individuals in ensuring organizational accountability and performance.

Keywords

Managerial development nonprofit organizations mentoring accountability

Introduction

Today’s government and nonprofit organizations are under increasing pressure for organizational accountability (Anheier & Salamon, 2006; Wong & Welch, 2004). The growth of the nonprofit sector and the increased partnership between government and nonprofit organizations, coupled with the rapid development of information technology, has increased the citizens’ demand and expectation for accountability in both government and nonprofit organizations. The growing demand for accountability, in turn, has led to accountability-centered reforms in these organizations, assessing and evaluating their performance in a wide range of areas (Dubnick, 2005; Jones & Mucha, 2014). As Kearns (1994) states, the modern definition of accountability is not limited to the answerability to a higher authority or oversight agency, but itinvolves managing diverse expectations of stakeholders, within and outside of the organization (Romzek & Dubnick, 1987). Therefore, organizations do not only comply with the external control mechanisms required by law, but they also proactively adopt diverse measures for financial, service, and performance accountability.

Research suggests that executives’ capacity in terms of managing human resources, financial resources, and stakeholder relationships is a key element in determining organizational accountability regardless of sector (Hambrick & Mason, 1984; Rainey & Steinbauer, 1999). Day and Lord’s (1988) study of top-level leaders in both the private and public sectors reports that executive leadership explains 20% to 45% of the variance in organizations’ performance. In the public sector, the bureaucratic structure ensures that top executives have the authority and control over the agency’s operations to keep it accountable. In the nonprofit sector, the CEO is responsible for the effective governance of the organization while the ultimate legal accountability is in the hands of the board of directors. The public management literature emphasizes the importance of management in determining organizational success (Fernandez, 2005; Meier & O’Toole, 2002) and suggests that top executives play a pivotal leadership role in managing and ensuring organizational accountability (Heimovics, Herman, & Coughlin, 1993; Romzek & Dubnick, 1987). In particular, research finds that executives’ goals and standards regarding organizational performance and accountability drive the adoption of organization-wide performance-oriented practices (Rutherford & Meier, 2015).

While executives’ leadership and their performance and accountability standards may be products of the personal traits, and therefore, not be entirely taught (Allio, 2005; Van Wart, 2003), scholars agree that a great extent of managerial knowledge and capacity can be developed through training. Empirical research supports the importance of executive development, reporting that managerial training increases organizational effectiveness and accountability (M. J. Burke & Day, 1986; Phillips, 2003; Seidle, Fernandez, & Perry, 2016). Hence, there has been a continued interest in the landscape of executive training programs, and today’s organizations invest in managerial training and development to improve their performance and accountability (Phillips, 2003; Seidle et al., 2016; Teitel, 2005). Managerial development is defined as “the process by which managers acquire various skills and knowledge that increases their effectiveness” (Skylar Powell & Yalcin, 2010, p. 228). While the benefits and utilities of such programs are widely accepted, scholars suggest that the content of development programs and their effects differ across the sectors (Berman, Bowman, West, & Van Wart, 2015; Y. Lee & Sabharwal, 2016). For instance, Berman and his colleagues (2015) point out that the majority of training programs offered in government focuses on ensuring legal compliance, while training in the private sector is often equated with future worth to the organization. Y. Lee and Sabharwal’s study (2016) supports this view by finding that work-related training is positively associated with job satisfaction in for-profit firms, but it is unrelated to job satisfaction in nonprofit and public organizations.

Facing the potential leadership deficit and mounting pressures for performance and accountability, public and nonprofit organizations have become more interested in training and development of their executives (Fernandez, Cho, & Perry, 2010; Shin & McClomb, 1998; Teitel, 2005). Scholars also argue that these organizations must proactively embrace better accountability mechanisms to gain legitimacy in an increasingly competitive market (Ridder & McCandless, 2010). However, the existing research on management-performance and accountability link falls short in explaining the utility of managerial development programs for public and nonprofit executive directors in terms of organizational accountability. This study examines how executive directors’ participation in managerial development and training programs predicts an organization’s adoption of various accountability practices, using the data of nonprofit community organizations in the United States. Nonprofit and public organizations are similar in that they both face ambiguous and multidimensional accountability criteria (Brooks, 2002). Accountability in these organizations includes not only financial aspects but also the attainment of broader goals for society. As Brooks (2002) mentions, nonprofit organizations can offer useful examples of the problems that the public management research seeks to address and answer as much as public management literature can help illuminate nonprofit management issues. Therefore, implications of this study can be applied to public management as well as nonprofit management contexts. The next section discusses the literature on the managing for accountability and how executive training programs may contribute to improved accountability in nonprofit organizations. The subsequent sections present the study’s hypotheses, research methodology, and findings. We conclude with discussions of implications for the public and nonprofit management and for further research.

Literature Review: Executive Training and Organizational Accountability

One of the main tasks of top executives is to assess the organization and its environment and sets organizational goals (Rutherford & Meier, 2015; Van Wart, 2003). To achieve these goals, they use their skills and knowledge of various areas of organizational performance. O’Toole and Meier explain that management exerted by executive directors influences the organizational performance by “1) creating structure for the organization and thus system stability, 2) buffering the organization from environmental influences, and 3) exploiting opportunities in the environment” (O’Toole & Meier, 1999, p. 505). Allison (1980) also divides managerial functions into three categories of strategy, managing internal components, and managing external constituencies. Executives’ role in ensuring organizational performance and accountability is especially important in public and nonprofit organizations because these organizations deal with “the diversity of legitimate and occasionally conflicting expectations” (Romzek & Dubnick, 1987, p. 228). Accountability in public and nonprofit organizations inevitably involves managing the diverse expectations of stakeholders within and outside the organization and adopting both explicit standards and implicit norms (Mashaw, 2006). Empirical research indeed finds that qualification of executives is a significant predictor of organizational success in a wide range of areas, emphasizing the importance of management to organizational accountability (Meier & O’Toole, 2002).

Given the critical role of executives in ensuring organizational accountability in the public and nonprofit sectors, more organizations invest in training and development programs for their executives (Fernandez et al., 2010; Teitel, 2005). Executive training programs typically include “human relations, general management functions, problem solving and decision making, self-awareness, motivation/values, and specialties” (M. J. Burke & Day, 1986, p. 232), and certain skills such as critical thinking, communications, and negotiation can be taught (Allio, 2005). Research also suggests that, although managerial and leadership training generally improves leadership skills, its impacts vary significantly across different programs (Getha-Taylor, Fowles, Silvia, & Merritt, 2015). In the present study, we examine the relationship between executive training and its consequences, focusing on whether executive training programs bring the expected results in terms of improved accountability practices in these organizations.

The Nonprofit Context

The growth of the nonprofit sector and its importance in delivering public service require professionally trained nonprofit administrators (Dolan, 2002). While the traditional conception of nonprofit leadership is based on the hierarchical structure with a board of directors at the top and a chief executive hired to assist the board as a subordinate, recent studies show that executive directors of nonprofit organizations play a determining role in assuring organization’s performance and accountability, often assuming greater responsibility than the board (Block, 2011a; Herman & Heimovics, 1990). Nonprofit boards delegate management authority to their executive directors who take the central duties in organizational operations and use the delegated authority to exert power for achieving the organizational goals and mission in organizational operations (Block, 2011a; Heimovics & Herman, 1989; Herman & Heimovics, 1990). In addition, executive directors in nonprofit organizations engage with other important external stakeholders including governmental officers, donors, and customers (Herman, 2011). Given the critical leadership role of nonprofit chief executives, they are expected to use their skills, knowledge, and capabilities to respond to uncertain environments, and take advantage of developing their organizations by changing themselves.

Dane (1983) further contends that effective service delivery of nonprofit organizations depends upon managers’ job-related skills and knowledge, which contain financial planning and budgeting, personnel management, and program monitoring and evaluation. Research suggests that there is no single or universal set of managerial development programs for executive directors or top-level leaders in nonprofit organizations because of the diversity and heterogeneity within the nonprofit sector (Heimovics & Herman, 1989; Millesen & Bies, 2007). Nonprofit organizations indeed perform different functions and confront unique environments in terms of funding, clientele, and their relationship with government. Therefore, conclusions about one type of nonprofit organizations do not necessarily translate to other types (Boris & Steuerle, 2006). Despite the variations among organizations and the difficulty in generalizing specifics of the training programs, scholars argue that managerial development programs can be laid between “very abstract principles and specific prescriptions” (Øvretveit, 2008, p. 103). This study tests if executives’ participation in four areas of managerial development programs explains the accountability practices in human service nonprofit organizations in the United States. While the types of specific skills required vary from one organization to another, the common types of managerial development programs in the nonprofit sector includes general management and administration, fund-raising, service delivery, and mentoring (Austin, Regan, Samples, Schwartz, & Carnochan, 2011; Dane, 1983; Dolan, 2002).

Training in General Management and Administration

General management and administration trainings cover a wide variety of topics from interpersonal communication skills and human resources management to productivity improvement and business strategies (Bolt, 1987). While the generic approach to management assumes that common management principles apply to all types of organizations, research suggests that managing a nonprofit organization requires distinctive ability to integrate the organization’s mission, the acquisition of resources, and strategy (Herman, 2011). Scholars argue that the complexity of the relationship among a nonprofit’s stakeholders requires its executives to adopt a multifaceted and flexible approach as well as a higher tolerance for ambiguity, which are not necessarily consistent with the models from the business and government sector management (Anheier, 2005; Worth, 2014). Ideally, managerial development programs for managers in human service organizations emphasize flexibility and control in managing the internal and external dimensions of an organization (Austin et al., 2011; Preston, 2005). The literature explains that the double bottom line of a social mission and financial bottom line imposes a fundamental challenge to the management of nonprofit organizations (Hamann & Foster, 2014; Worth, 2014). These unique challenges suggest that nonprofit executives benefit from training in general management and administration of nonprofit organizations even if they have management experience in other sectors, as well as from training in specific areas.

Training in Fund-raising

Charitable and philanthropic giving is a significant source of nonprofit revenue although its importance varies considerably among subsectors (Worth, 2014). Fund-raising programs these days are complicated affairs, and nonprofit organizations use a variety of strategies to raise funds (Hager, Rooney, & Pollak, 2002; Worth, 2014). Research suggests that equipping accountability measures is an important aspect of fund-raising strategies because established accountability systems within an organization influence donor behaviors (Sloan 2009). While “fund development professionals” have become a significant part of the nonprofit workforce (Hager et al., 2002, p. 315), nonprofit executives are frequently involved in fund-raising efforts. Studies report that and fund-raising is one of main responsibilities of a nonprofit CEO even in organizations with designated development staff (Ahmed, 2005; Block, 2011b; Dolan, 2002; Watson & Hoefer, 2013). Dolan’s (2002) survey also reports that training in fund-raising is the most necessitated area by nonprofit executives followed by grant writing, volunteer administration, and planning. Training in fund-raising can help nonprofit executives find new funding opportunities, understand many aspects of fund-raising, and even encourage employees to feel more confident when they reach out for fund-raising (Wagner & Hall-Russell, 1999).

Training in Service Delivery

A nonprofit organization’s performance is ultimately measured against its mission, which states the organization’s purpose, what groups it serves, and how it plans to do so (Sawhill & Williamson, 2001). Therefore, the fundamental measure of accountability and performance in a nonprofit organization is the quality of service it provides to its clients. Nonprofit executives have the responsibility to ensure the quality and effectiveness of their charitable programs. Although executive directors may not directly engage in day-to-day service delivery, it is critical for them to have the basic understanding of the services the organization provides to control their quality (Kara, Spillan, & DeShields, 2004; Olsen & Holmes, 1982). Moreover, the nonprofit sector is evolving from the purely volunteer-based informal model to the model characterized by professionalization and rationalization of its workforce (Hwang & Powell, 2009). The rapidly increasing professionalization of nonprofit service suggests that executive directors equip themselves with the knowledge about the services the organization provides to manage employees with a high level of professional expertise.

Mentoring

Mentoring is defined as the development assistance provided by a more experienced individual in a dyadic relationship with the mentored individual (Higgins & Kram, 2001). Research finds that mentoring leads to various positive changes in an individual and organizational performance and accountability (Allen, Eby, Poteet, Lentz, & Lima, 2004; R. J. Burke, McKeen, & McKenna, 1994) and that majority of large corporations in the United States deploy formal mentoring programs for executives and managers (Allio, 2005). The literature explains that mentoring is an especially effective way of transferring knowledge when the information is rich in tacit dimensions (Swap, Leonard, Shields, & Abrams, 2001). Unlike traditional training programs, mentoring programs are also likely to be tailored to individual executives’ training needs, which may lead to more effective outcomes (Skylar Powell & Yalcin, 2010). In particular, with the predicted increase in executive transition in nonprofits, incoming executive directors benefit from mentoring by former executives (Fischer & Beimers, 2009).

Hypotheses: Managerial Development Programs and Accountability Practices

The growing concerns about nonprofit accountability among donors, governments, and citizens encourage nonprofits organizations to make strategic choices to adopt programs and policies for increased transparency and accountability (Kearns, 1994). By equipping proper mechanisms for accountability, nonprofit organizations can build trust among their key stakeholders and public. The term accountability is broad and it is almost impossible to have a comprehensive listing of all the aspects of accountability in the nonprofit sector (M. Lee, 2004). The present study examines how various training and development programs for nonprofit executives explain an organization’s adoption of accountability policies in the three areas of financial accountability, service accountability, and performance accountability.

Financial Accountability

Fiscal honesty and avoidance of fraud is an integral part of nonprofit accountability (Brody, 2002). While exempt nonprofit organizations have a mandatory reporting requirement to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS Form 990), scholars agree that government requirement alone is not sufficient to ensure financial accountability (Irvin, 2005). Donors and other stakeholders demand nonprofit organizations to find ways to improve efficiency and transparency in financial management. The slew of financial scandals that covered newspaper headlines raised public’s attention to the health of financial management in the nonprofit sector. Therefore, accountability in management of financial resources is even more critical to the success and survival of nonprofit organizations these days (McKinney, 2015). Research also finds that charity ratings, which are largely based on financial accountability mechanisms of nonprofit organizations, are positively associated with the donations that nonprofit organizations receive (Sloan, 2009). Hence, having proper financial management procedures for checks and balances and budget preparations will contribute to improving financial accountability of a nonprofit organization.

Hypothesis 1: Executive directors’ participation in managerial development programs is positively associated with the organizational adoption of financial accountability policies.

Client-Service Accountability

The literature explains that responsiveness to clients’ needs and demands is the top policy priority within a nonprofit organization (Lipsky & Smith, 1989). In the context of social service delivery, there has been a great shift in the view on nonprofits’ clients from “program beneficiaries” to “consumers of services” (LeRoux, 2009b, p. 506). This change suggests that clients’ satisfaction with the service they receive is a fundamental aspect of nonprofit human service organizations’ accountability. Today’s nonprofit organizations systematically study target audiences’ needs and preferences as well as their satisfaction using various methods, and they constantly act on this information to improve their service offerings (Andreasen & Kotler, 2008). As a result, collecting clients’ information and feedbacks and using their evaluations of the service quality has become an essential accountability mechanism, and today’s nonprofit organizations collect information from the past and current clients to improve services that they provide (Morley, Vinson, & Hatry, 2001; Roch & Poister, 2006). Research indeed finds that soliciting clients’ input about services and programs through various ways is a common practice in the nonprofit sector (LeRoux, 2009a).

Hypothesis 2: Executive directors’ participation in managerial development programs is positively associated with the organizational adoption of client-service accountability policies.

Performance Accountability

In any nonprofit organization, performance evaluation can be used as an effective tool for learning and formulating future strategies for improved accountability (Buckmaster, 1999). The fundamental question in performance evaluation is “To what extent does an organization reach its goals?” which inherently assumes that the organization has a clearly defined and relatively stable goal and that this goal can be converted to specific and unbiased outcome measures (Herman & Renz, 1999). However, research shows that nonprofit organizations face a fundamental challenge in performance evaluations because of the difficulty in quantifying nonprofit missions and outcomes and the differing and conflicting perspectives among multiple actors involved in the organization, such as funders, clients, government officials, board members, staff, and volunteers (Balser & McClusky, 2005; Ebrahim, 2010; LeRoux, 2009a). Hence, strengthening the organization’s ability to evaluate its overall effectiveness is the first step in improving nonprofit’s performance accountability.

Hypothesis 3: Executive directors’ participation in managerial development programs is positively associated with the organizational adoption of policies for strengthening the organization’s ability for performance evaluation.

Data and Method

This study uses data from the Compassion Capital Fund (CCF) Demonstration Program Impact Study, FY 2006-2008, United States (ICPSR 29481), a survey of 455 faith-based and community-based organizations across the United States (Campbell, 2011; Minzner, Klerman, Markovitz, & Fink, 2014). Participating organizations’ executive directors or knowledgeable program staff completed the surveys. Initially, the survey was designed to examine the effects of CCF program, and pre- and post-intervention surveys were conducted on randomly assigned groups (Minzner et al., 2014). This study uses the pre-intervention survey only, to rule out the possible effects of CCF program on accountability practices. As a result, this study uses responses from 359 organizations, focusing on the relationship between managerial development and accountability policies.

Dependent Variables—Accountability Policies

Dependent variables include three areas of accountability policies, including financial management, client-service, and overall effectiveness. This study first tests how CEO’s participation in various training programs relates to the three financial accountability policies, including whether the organization had financial management procedures that provide checks and balances for ensuring expenditures are properly authorized, whether the organization formally prepared the budget, and whether the organization had an audit of its finances/financial records by an external auditor (1 if it did and 0 otherwise). For the client-service accountability variables, this study utilizes the two measures of whether the organization conducted formal measurements/assessments of the results and benefits of the services provided to clients and whether the organization implemented steps to collect more information about clients (1 if it did and 0 otherwise). Finally, this study measures whether the organization implemented steps to strengthen its ability to evaluate its overall effectiveness (1 if it did and 0 otherwise) for the performance accountability. All the dependent variables are dichotomous, and this study uses binary probit regression analyses in testing these relationships.

Independent Variables—Participation in Managerial Development Programs

This study tests how nonprofit executives’ participation in various managerial development programs is associated with the organization’s accountability mechanisms in financial management, client-service, and performance. The types of the development programs tested in this study include the areas of general management and administration, fund-raising, service delivery, and regular mentoring. As such, the independent variables measure executive directors’ participation in the four different types of development programs in the past 12 months: whether they participated in training related to management and administration, whether they participated in training related to fund-raising, whether they participated in training related to service delivery, and whether they met regularly with a mentor who provided guidance regarding the duties and responsibilities of an executive director.

Control Variables

Nonprofit organizations’ choice of accountability mechanisms is influenced by other factors than executive directors’ training and experience. This study controls for a selected organizational characteristics that may influence nonprofit’s accountability practices, including the number of paid staff, whether the executive director is a paid position, whether the organization is older than 5 years, whether the organization has a revenue greater than US$100,000, and whether the organization is a faith-based organization.

Results

Table 1 shows that nonprofits are doing well in terms of having financial accountability mechanisms in place, as most organizations had financial management procedures providing checks and balances (88.6%) and prepared an official budget for a fiscal year (83.3%). Still, less than four out of 10 organizations (35.9%) had their financial documents audited by an external auditor. Table 1 also indicates that approximately half (49.9%) of the organizations measured clients’ service experience at the time of the survey, and about one out of four organizations (23.4%) had implemented steps to collect more information about clients. In terms of evaluating overall effectiveness, only one out of five organizations reported having implemented steps to improve it.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics (N = 359).

	M (SD)
Checks and balances financial procedure	0.886 (0.319)
Budget preparation	0.833 (0.374)
Audit by an external auditor	0.359 (0.480)
Client-service measurement	0.499 (0.501)
Client information collection	0.234 (0.424)
Overall effective evaluation	0.201 (0.401)
Training in management and administration	0.462 (0.499)
Training in fund-raising	0.465 (0.499)
Training in service delivery	0.479 (0.500)
Regular mentoring	0.479 (0.500)
Total number of paid staff	6.479 (18.412)
Having a paid executive director	0.613 (0.488)
Organization age 5 years+	0.432 (0.496)
Revenue > US$100K	0.432 (0.496)
Faith-based organization	0.510 (0.501)

Probit regression results in Table 2 show how executives’ participation in managerial development programs in different areas relates to the likelihood of having each accountability mechanism. First, Table 2 indicates that participating in management and administration training is positively associated with the likelihood of having a formal budget preparation, measuring benefits of service to clients, implementing steps to collect more client information, and implementing steps to evaluate overall effectiveness. In particular, the average partial effects in Table 3 show that the organizations whose executive director participated in such training programs are 10 percentage points more likely to prepare their budget, 13 percentage points more likely to measure service quality, 17 percentage points more likely to have implemented steps to collect more client information, and 13 percentage points more likely to have implemented steps to evaluate overall effectiveness. Table 2 also shows that executives’ training in fund-raising is positively associated with budget preparation and client-service measurement. The organizations whose executive director participated in fund-raising training programs are 11 percentage points more likely to prepare a budget and 12 percentage points more likely to measure service quality from clients (Table 3). Participation in training related to service delivery is positively associated with the likelihood of client information collection, which is directly linked to service quality control, but not with the likelihood of having other accountability mechanisms. Having a regular mentoring relationship is positively associated with the likelihood of having checks and balance financial procedure, budget preparation, client-service measurement, and overall effectiveness evaluation. The organizations whose executive directors participated in regular mentoring are 7 percentage points more likely to have financial management procedures providing checks and balances, 10 percentage points more likely to prepare a budget, 18 percentage points more likely to measure service quality, and 11 percentage points more likely to implement steps to evaluate overall effectiveness compared with the organizations whose executive director did not have a regular mentoring relationship (Table 3).

Table 2.

Probit Regression Results (N = 359).

	Checks and balances financial procedure	Budget preparation	Audit by an external auditor	Client-service measurement	Client information collection	Overall effect evaluation
LR Chi²(9)	62.27	77.14	174.49	57.54	26.74	27.3
Prob > Chi²	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0000	0.0015	0.0012
Pseudo R²	0.2441	0.2380	0.3721	0.1156	0.0685	0.0759
Training in management and administration	0.382 (0.249)	0.514* (0.228)	0.290 (0.187)	0.367* (0.156)	0.574** (0.169)	0.497** (0.180)
Training in fund-raising	0.207 (0.253)	0.609* (0.238)	0.164 (0.188)	0.326* (0.158)	−0.201 (0.170)	−0.209 (0.181)
Training in service delivery	−0.359 (0.235)	−0.346 (0.209)	−0.262 (0.183)	0.067 (0.152)	0.426* (0.164)	0.318 (0.171)
Regular mentoring	0.440* (0.216)	0.500** (0.190)	−0.222 (0.171)	0.490** (0.142)	0.122 (0.154)	0.409* (0.161)
Total N of paid staff	−0.001 (0.011)	0.025 (0.033)	0.075** (0.022)	0.022* (0.011)	−0.001 (0.004)	0.001 (0.004)
Having a paid executive director	0.564* (0.240)	0.447* (0.219)	0.285 (0.211)	0.007 (0.174)	−0.161 (0.193)	0.109 (0.201)
Organization age 5 years+	0.814** (0.297)	0.418 (0.218)	0.885*** (0.175)	0.007 (0.159)	−0.037 (0.175)	−0.117 (0.182)
Revenue > US$100K	0.814* (0.332)	0.630* (0.271)	0.490* (0.203)	0.119 (0.176)	0.123 (0.189)	0.202 (0.193)
Faith-based organization	−0.105 (0.206)	−0.107 (0.184)	−0.844*** (0.171)	−0.246 (0.141)	−0.195 (0.154)	−0.041 (0.160)
Constant	0.373 (0.204)	−0.052 (0.190)	−1.122*** (0.197)	−0.641*** (0.168)	−1.051*** (0.184)	−1.481*** (0.207)

Note. Standard errors in parentheses.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

Table 3.

Average Partial Effects.

	Checks and balances financial procedure	Budget preparation	Audit by an external auditor	Client-service measurement	Client information collection	Overall effect evaluation
Training in management and administration	0.056 (0.035)	0.096* (0.041)	0.068 (0.045)	0.133* (0.057)	0.168** (0.050)	0.131** (0.048)
Training in fund-raising	0.031 (0.037)	0.114** (0.042)	0.038 (0.044)	0.118* (0.058)	−0.057 (0.047)	−0.053 (0.046)
Training in service delivery	−0.054 (0.036)	−0.066 (0.039)	−0.060 (0.042)	0.024 (0.054)	0.124* (0.048)	0.083 (0.045)
Regular mentoring	0.065* (0.031)	0.095** (0.035)	−0.051 (0.039)	0.176*** (0.051)	0.035 (0.044)	0.107* (0.042)
Total N of paid staff	−0.000 (0.002)	0.005 (0.006)	0.017*** (0.005)	0.008* (0.004)	−0.000 (0.001)	0.000 (0.001)
Having a paid executive director	0.084* (0.036)	0.088* (0.044)	0.068 (0.051)	0.002 (0.061)	−0.046 (0.056)	0.028 (0.051)
Organization age 5 years+	0.103** (0.030)	0.077* (0.038)	0.235*** (0.049)	0.002 (0.056)	−0.010 (0.050)	−0.030 (0.046)
Revenue > US$100K	0.101** (0.033)	0.113* (0.044)	0.124* (0.055)	0.042 (0.062)	0.035 (0.054)	0.053 (0.051)
Faith-based organization	−0.016 (0.031)	−0.020 (0.035)	−0.204*** (0.040)	−0.087 (0.050)	−0.056 (0.044)	−0.011 (0.041)

Note. Standard errors in parentheses.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

The results indicate that the adoption of financial accountability mechanisms is significantly associated with the organizational resources and maturity. Table 3 shows that organizations with annual revenue greater than US$100,000 are 10 to 12 percentage points more likely to have the three financial accountability policies examined in this study. Organizations that are 5 years old or older are also 8 to 24 percentage points more likely to have those three financial accountability policies than newer organizations. The findings also reveal that there is little difference in accountability practices between faith-based and secular organizations, except in terms of the external audit of financial documents.

Discussion

This study examines how nonprofit executives’ participation in various development programs in the past year explains the organizational accountability mechanisms in the three areas of financial management, client-service, and performance. The results suggest that development programs for nonprofit executives are positively associated with organizational accountability practices in all three areas. The external audit of financial documents is one exception, which seems to depend on organizational resources, history, and identity rather than executives’ training.

The findings of this study suggest that different training and development programs have varying impacts on accountability practices. Overall, the findings suggest that two areas of development programs are of particular importance. First, results show that nonprofit executives’ participation in general management and administration training is positively associated with the organization’s likelihood of implementing policies for all three areas of financial accountability, client-service accountability, and performance accountability. Second, the results indicate a significant discrepancy in accountability practices between the organizations whose executives met regularly with a mentor and those whose executives did not have regular mentoring. The findings show that regular mentoring is positively associated with all three areas of accountability mechanisms. In summary, the findings imply that what executives learn from general management and administration training programs and mentoring contributes more to the improved accountability mechanisms than what specialized training programs offer.

This study contributes to our understanding of the utility of executive development programs in the nonprofit sector by empirically testing how nonprofit executives’ participation in various development programs predicts the organization’s adoption of accountability mechanisms for financial procedures, client-service, and performance. Although the findings are based on a sample of nonprofit organizations, they have significant implications for public management and leadership training in the public sector. In particular, the implications of the findings apply to public management given the multidimensionality of organizational accountability and the growing pressure for demonstrating organizational accountability to stakeholders, which are the challenges faced by both sectors. Public management research has emphasized that top executives’ qualification is an important determinant of public organizations’ outcomes and finding a qualified individual is a critical step in ensuring organizational accountability (Andrews, Boyne, & Enticott, 2006; Meier & O’Toole, 2002). The findings of this study contribute to the literature on management-performance and accountability link by emphasizing that providing incumbent executives with managerial training and mentoring is as important as finding and recruiting qualified individuals in ensuring organizational accountability.

The findings suggest that, confronting such crises as leadership deficit and executive turnover, organizations should further invest in general management and administration training and regular mentoring for their executives. One thing that must be clarified is that an organization’s choice of accountability mechanisms is shaped by the external environment as well as organizational characteristics. Funders’ demands, market conditions, and public sentiments toward nonprofits can all influence nonprofit organizations’ practices of accountability. Hence, future studies should investigate how both internal and environmental factors of an organization can influence its adoption and implementation of accountability policies, preferably with panel data. It also needs to be mentioned that better practices of accountability may increase the likelihood of CEO’s participation in various development program, rather than vice versa. However, this potential endogeneity issue is minimized as this study uses information about executives’ participation in the past 12 months and the organization’s current practices of financial, client-service, and performance accountability although the endogeneity issue cannot be completely eliminated. In addition, this study cannot rule out the possibility that the positive relationship between development programs and accountability practices is a spurious one due to the social desirability bias. In other words, CEOs who had participated in such programs might be more aware of the importance of accountability practices than those who did not participate, and therefore, provided “socially desirable” responses. There also exists a potential for a self-selection bias, as 70 out of 455 surveyed organizations did not report information on their executives’ training participation. Next, impacts of a training program may vary significantly depending on its substance and structure. The CCF data do not provide details about each training program, and this study is limited in providing suggestions for program contents. It is also possible that the needs for and the utility of training and development programs differ significantly depending on the position of an individual in an organization (Au, Altman, & Roussel, 2008). While the findings suggest that general management and administration training and mentoring explain improved accountability practices, staff and frontline managers may want training in specialized areas that are directly related to their job. Therefore, future studies should examine the utilities and consequences of development and training programs for staff and frontline managers as well as executives. Finally, the age of the CCF data is another concern, as the survey was conducted a decade ago. The nonprofit sector is the most rapidly expanding and changing economic domain, and today’s nonprofit organizations may face different challenges and opportunities compared with 10 years ago. Nevertheless, the extensive information on executive development program and accountability practices in the CCF is not available elsewhere, and the CCF appears to be the most recent data set that taps executive development in the nonprofit sector. Further surveys of nonprofit organizations will help better explain the current status of executive training and its consequences.

Both scholars and practitioners point out that leaders in the public and nonprofit sectors are facing new challenges under growing pressure for accountability, and finding talented managers and providing them with necessary training is one of the critical tasks of these organizations to meet such challenges (Leslie & Canwell, 2010; Tierney, 2006). More recently, there have been concerns about the ineffectiveness of the traditional form of leadership training, characterized by inspirations and normative prescription (Pfeffer, 2015). Pfeffer (2015) further argues that effective leadership must be based on the understanding of “how the organization works and ecosystem in which the organization operates,” rather than preaching about individual motivation and acts of great competence (p. 185). The findings of this study are in consonance with this argument, showing that practical training programs on administration and service delivery as well as mentoring contribute to positive organizational outcomes. Compared with the corporate sector, where they have long been building the infrastructure for comprehensive development programs for executives and managerial personnel, the public and nonprofit sectors lag behind in understanding the value of executive development programs (Groves, 2007). The findings of this study suggest that training programs and mentoring for executives contribute to improved organizational accountability practices, which stands as one of the most fundamental challenges facing today’s nonprofit and government organizations.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Young-joo Lee is an associate professor of Public and Non-profit Management at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research focuses on human resources management, accountability, gender equity and volunteering in non-profit and public organizations.

Jiwon Suh is a doctoral student in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas.

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