Abstract
The literature on nonprofit governance and boards has grown substantially during the past 50 years as researchers from a variety of disciplines and fields have studied governance systems and processes to examine how they are organized, the practices they employ, and their relations with and impacts on nonprofits. This essay offers a domain-based narrative review of the research on the governance of nonprofit organizations and how it has developed over these 50 years. Building on literature reviews and a Delphi study, we summarize the progression of nonprofit governance research, employ a multi-dimensional framework to summarize and assess the state of the field, and offer recommendations for future study. We find the increasingly multinational and multicultural literature of the field has become more rich, nuanced, and increasingly inclusive of contingency, complexity, paradox, and the diverse theoretical perspectives that will enhance our understanding of nonprofit governance.
Keywords
Introduction
This is an exciting time in the evolution of nonprofit governance and board scholarship. The literature has grown substantially during the past 50 years, and important insights and perspectives have emerged as scholars from numerous disciplines and fields examined nonprofit boards and governance processes 1 to learn more about the ways they are organized and operate, the practices they employ, and their relevance to organizational performance. Research has expanded across a range of levels, from the micro to the macro, employing a richer array of methods and embracing a substantially larger portfolio of theories, and we have gained significant insight into the actors and entities that engage in governance and how they do so.
The focus for this narrative review is on the study of the governance of incorporated nonprofit organizations (including, specifically and to the degree possible, governance of nonprofit charities) and how it has developed and progressed over the past 50 years. Our purpose is to examine and synthesize the insights of the field as we explore how our understanding of nonprofit boards and governance has evolved. To do so, we draw upon and synthesize the insights of published scholarly reviews of the nonprofit governance literature from the past 50 years (1970 through 2020) with the goal of articulating the key theoretical perspectives, themes, debates, and conclusions to emerge from this burgeoning field of scholarship. Furthermore, we propose a framework to discuss our assessment of the state of the field and offer recommendations, both our own and from others in the field, about what are likely to be significant and productive areas of inquiry for future nonprofit governance research.
A fundamental insight for the development of the field and the domain of nonprofit governance was the need to define governance. As Cornforth (2014) states, nonprofit governance comprises “the systems and processes concerned with ensuring the overall direction, control, and accountability of the organization” (Cornforth, 2014, p. 5), including setting direction, making decisions about strategy and policy, and overseeing and monitoring organizational performance. Furthermore, it is important to differentiate boards from governance. Governance is a process, whereas a board is a structure (Renz & Andersson, 2014, p. 18). Governing boards (usually) engage in governance, yet most do other work too. Furthermore, boards are not the only actors engaged in the nonprofit governance process. Governance researchers also find it necessary to differentiate nonprofit governance from public governance. As Stone and Ostrower (2007) explain, “public governance” focuses on the governmental or societal level, whereas the focus of “nonprofit governance” is organizational.
This essay contributes to the literature of nonprofit governance in four specific ways. First, it offers a history of the field of nonprofit governance research as it has been presented by selected previous published reviews of the governance scholarship. Second, it offers a framework for understanding and categorizing the range and breadth of the field’s literature. Third, drawing on the results of a Delphi study we conducted, it offers a collective sense of what those engaged in nonprofit governance research perceive as the most important and promising of topics for our next generation of research. Fourth, building on the aforementioned, we offer our own recommendations for what we consider to be among the most promising and important areas for future research.
The Structure and Methodology
This domain-based narrative review essay summarizes the past 50 years of literature on nonprofit governance (as reported in key literature reviews) to synthesize insights and consider how our understanding of nonprofit boards and governance has evolved. To do so, we draw upon and synthesize the insights of published scholarly reviews of the nonprofit governance research literature from the past 50 years (i.e., 1970 through 2020) with the goal of articulating the key themes and interests, theoretical perspectives, concerns, and conclusions that have emerged in this burgeoning field of scholarship over this period of time. Our approach is similar to that employed by Huse et al. (2011) in their essay on corporate governance literature. Thus, it is a review of reviews, structured as a narrative describing the evolution of the study of nonprofit governance from 1970 to 2020, with an overview of how it has developed and progressed, its current state of development and, based on these insights, recommendations for the next generation of research. Our assessment and recommendations with regard to the state of the field’s development are based on (a) the application of a framework adapted from Hambrick et al. (2008) and (b) the results of a Delphi study conducted in 2020 that gathered the views of researchers engaged in this domain.
The specific domain of this review is nonprofit governance research, inclusive of all published (English-language) literature reviews of research on the governance or governing boards of incorporated nonprofit organizations. This does not include governance of private foundations, social movements, cooperatives, non-charity member-benefit associations, or similar nonprofits, nor governance studies of other sectors except when uniquely applied to nonprofit governance (e.g., Moi et al., 2014; Stone & Ostrower, 2007). To identify as many English-language reviews as possible from across the world, each member of the research team independently conducted a literature search using “nonprofit governance” as the key words to search. This was executed via a general internet search as well as searches via Google Scholar, Social Science Research Network (SSRN), and Research Gate; citations in the reviews were cross-referenced to identify additional reviews. Twenty-eight reviews were identified. Each review was assessed by each member of the author team for relative completeness (for its era of publication), global orientation, and relevance and contribution to our review domain (i.e., nonprofit charity governance). The 16 reviews determined to be most relevant and useful per these criteria were examined in further depth and each summarized according to research themes, objectives, theories and methods, and challenges for the field (Online Appendix A presents full list). Given the imperative of global inclusion as we assess this research domain, these reviews were considered as a set with regard to authors’ national origins, the nations in which the research was conducted, and inclusiveness. Among the 16 reviews, seven were prepared by European researchers and six by North American researchers; two were conducted by research teams from two regions of the world. Collectively, the reviews report on studies of nonprofit governance in 17 nations. From this compilation, the authors selected the five primary reviews and eight supplemental reviews that collectively inform the core of this article.
While the domain of this review is nonprofit governance, we consider the governance of nonprofit charities (a subset of all nonprofits) to be of increasingly distinct importance as many nations (such as Canada, the European Union [EU] nations, and the United States) have adopted legal frameworks that clearly differentiate expectations for charity governance from those for governance of other types of nonprofits. Thus, in addition to the aforementioned criteria, each of the key reviews was selected for its relevance to the governance of nonprofit charities. However, it must be noted that none focused exclusively on studies of nonprofit charity governance. Indeed, one of the insights we draw from our review is that nonprofit governance researchers historically have taken quite little care in their studies to differentiate the governance of charities from that of other types of nonprofits.
Each of our key reviews offers insights into the governance research of a specific period of time; we can describe these as “eras” of research that correspond generally with the timing of the review. This became our organizing principle or heuristic device for the first section of this essay. Building on the approach of Huse et al. (2011), each primary review was summarized in terms of the review’s era, data sources, stated review focus, highlighted themes, the foci of the era’s research, methods of the era, theories in use, recommendations for future research, and other noteworthy insights from the review. The data drawn from these reviews were compiled into a template, parts of which are summarized in Tables 1 and 2 (and the complete template document is presented in Online Appendix B). It is worth noting that, as of this writing, the most recent complete relevant review identified was published in 2016 (i.e., Van Puyvelde). Subsequently, the Donnelly-Cox et al. (2021) review was shared with us; we offer selected insights from that review but timing precluded the opportunity to incorporate it into the entire project. In addition, we assessed Åberg et al.’s (2019) review that we discuss briefly in the framework section of this essay, but it was excluded as a review due to its singular focus on corporate (business) board literature (it did not draw upon any nonprofit literature). Taken in aggregate, the results of this review process are the basis for our discussion of the evolution of the field. The reviews reflect the progression over what we suggest are five general eras in the 50 years of research on nonprofit governance.
Evolution of Nonprofit Governance Research: General Themes and Perspectives.
Note. NPO = nonprofit organization.
Evolution of Nonprofit Governance Research: Primary Topics and Areas of Focus.
Note. NPO = nonprofit organization.
The second section discusses the development of the research through the use of a framework adapted from Hambrick et al. (2008). The multi-dimensional framework allows us to assess the breadth and scope of the research to date, and discuss where and how research informs understanding of the field. We are able to “take stock” of the current research through a process that draws on the reviews identified earlier as well as additional published research articles that we use to highlight and illustrate key themes. This process was thorough, but not comprehensive, as it is intended to illustrate key research topics with regard to the framework.
The third section of this essay, building on the insights of the previous sections, looks to the future and what may be especially important and valuable to address in future research on nonprofit governance. We begin this discussion with the results of a small Delphi study we conducted to gather and rank the perspectives of the community of researchers currently engaged in nonprofit governance research (the Delphi process methodology is explained in that section). Building on the insights gleaned from the Delphi study, we provide our own assessment of the state of the field and conclude with recommendations for the next generation of research on nonprofits, especially nonprofit charities.
The Evolution and Progression of the Field
As explained above, we find it useful to consider the history and evolution of nonprofit governance research in terms of five eras. The eras overlap to a degree, yet each exhibits distinct themes and interests, growing from and building on the work of the prior era, and each reflects the characteristics of its time. Our characterizations of these five eras of nonprofit governance research (and primary and supplemental reviews for each) are as follows:
The Early Years: The 1970s and 1980s (primary: Middleton, 1987)
The Field Gains Traction: The 1990s and Early 2000s (primary: Ostrower & Stone, 2006; plus Saidel, 2002)
Nonprofit Governance in a Time of Major Public Sector Change: The Mid- to Late-2000s (primary: Cornforth, 2012; plus Stone & Ostrower, 2007, and Jegers, 2009)The Field Gains Substantial Breadth and Depth: The 2000s (primary: Renz & Andersson, 2014; plus Moi et al., 2014; Ostrower & Stone, 2010 and Wellens & Jegers, 2014)
Enriching the Breadth and Depth of the Field: 2010 to 2020 (primary: Van Puyvelde, 2016; plus Schoenberg et al., 2016, and Donnelly-Cox et al., 2021)
In this section, we offer a general commentary on the evolution of nonprofit governance research through these five eras, followed by two tables that summarize evolution of research via the insights of the primary reviews of each era. Table 1 highlights the general themes and perspectives of each era, and Table 2 highlights the evolution of the field in terms of key research topics for each era.
The Early Years: The 1970s and 1980s
The early years are summarized in the review by Melissa Middleton (1987) that analyzes prior work, some of which dated back to the 1950s and the 1960s. The review, however, is primarily based on nonprofit board research that was developing in the 1970s and the 1980s. A good share of the literature was practice-oriented prescriptive writing. Most lacked empirical or theoretical grounding (although agency theory was implicit in much due to its relevance to legal accountability). The board typically was the unit of analysis for this era, and much research conceived of boards as boundary-spanning entities functioning in both environment and organization. The focus was largely on intra-board practices, including linkages among board composition, decision-making, and board and member power in organization-community dynamics. Also addressed were board–management relationships, which Middleton famously characterized as “strange loops and tangled hierarchies” (p. 149)—a phrase that continues to ring true! The theoretical bases of this early era work generally were agency theory and resource dependence theory (given the focus on organization–environment boundary-spanning and environmental uncertainty).
The Field Gains Traction: The 1990s and Early 2000s
Nonprofit governance research began to gain momentum in important ways in the 1990s and the early 2000s, with growing enthusiasm for deepening the research. Both Ostrower and Stone (2006) and Saidel (2002) report in their reviews that boards of unitary organizations were the usual focus of the era, especially the internal characteristics of boards and how they work. In spite of recognition of heterogeneity among boards, most studies still took a “one size fits all” orientation that lacked attention to context or variation in structure. Both reviews highlight that the research focused largely on board and member roles and responsibilities, especially the nature and implications of board composition, as well as board capacity and development, the complexity of the board–executive relationship, and the relationship between board effectiveness and organizational effectiveness. In spite of the launch of a major initiative to identify new and more effective ways for boards to function (i.e., the “Governance Futures: New Perspectives on Nonprofit Governance” project), no fundamentally new approaches to governance were identified (Chait et al., 2004). Chait and colleagues did reconceptualize governance and underscored how board composition could affect board focus, role performance, and decision tendencies. And several studies of this era affirmed the generally positive relationship between board effectiveness and organizational effectiveness, but without establishing any direct causal relationship one way or another (Saidel, 2002, p. 75). The research of this era typically employed cross-sectional designs (essentially none employed a longitudinal approach) and most relied on small relatively homogeneous samples of organizations’ boards that did not reflect the full variation in the sector. Notably, in 2005, Ostrower conducted the only representative sample study ever of the boards of registered U.S. public charities; her findings addressed board structure and composition, board practices and performance, and the impact of executive professionalization on board performance (Ostrower, 2007).
Nonprofit Governance in a Time of Major Public Sector Change: The Mid- to Late-2000s
The key reviews of this era (Cornforth, 2012, and Stone & Ostrower, 2007) highlight two particular streams of the research developing through the 2000s. One stream, as Cornforth explains, extended the work of the prior era, with its focus on board composition, board roles and responsibilities, board–staff (especially chief executive) relations, and board effectiveness. However, a second and exceptionally significant stream of inquiry emerged concurrent with and fueled by the impact of extensive changes to government functioning due to the “New Public Management” (NPM) movement. NPM advocated dramatic changes in government roles, resulting in a “hollowing out of the state” that forced many nonprofits to assume increasingly instrumental roles and relationships with government as they took responsibility for delivery of front-line services previously the work of governmental agencies. The studies of this stream of inquiry explored NPM’s implications for board and organizational performance, including for governance structures and board characteristics, as well as how systems of governance related to stakeholders and accountability (Cornforth, 2012).
Stone and Ostrower (2007), in a hybrid assessment of both nonprofit and public governance literature, exhorted nonprofit researchers to examine these dynamics and consider the implications of public sector governance research for nonprofits. While nonprofit governance research of the era focused on board composition, board–staff relations, and the board effectiveness–organizational effectiveness relationship, the public governance research focused more on the relationship between governance and accountability and performance, governance as a nested or multi-layered concept (i.e., governance occurring at several interrelated levels of analysis, involving multiple actors), and both the formal and informal authority relationships inside and outside public hierarchies (Stone & Ostrower, 2007, p. 424). Noteworthy for this era, as well, was Jegers’ (2009) review of how well and in what ways the empirical and theoretical literature of economics (especially of corporate governance) related to nonprofit governance. This became a small but substantive line of inquiry; his review helped set the stage for further exploration of how economics could contribute to the understanding of nonprofit governance.
While lamenting continued reliance on a narrow set of dominant designs and research methodologies, Cornforth (2012) acknowledged the research of the era included a growing stream of theoretical, conceptual and review articles employing a greater range of theories and increased interest in a (basic but useful) contingency orientation (p. 1127)—a harbinger of productive work to come.
The Field Gains Substantial Breadth and Depth: The 2000s
Nonprofit governance research grew and developed substantially in the 2000s, as multiple reviews from across the world documented, and the field more fully explored, a substantially wider range of topics using a similarly wide range of theoretical perspectives and research approaches. Renz and Andersson (2014) report research had developed considerably, looking beyond the basics of intra-board demographics and structural characteristics to explore the larger systems and processes of governance (even, to a degree, looking beyond unitary organizations) and how these change over time. They found the field engaged most of the levels and units of analysis relevant to the governance process.
This also is the era in which systematic reviews began to more carefully and narrowly differentiate the general domain of nonprofit governance, and many focused more narrowly within the domain of nonprofit organizations. Shcoenberg et al. (2016), for example, presented a definitive review of studies of intragroup dynamics in nonprofit sport organization boards. Moi et al. (2014) engaged in a systematic review of the literature in which they examined 68 studies to compare studies of nonprofit and corporate (for-profit) sector boards. They found about 70% of these studies examined North American nonprofits (vs. 12% European and 13% Australian [p. 140]), and employing Gabrielsson and Huse’s (2004) framework to categorize study types, they summarized Input/Output Studies (13% of studies), Contingency (external context) Studies (18%), Behavioral Studies (behavior, decision-making, and relationships within and outside the board—about 65%), and Evolutionary Studies (linking contingency and behavioral characteristics to explain change processes—but only about 4%). They found nonprofit studies tended to emphasize the behavioral orientation (versus corporate studies, which tended to employ an Input/Output orientation). And in an extensive systematic review of 110 studies from 17 nations, Wellens and Jegers (2014) employed a stakeholder theory orientation to distill insights on the relationship between nonprofit governance effectiveness and stakeholder expectations.
Multiple studies of this era examined the relationship of context and governance, and reviews began to highlight how researchers (notably, Bradshaw, 2009; Ostrower & Stone, 2010) developed contingency frameworks to explain variations in governance structures and practices, including how and why they vary, and how they are influenced by (as well as exercise influence over) contextual factors (both environmental and internal). While often more implicit than explicit, a notable share of the research of this era focused explicitly on governance in nonprofit charities (e.g., Callen et al., 2010; Herman & Renz, 2000, 2004).
Furthermore, as encouraged by earlier writers (e.g., Cornforth, 2012; Hambrick et al., 2008), researchers of this era began to exhibit greater interest in the behavioral structures and processes as they began to more deeply explore the “black box” of nonformal interactions and dynamics and how they impact governance. Exemplary of the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological breadth that coalesced during this era is the volume on nonprofit governance edited by Cornforth and Brown (Cornforth, 2014). The Renz and Andersson (2014) review itself served as a foundational chapter, but the book as a whole quite comprehensively reflected the state of the field in 2014, with greater differentiation of charities from other nonprofit forms.
To support its expansion in focus during this era, the field employed a broader array of theories and perspectives. Looking beyond the mainstream theories (resource dependence, institutional, stewardship, stakeholder and, especially, agency theories), the field increasingly employed
Economics theories, with their focus on transactional cost and economic perspectives,
Strategic management theories, such as upper echelons theory and managerial hegemony theory,
Group process and team development theories, to help explain intra-board and inter-group dynamics in governance, and
Theories of individual behavior (e.g., role theory, social identity theory, and psychological contract theory) to help explain individual behavior in governance roles.
This breadth of theoretical orientations both encouraged and demanded the use of a wider range of research approaches and methods as well.
Enriching the Depth and Breadth of the Field: 2010 to 2020
Nonprofit governance research continued to grow dramatically in the 2010s, resulting in a substantially larger number of governance articles (in an expanding field of nonprofit journals) than ever before. Furthermore, as chronicled by Van Puyvelde (2016), this literature reflected exceptional growth in the mix of empirical and conceptual articles; with empirical articles employing (a) qualitative methods, such as case studies, discourse analysis, or grounded theory; (b) quantitative methods, such as regression analysis, network analysis, or discrete choice experiments; or (c) mixed-methods approaches combining qualitative and quantitative methods. Importantly, while still limited, this era of nonprofit governance research produced a noteworthy number of studies from around the world (including analysts from and writing about governance systems in indigenous and marginalized settings; Van Puyvelde, 2016, p. 9).
This body of work reflected even more fully the inclusion of and (often) a synthesis of an increasingly broad array of theoretical perspectives, from long-standing governance-linked theories (i.e., agency, stakeholder, stewardship, resource dependence, and institutional theories) to a growing number of management, organization, sociological, and psychological theories. Illustrative of this, Van Puyvelde’s (2016) article reviewed an extensive body of “regular” nonprofit governance research (albeit limited to consideration of governance of unitary organizations), but, further, it expanded our understanding by synthesizing governance studies with perspectives rarely employed in nonprofit governance research. Using a multi-theoretical approach that articulated and analyzed the ambiguities, paradoxes, and dilemmas associated with the existing mélange of theories, he offers a more inclusive theory-based framework for nonprofit governance than had been available to date. While highlighting paradoxical concerns and competing theoretical conceptions, he advocates (consistent with Cornforth, 2014) that the field not seek to reconcile divergent theoretical frameworks, instead suggesting they can permanently co-exist—each valued for its utility in understanding one or more specific dimensions of nonprofit governance (Van Puyvelde, 2016, p. 38).
From the vantage point of 2022, we recognize the field has benefited greatly from the increasingly integrative and inclusive orientation of numerous wide-ranging and unique reviews. Drawing on studies from across the world, especially Europe, Australia, and North America, and employing a wide range of theoretical and disciplinary perspectives, these reviews illustrated that our research had become much more multifaceted and nuanced, with the complexity we are learning is essential to truly understanding nonprofit governance (Åberg et al., 2019; Van Puyvelde, 2016). As Donnelly-Cox et al. (2021) observe, the field has come to understand governance as a multi-level phenomenon; as polycentric and engaged with highly complex economic systems that extend beyond the nation-state; and as a combination of organization governance, governance in networks, and systems of co-governance.
Taking Stock: The Current State of Nonprofit Governance Research
The domain of nonprofit governance research has developed substantially over the past 50 years as we have come to understand governance as a system in which multiple actors are engaged in multiple and varied ways (sometimes productively and sometimes not). We also have grown to appreciate that much of what is relevant to the nature and performance of our governance systems cannot be explained by formal and objective structures and characteristics alone; the field has embraced the call to examine the less obvious yet no less important behavioral aspects of nonprofit governance. Thus, there is today widespread acceptance that governance research must embrace a broad range of theories and multi-theoretical approaches, working at multiple levels of analysis and studying a wider range of units of analysis. Accordingly, we find it especially important to employ a multi-dimensional framework to assess the state of the field.
A Framework for Defining the Domain of Nonprofit Governance Research
The framework we find useful to describe and assess the state of the field builds on a framework Hambrick et al. (2008) employed in a special corporate (business) governance issue of Organization Science. Their framework was adapted from Zajac and Westphal (1998), and employs a 2 × 3 matrix to categorize research in terms of two general categories of units of analysis: macro (from the organization outward) and micro (from the organization inward), coupled with formal structure, behavioral structure, and behavioral process categories. Consistent with Hambrick et al., we define “structure” in the sociological sense, and “behavioral structure” refers to the nonformal yet recurrent or patterned practices and arrangements that guide or influence (and limit) the choices and opportunities available to actors in the system. “Process” refers to the non-patterned behaviors and dynamics (actions and responses) exhibited in the system.
We find the categories of formal and behavioral structures and processes useful. But we also consider it important, at this stage in the development of the field, to bring more nuance to the macro–micro dichotomy. Thus, we elaborated the Hambrick et al. framework to identify five distinct levels of analysis:
Individual level. Individual actors and sets of actors (with various roles and actors as the units of analysis).
Governance entity level. Entities within the organization that engage in governance (i.e., the board or subunit is the unit of analysis).
Organizational level. The entity that is governed (e.g., organization is the unit of analysis).
Network or alliance level. Alliances, networks, and other multi-organizational systems (the alliance or network is the unit of analysis).
Ecosystem level. Entire population of nonprofit organizations and how external factors influence governance practices. This level includes the broader socio-political, legal, and economic factors that impact organizations. As such, it includes all organizations that constitute a mission or industry category (e.g., all nonprofit arts organizations) (the ecosystem is the unit of analysis).
The result, with examples for each cell, is presented as Figure 1.
A framework for categorizing research on nonprofit governance (adapted from Hambrick et al., 2008).
The framework is a useful heuristic tool that helps us more fully identify and classify research activity and determine which areas of nonprofit governance have received relatively greater attention and which have received little or none. It is important to note that, while the framework depicts levels and categories as discrete, studies often bridge categories and engage multiple levels of analysis. Indeed, many contemporary studies regularly do so, with much value (e.g., studies of board relations with individual executives such as CEOs). The next section uses the level of analysis in Figure 1 to organize our discussion of the current state of nonprofit governance. The discussion is informed by the reviews discussed earlier, augmented with examples from the literature we find illustrative of each level.
Key Themes in Research on Individual Actors
There is a long-standing recognition that we need to better understand the behavior of individual actors, including board members, officers, and executive leaders (Heemskerk et al., 2015; Van Ees et al., 2009) in regard to task engagement and fulfillment. This stream of research recognizes the individual is embedded in a group, which operates within an organization (Nicholson et al., 2012), and seeks to understand the factors (individual, interpersonal, group, and organizational) that explain and predict behavior of individuals and in particular the tendency of board members to fulfill governance tasks. As reflected in Figure 1, it is important to consider formal structures as well as behavioral processes to explain behavior. A recurring theme in governance reviews (e.g., Moi et al., 2014) has been the need to do more to unpack the “black box” of board processes to understand factors that influence individual participation and engagement. The motivation comes from assertions that weak, ineffectual, or unethical behavior of governance actors is the root of many organizational failures (Smallman et al., 2010). Furthermore, group-level concerns include the potential for collective ignorance (Westphal & Bednar, 2005), a tendency to withhold information that can result in sunk cost decision-making (Morrison & Milliken, 2000; Sleesman et al., 2012), and overall lack of task fulfillment by board members.
Structural research considers questions of how to ensure the appropriate information and resources are available at the right time and to the right decision-makers (Cronin et al., 2011). This includes meeting management practices, agenda setting, committee reporting practices, and clarity of decision authority among committees, boards, and staff (Useem, 2006). There is a body of work that examines how group composition influences individual behavior. For instance, female directors (notwithstanding their minority status in many boardrooms) may exert an influence on the actions of other directors (Boutchkova et al., 2021). Also, clarity regarding board members’ roles and responsibilities is important (Bernstein et al., 2015); role ambiguity contributes to significant variance in board member performance as it influences how and what board members perceive as their responsibilities and, hence, their propensity to exert effort (Brown, 2014; Doherty & Hoye, 2011). Furthermore, director interactions change with the nature of board governance tasks confronted (Pugliese et al., 2015).
The capacity of individuals to fulfill governance roles has received a fair amount of research attention (Engle & Brown, 2019). It is recognized that board members must have the time, skills and experience to do the job (Cornforth, 2001). Balduck et al. (2010) found that cognitive (e.g., long-term vision, professionalism), emotional (e.g., being reliable, being honest), and social intelligence (e.g., listening to others, are nice to be with) are necessary to be perceived as an outstanding board member. Fundamentally, the gap between board task needs and board task performance is often explained by board demographic characteristics (Huybrechts et al., 2016). Research supports that training (Millesen & Carman, 2019), feedback (Harrison & Murray, 2015), and formal structures can foster individual engagement and performance (Jonnergård & Stafsudd, 2011).
An increasing number of studies consider how behavioral factors influence individual task engagement and performance. Van Puyvelde (2016) explores these ideas and synthesizes findings from several studies to summarize what we know and suggests theoretical approaches for future research. Studies consider a number issues, including: one’s sense of safety and trust among members (Huse & Zattoni, 2008; Nicholson et al., 2012), group norms about participation and conflict (Abd Kadir et al., 2018), cohesion among group members (Schoenberg et al., 2016), shared mental models (Solansky et al., 2008), individual commitment to the organization and governance functions (Minichilli et al., 2009), and power dynamics and structural features regarding informal group patterns such as coalitions and fault lines (Barroso-Castro et al., 2020). Task-related fault lines on boards can have strong negative effect on participation (Kaczmarek et al., 2011).
Implicit is the role of leaders, paid staff and volunteer, and how they create the climate and opportunity for individuals to participate (Guerrero et al., 2014). This includes effective facilitation that allows appropriate conflict while managing dominant members. The complex nature of intragroup conflict demonstrates the need to identify intensity in task, processes, and relationship conflict (Kerwin et al., 2011). Conflict can be both functional and dysfunctional and effective leadership creates an opportunity to draw in individual perspectives while building consensus (Willems et al., 2017). Group norms regarding conflict and effort are important to the quality of group decision-making processes as well as tendency for groupthink (Postmes et al., 2001). Many recent studies have focused on the role of board chair, including their relationships with executives and the board (Iecovich & Bar-Mor, 2007), and they generally confirm the impact of chairs is highly variable. Chair effectiveness is substantially a function of interpersonal and leadership skills, and chair level of engagement with members impacts perceived satisfaction with the chair’s performance (Harrison et al., 2013).
Research on group and board member identities (Ashforth et al., 2011; Hillman et al., 2008) suggests that the way board members perceive themselves influences their propensity to participate and engage (Beck, 2014). This includes role identity which refers to the conceptions of ourselves in relation to the roles that we fulfill (Stryker & Burke, 2000). Research shows how organizational identity (the members’ shared beliefs about the central, enduring, and distinctive characteristics of the organization) influences the construction and enactment of the director’s role and shapes interactions among board members and managers (Golden-Biddle & Rao, 1997). Motivations for service and how those individual motivations interact with group members is also an area of potential exploration (Chen & Kanfer, 2006; Inglis & Cleave, 2006). One study found three individual drivers (need for achievement, need for identification, and self-serving motivation) moderate the relationship between pro-organizational motivation and cooperation and engagement in board roles (Guerrero & Seguin, 2012). Understanding behavior involves a complex inter-play of multiple factors such personalities, abilities, motivations, and supportive structures (Schoenberg et al., 2016; Trost et al., 2016).
Key Themes of Research on Boards and Analogous Governance Entities
A substantial share of nonprofit governance research has, of course, focused explicitly on governing boards and analogous governance entities, and this work has developed substantially in nuance and sophistication over time. That said, prior studies have focused largely on unitary nonprofits, especially the larger and more affluent, and this limits our understanding of the overall domain of nonprofit governing boards. We also have not to any significant degree undertaken longitudinal research; the best approximation we have achieved is a few repeated surveys of boards (e.g., BoardSource, 2017). Unfortunately, we still know quite little about boards of smaller and community-based organizations, as well as multi-tiered and non-unitary organizations, and we are still in the early stages of understanding boards of nonprofits outside of North America, Europe, and Australia—although there has been notable growth in studies from around the globe (Renz & Andersson, 2014; Van Puyvelde, 2016). The following sections highlight the state of our understanding with regard to composition, roles, practices, performance, and the development of nonprofit boards and governance.
Board composition
Board composition has been an enduring topic of interest since the earliest days of the field. Collectively, studies have focused on three themes: the characteristics of people on boards, the determinants of board composition, and the consequences of board composition (Renz & Andersson, 2014). Despite calls to enhance board diversity and inclusion, the composition of boards in the United States (racial and ethnic membership, gender balance, and professional background—we know little yet about socioeconomic status) has remained relatively unchanged over the past two decades (BoardSource, 2017). Mission, organizational size, and board prestige are reported to relate to both racial/ethnic and gender composition (Ostrower & Stone, 2006), and board size and composition are related to organizational attributes, such as funding, financial structure, organizational life stage, and the form(s) of representation undertaken by the nonprofit (Andres-Alonso et al., 2009; Guo & Musso, 2007). There is a correlation between chief executive demographics and board members’ race, ethnicity, and gender distribution; and minorities are somewhat better represented among boards of smaller, less-prestigious nonprofits that serve a higher percentage of minorities than is the case overall (BoardSource, 2017; Ostrower, 2007).
Of particular interest has been whether or how board composition makes a difference. The literature reports that composition influences to what boards attend (e.g., clients on boards tend to increase attention to service delivery; financial experts tend to increase the board’s funder orientation), greater transparency and good governance are related to large institutional and public donors’ presence on boards, members with corporate backgrounds increase the likelihood of use of accountability and financial oversight practices, and boards with a mixed pool of expertise and knowledge exhibit a positive relationship with administrative efficiency (Renz & Andersson, 2014). Board composition also relates to charities’ ability to secure resources, although members’ professional backgrounds have a mixed relationship with giving behavior, and gender has not correlated with levels of personal giving (Renz & Andersson, 2014, pp. 28–29). Guo (2007) also reported that nonprofits with substantial government funding were much less likely to have strong community board representation.
Significantly, board diversity and heterogeneity are associated with some board and organizational performance indicators. Brown (2002) found that boards with a higher percentage of racial minorities positively impacted board effectiveness, Gazley et al. (2010) concluded that greater representation of stakeholder groups was positively related to organizational performance, and Guo and Saxton (2010) found a positive relationship between constituent membership and intensity and scope of advocacy. There is also a relationship between managers and donors on boards and governance effectiveness (Jegers, 2009). However, Fredette et al. (2016) document that diversity has little impact on board or organizational performance unless structures and practices exist to ensure full inclusion. Related, Ostrower and Stone (2006) report that elements of board diversity must be examined in relation to each other as well as individually. Interest in structural approaches to inclusion also is increasing as concerns about legitimacy, responsiveness, and decision quality grow; these include the value of advisory councils (Saidel, 1998) and widely inclusive “community engagement governance” approaches (Freiwirth, 2014).
The roles and responsibilities of the board
Since the 1980s, interest has grown with regard to the roles performed by boards, and how and why they vary or evolve given different contexts and contingencies (Renz & Andersson, 2014). Chait et al. (2004) differentiate three distinct types of nonprofit governance work: fiduciary, strategic, and generative, and multiple studies affirm boards perform three primary functions: controlling and monitoring; coaching and enabling; and fundraising and resource development (Cornforth, 2004; Miller-Millesen, 2003; Ostrower & Stone, 2006). Importantly, these sometimes conflict, resulting in tensions boards must address. Åberg et al. (2019) conducted a review of studies of board service tasks and concluded that higher levels of board capital, commitment, motivation, identification, trust, effort norms, and use of knowledge in most contexts positively affected board service task performance.
There is much evidence that board work is contingent on environmental conditions (e.g., stable versus less stable) (Bradshaw, 2009; Brown & Guo, 2010; Ostrower & Stone, 2010). Several studies find a relationship to funding sources: boards of nonprofits with government funding engage in more financial monitoring and advocacy roles, those with less tend to be more active in fundraising roles (O’Regan & Oster, 2002; Stephenson et al., 2009). Guo and Musso (2007) report that each of five “dimensions of representation” (substantive, symbolic, formal, descriptive, and participatory) has a different kind of impact on organizational governance. Other conditions change the nature of board work, as well as the dynamics of the board, including organizational growth cycles and crises (Mordaunt & Cornforth, 2004; Reid & Turbide, 2012).
Best practices
There is widespread interest for researchers to identify best practices that will ensure board performance. However, given the well-documented heterogeneity of boards and the substantial evidence in support of a contingency perspective to explain board performance and effectiveness, there is essentially no empirical support for a single list (Herman & Renz, 2008; Ostrower & Stone, 2006). Brown and Guo (2010) and Bradshaw (2009), among others, have examined the relationship between internal and external contingencies and found that the use of board practices varied in relation to variables, such as environment stability and the complexity of the organization’s goals. Board and member effectiveness are positively associated with effective use of recruitment, orientation, and performance evaluation practices (Brown, 2007), and certain stakeholders base their judgments of a board’s effectiveness on the use of practices they (specific stakeholders) consider valuable (Herman & Renz, 2008). But every board must make its own judgments about practices that will be best for the time, given its mission, values, and contextual conditions; there is no evidence for any set of practices relevant to all boards (Herman & Renz, 2008).
Board performance and effectiveness
Numerous studies have focused on board performance and effectiveness, with interesting and sometimes confounding results. This reflects, in part, that there is limited agreement regarding what constitutes “board effectiveness.” Some judge board effectiveness by the existence of certain conditions (e.g., board has a positive team culture), some by evidence of the use of certain practices or processes (e.g., regular member orientations or board self-assessments), others by results (e.g., achievement of specific goals), and still others on the judgments of one or more stakeholders (e.g., a CEO’s or funder’s rating of board performance).
Studies have used a variety of bases for assessment (often combinations of the aforementioned), and this has contributed to divergent judgments even with respect to the same board at the same time. This has led some researchers (e.g., Herman & Renz, 2008) to conclude that effectiveness is not a single objective reality, it is a social construction that exists “in the eye of the beholder” and based on their beliefs and certain information and impressions. In fact, they found judgments of board effectiveness to vary significantly among various constituents. The implication of this is that researchers need to be clear and transparent about how they define and measure board effectiveness, and whose judgments are the basis for their ratings.
Recent surveys of those closest to boards (e.g., board chairs, CEOs, board members) tend to report their boards perform moderately well, handling certain roles and tasks well and others less well. BoardSource (2017) surveys generally find that CEOs and board chairs rate their boards’ performance as mixed: high on financial management and legal and ethical oversight, moderately high on areas such as strategic planning and CEO support, and very poor on fundraising and monitoring legislative and regulatory issues. Also consistently listed among the worst areas of board performance is the need to increase board diversity (BoardSource, 2017, p. 28).
In their stakeholder-oriented review, Wellens and Jegers (2014) reviewed the relationship between nonprofit governance effectiveness and stakeholder expectations (considering seven categories of internal and external stakeholders) and reported that a myriad of dimensions of governance dynamics and challenges were related to conflicts among various stakeholders’ expectations; they underscored the inappropriateness of considering the governance-related needs and objectives of board members and managers as similar to those of other relevant stakeholders.
Board capacity and development
Given the importance of boards, and the general level of frustration many express for inadequate board performance (Chait et al., 2004), several have assessed the efficacy of initiatives to enhance board capacity and performance. Holland and Jackson (1998) documented the value of focus on the development of three dimensions of governance—the formal, the behavioral structures, and behavioral processes, and they and others around the world document the value of well-grounded, systematic planned board development approaches (including self-assessment-based online approaches) for board improvement (e.g., Gill et al., 2005; Harrison & Murray, 2015; Lichtsteiner & Lutz, 2012). Notably, there is to date no evidence any specific approach is always best (e.g., Brudney & Nobbie, 2001).
Key Themes in Organization-Level Governance Research
Organization-level governance studies generally bridge levels of analysis, especially the governing entity level and the organizational level, but studies also have examined the individual (board member) and organization levels. There is extensive evidence of an important and positive relationship between board effectiveness and organizational effectiveness, although only Jackson and Holland (1998) document a causal link between board performance and organizational effectiveness. There is broader evidence of a linkage between perceptions of board performance and perceptions of organizational performance (many studies have used perceptions of chief executives and perceptions of board chairs and/or board members). Green and Griesinger (1996) reported board activities that strongly correlated with organizational effectiveness included policy formation, strategic planning, program monitoring, financial planning and control, resource development, board development, and dispute resolution. The Du Bois et al. (2007) review examined this from a different perspective by categorizing studies in terms of whether they considered board effectiveness or organization effectiveness to be the dependent variable; on balance, they concluded, the evidence in support of claiming causality in one direction or the other was equivocal and therefore no firm empirical basis affirms either. Renz and Andersson (2014, pp. 32–33) identified a number of studies that documented a positive relationship, but their designs lacked the capacity to assess causality (i.e., do effective boards lead to effective organizations, or vice versa, or both?).
Several studies from across the world suggest a relationship between board composition and organizational performance, including between donors on boards or finance committees and organizational efficiency (Callen et al., 2010; Jegers, 2009) and board characteristics (size, membership, and committee structure) and efficiency (Andres-Alonso et al., 2006). The relationship between boards and executives also is relevant (e.g., Kreutzer & Jacobs, 2011).
Another area of study considers the impact of various actors inside and outside nonprofit organizations, and how such actors relate to issues of control, accountability, power, strategy, efficiency, and performance. These actors have been given different labels—such as principals, agents, stakeholders, and claimants—and examined using a variety of theoretical lenses, including agency, stakeholder, institutional, and resource dependency theories (Renz & Andersson, 2014; Van Puyvelde, 2016). The emphasis on inside and outside actors has contributed to greater understanding and appreciation of governance beyond boards. Studies of the plurality of governance actors also have increased appreciation for the wider governance system and the more complex governance structures of many nonprofits (e.g., Freiwirth, 2014).
A third theme of prominence advocates a contingency approach to understanding nonprofit governance (Bradshaw, 2009). Ostrower and Stone (2010) reported relationships among internal organizational characteristics, board attributes, external organization environment, and board roles and responsibilities, and argue nonprofit scholars therefore should approach governance as a “conditional phenomenon” (different governance features are influenced by different contingencies and the same contingency may in some cases affect the same governance elements differently) (p. 919).
Governance of hybrid organizations
A growing number of studies focus on the changing and increasingly multifaceted context for nonprofit action (Renz & Andersson, 2014; Van Puyvelde, 2016). Hybridization has emerged as a way to capture the amalgamation and interweaving of disparate structural and institutional features, blurring the boundaries of nonprofit, for-profit, and government sectors. One theme is the way hybridization helps depict and explain the adaptive response of the nonprofit sector to changes in the institutional and resource environments. Smith (2014) and Cornforth (2012) both characterize nonprofit hybridization as response to widespread influence of NPM and the consequent hollowing of the state. Hybridization is a means to reinvent nonprofit governance and performance, using alternative institutional logics, yet it also can create governance challenges as nonprofits seek to juggle multiple logics simultaneously. Hybridization has also been a driver for research on governance in hybrid-type organizations such as social enterprises, which take a variety of legal forms to simultaneously address commercial and social purpose goals (Mair et al., 2015).
Key Themes of the Research on the Networks and Alliances Level
Nonprofits have for decades been active in interorganizational relationships but, in recent years, we have seen significant growth in the number and complexity of these relationships (Renz, 2020). This growth has spurred some researchers to examine the unique governance needs and dynamics of these networks and alliances. In fact, in such cases, the network itself is the organization to study (Bradshaw & Toubiana, 2014; Stone et al., 2010). The “network as organization” perspective both informs and challenges our efforts to understand governance in different and sometimes complementary organizational forms because, while alliances and networks usually have individual organizations as members, they also require their own system of governance apart from the organizational level. Provan and Kenis (2008), arguing for examination of the network and its governance as a discrete level and unit of analysis, document a relationship between governance and network effectiveness and identify four key factors that influence a network’s form of governance (trust, number of participants, degree of goal consensus, and need for network-level competencies), and highlight three fundamental tensions of network governance (efficiency versus inclusion, internal versus external legitimacy, and flexibility versus stability).
Importantly, these networks often are hybrids of nonprofit and government (and even business) entities, with implications similar to those noted earlier. In their review, Bryson et al. (2015) offer a very comprehensive discussion of governance in nonprofit-public sector networks, identify four elements are key to governance and network success (external environment, governance structure, governance processes, and governance interactions), and report that contingencies likely to influence governance are network focus, partner power balance, and variation among members’ institutional logics—and highlight the challenge of competing logics because “actions, processes, norms and structures that are seen as legitimate from the vantage point of one institutional logic may be seen as less legitimate or even illegitimate from the perspective of another logic” (p. 50).
Key Themes of the Research on the Ecosystem Level
The ecosystem level seeks to identify and understand how industry trends and societal forces impact governance of nonprofit organizations. Renz and Andersson (2014) recognize in their review the need for a more explicit, nuanced, and sophisticated contingency perspective that recognizes operating context. As noted in the earlier discussion of organizational level, Ostrower and Stone (2010) reported relationships among internal organizational characteristics, board attributes, external organization environment, and board roles and responsibilities and highlighted that external factors (e.g., legal, institutional, and funding environments) and internal factors (e.g., age, size, degree of professionalization, life stage) are key contingency factors. Thus, they consider governance a “conditional phenomenon” in which different governance features are influenced by different contingencies and, in some cases, the same contingency may affect the same governance elements differently (p. 919). Similarly, Van Puyvelde (2016) recognized research that explored the importance of environmental dependence and how those concerns are related to organizational survival, organizational legitimacy, and social capital. Indeed, these are integral to the orientation of population ecology, such as addressed by Bielefeld and Andersson (2021) in their discussion of relationship between nonprofit governance and organizations’ environments.
Work to understand the theoretical assumptions and approaches used in governance research could be included as well. Many critical theoretical perspectives relate to work at this level; for example, Coule (2015) provides a critique regarding the assumptions of accountability mechanisms. They argue that expressive, values-based accountability is seen as a source of legitimacy and can produce complex relationships, which challenge the instrumental orientation that principal-agent theory assumes. This critique challenges societal assumptions regarding governance functions and seeks to explore alternative narratives that explain function and dysfunction in governance practices. Explaining the socio-political narratives on nonprofit and charity governance may provide insight into practices carried out by the organizational population, as a whole, or within various subareas (arts organizations, foundations, etc.). This provides an important area of research that moves beyond individual organizational practices to understand variation across types and regions.
Some research considers how mission category affects governance practices across the levels of analysis presented in the framework. Findings about individuals and structures in a governance system may be very different depending on whether the organization’s mission is health care, or arts, or human services. An interesting example is a review that focuses specifically on a particular mission area. Schoenberg et al. (2016) studied intragroup dynamics, but with a very specific focus on nonprofit sport organizations. While some of their findings are instructive for all nonprofits, there likely are variations that we will not differentiate until comparable reviews are conducted with regard to nonprofits in other mission categories.
In addition, governmental context (i.e., variations in laws of different nations and states) is certainly likely to be associated with certain differences found at each level of analysis. This is especially relevant to the differentiation of charities from other nonprofit forms. This also can extend to consideration of the roles of nonprofits in public governance (e.g., Zimmer & Smith, 2021). And Stone and Ostrower (2007) compare and contrast nonprofit governance with broader concepts of public governance and conclude that incorporating a broader public governance perspective could help enrich and expand nonprofit governance research.
Looking to the Future
The growth and development of nonprofit governance research is substantial and impressive. And yet, of course, there is so much we do not yet know or understand. In this section, we share observations on prospective directions for future research, from two perspectives. First, we present a collective perspective of our nonprofit governance research colleagues. Building on that information, we then offer our own ideas for useful future research.
The Governance Research Community’s Take on Future Research
To gain insight on what those who are actively engaged with nonprofit governance research consider to be important and promising topics for future research, we invited governance research colleagues of ARNOVA
2
to participate in a brief two-stage online Delphi survey process during the summer and fall of 2020. In Round 1 of the process, respondents were asked to offer from three to five responses to the question, What are the most pressing, promising, and/or new and innovative topics that scholars could or should pursue to advance the field of nonprofit board and governance research? Twenty-nine responded, identifying 108 overlapping topics. We combined and clustered similar topics to produce a list of 14 categories. For Round 2 of the process, the list of 14 categories (with listing of all topics included in each category) was sent to all people who participated in Round 1 (29 responded, although a few categories garnered 27 or 28 responses). Each was asked to rate (via online survey), on a scale from 1 to 10 (1 is very low and 10 is very high) their assessment of each of the 14 categories, with regard to two questions: (a) How
Summary of Delphi Process Results.
Note. Bolded values indicate top five rated categories for each column.
Respondents identified the following (listed in priority order) as the five most significant categories for future research:
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Nonprofit Governance. This topic is, of course, exceptionally broad and relevant to all levels of analysis; and 71% of respondents rate it as both important and promising as a focus of future study. Among topics identified in this category: we need to study and understand the forces that perpetuate our inability to achieve any substantive inclusion in our governance systems, the options for strategies and practices that successfully enable inclusion and equity in governance, the long-term impacts of inclusive governance practices for organizational sustainability and effectiveness; and (among the deepest) how might various governance approaches influence the perpetuation of systemic and structural racism?
Nonprofit Governance Under Conditions of Disruption/Crisis. Likely reflective of the pandemic and the dynamics of political and civil unrest of the early 2020s, which we suggest has been an era of natural experiments, 67% of respondents assert we should study what has been or is being tried and what we might learn with regard to charity governance. Among most significant themes in this category: What governance designs and approaches adapted well to the depth and pace of disruption, how have they contributed to organizational agility, survival, resilience, and effectiveness, and how might these help us better understand implications of context and contingency?
Governance of Collaboratives, Networks, Alliances. With the growth of increasingly extensive and intensive networks and alliances, especially across sectors to address multifaceted challenges and wicked problems, 59% of respondents want the field to study what approaches and designs work for network governance, and why and how. Furthermore, many see a potential link with how context and contingency impact alliance and network governance effectiveness.
Alternative Models of Nonprofit Governance. A majority of respondents (54%) see significant promise in the study of new and alternative approaches to governance, both existing and emerging. This includes governance in the absence of boards, the impact of lived governance experience as antecedents for construction of governance, and exploring the benefits and problems inherent in different governance models (e.g., sociocracy, less hierarchical models, and non-Western approaches) to understand their implications for performance and accountability.
Relationship of Nonprofit Governance to Organizational Performance and Effectiveness. Many respondents (46%) want to see further research with regard to whether boards matter in organizational performance and outcomes and, especially, how and why. Which governance systems designs, models, and practices deliver significant value and enhance organizational performance, and under what conditions and how might they do so? We would benefit from knowing more, in greater depth and with more nuance, about what makes a difference (including governance actors other than boards and executives, such as members, contractors, other stakeholders). It should be noted that this category was not ranked as especially innovative/promising but quite pressing and important.
When considered in combination, three categories were rated highly for both importance and promise: Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Nonprofit Governance, Governance Under Conditions of Disruption/Crisis, and Governance of Collaboratives, Networks, and Alliances. Two categories were rated as pressing/important but somewhat less promising and innovative: Relationship of Nonprofit Governance to Organizational Performance and Effectiveness and Implications of Context for Nonprofit Governance. Rated of lesser importance yet still among the top five categories with regard to promise and innovation were Alternative Models of Nonprofit Governance and Alternative Orientations and Approaches to Governance Research (i.e., research methods)—although it should be noted that only 19% of respondents included Alternative Orientations and Approaches . . . among their top five categories.
While the categories listed above are the most highly ranked, none of the categories in our Delphi process earned a mean score of less than 5.6 (on the scale of 1–10) for either question. This may not be surprising given that all of these were identified in Round 1 as topics that would be important and/or promising, and it does suggest that all of the categories were recognized as having value in the next generation of nonprofit governance research.
Our Perspective on Future Directions for the Field
The topics identified via the Delphi survey resonate well with us and we share our respondents’ enthusiasm for them as we consider future nonprofit governance research. Given the conclusions, we draw from our use of the framework (i.e., Figure 1) and where we see gaps and opportunities, coupled with the insights generated by the Delphi process, we suggest the following additional topics and approaches are likely to be especially fruitful for future researchers to address.
The research methods and approaches we employ
Reviewers and scholars have long lamented the limitations of research focused on unitary organizations and reliant on cross-sectional studies. To develop, the field requires us to expand our portfolio to a broader range of nonprofit types, especially multi-tiered and federated organizations, and to do so via longitudinal and panel studies that allow us to more fully explore causality and contingency. Furthermore, we need to expand our research to understand the governance of the small grassroots and community-based organizations that constitute (in the United States, at least) a substantial share of the nonprofit domain. Governance in these settings does not necessarily mirror that of larger unitary nonprofits—so the question is, how does it vary?
We also recognize it is difficult for researchers to gain substantive and ongoing access to governance processes and that such data are often complex and multi-layered (Leblanc & Schwartz, 2007), but ignoring these challenges leads to overly simplistic research strategies and over-reliance on self-report measures, which provide limited insight. We suggest the nonprofit governance research community collaborate to develop a comprehensive, inclusive, longitudinal data set (similar to the Lilly Family School’s Philanthropy Panel Study) that will enable work on studies with the rigor that helps us understand contingency, causality, and trends in governance. Enriching our research in this way, complemented by the myriad of data sets emerging in this era of “big data” and data analytics, would very usefully expand the field.
Enriching our understanding of the individual level of analysis
There is much to be gained from further research on the behavior of governance actors, and we need to better understand how and why board members fulfill their responsibilities. There remains ambiguity about performance as it relates to accountability tasks and service tasks. Compounded with the complexities of how individuals interact in groups (Francoeur et al., 2018) and in organizations, we would benefit from greater understanding of functional and dysfunctional behaviors and how those behaviors facilitate (or inhibit) group-level (board) performance.
Building on theories from psychology, such as the motivation–opportunity–ability (MOA) framework would add important insights (Trost et al., 2016). This framework addresses how individual attitudes link to perceived support and role clarity to suggest why individuals might engage or disengage from functional behaviors. Hambrick et al. (2015) build on these ideas and suggest a four-part model of board monitoring to explain board member behavior. Hough et al. (2014) discuss governance as a process of sensemaking and suggest drawing on the insights of Weick (e.g., Daft & Weick, 1984) would greatly enrich our understanding of the nature of governance. While sensemaking as a process is complex, it nevertheless illustrates the challenges confronted by researchers trying to understand behavior. We are encouraged by the growth in the field and recognize that the future of governance is likely to better reflect those complexities.
Considering how governance emerges and develops
We have stressed that nonprofit governance is a process. As such it has a beginning (and an end). Yet, we know relatively little about the beginning and evolution of the governance process. Most research starts from a position where, among other things, the board already exists and is engaged in governance activities. Thus, we advocate the field undertake more research on governance in emerging and early start-up charities. Such research would help address the current under-coverage of the early phases of governance at the beginning of an organization’s life and identify factors that leave an imprint on governance as the organization evolves.
Just as we suggest for the individual level, the field would benefit greatly from additional examination of the behavioral structures and processes at the organization, network, and ecosystem levels of analysis. Our limited understanding of the “black box” of behaviors, decisions, and interactions related to governance in nonprofits, and their impact on the behaviors, decisions, practices, outcomes and the performance of the nonprofit and its governance system, persists. Here, too, we need longitudinal and historical studies of governance processes and dynamics to investigate how nonprofit charity governance structures and practices evolve over time.
Diversity, equity, and inclusion in governance
We highlighted, in the Delphi survey section, the governance research community’s sense of imperative to develop deeper and richer studies in the area of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Consistent with the themes articulated there, we consider it imperative for nonprofit governance scholars to examine in greater depth (including with a critical theory lens) the behavioral structures and processes that affect true inclusion in our systems—especially those of charities. Furthermore, while this is important at the organizational level, we consider this equally essential to examine at the network and ecosystem levels, since this is the level at which what is needed with regard to system change in our communities and systems must occur (e.g., Ansell et al., 2020; Suarez, 2021).
And who really governs?
A unique aspect of research on engagement and inclusion—one that has gained some recent attention—is the study of dominant coalitions in governance. This is central to yet go well beyond inclusion of racial, ethnic, and other oft-disenfranchised segments of our communities in governance. It is not unusual (although we lack prevalence data) that the work of governance is limited to or even usurped by a subset of members and, sometimes, by non-members (e.g., executives, funders) with influence and power (Andersson & Renz, 2021). Board member engagement varies and often lags for many reasons but, when dominant coalitions exercise control, the “outsiders” (those outside this inner circle) are not allowed to engage their rightful roles—leading us to ask “who really governs and how?” This involves study at multiple levels, especially the behavioral dimensions of governance, such as power, influence, interpersonal and group process dynamics, and more (Andersson & Renz, 2021).
Ethics and accountability in nonprofit governance
We also observe with some surprise how little attention has been focused on the study of ethics in nonprofit governance. Ethics receives regular attention in the press, and moderate attention has been paid to organizational management (e.g., Jeavons, 2016) and problems with inappropriate board decision-making (often, failure to honor fiduciary duties). There is little in the research literature on ethics in governance except as related to general frameworks of accountability (e.g., Ebrahim, 2016)—related yet certainly not the same. This offers fertile ground for new scholarship.
Critical approaches to research and theory
Finally, we highlight the growing calls for fundamentally different orientations to nonprofit theory and research. We must include critical and interpretivist orientations if we are to understand phenomena that exist in the “shadows” and generally are overlooked. Critical perspective advocates argue that the positivist orientation operationalized in our research and theory is inadequate and biased, and this undermines researchers’ ability to accurately perceive and understand all that is going on in the governance of our organizations and systems (Eikenberry et al., 2019). Critical perspectives include a constellation of theories and approaches that call for analysts to attend to “the social inequities, oppression, and systemic inequality” of governance systems and the aspects of privilege, exclusion, and discrimination that are inherent in such systems (Guo et al., 2014, pp. 47–48). These theories and perspectives have deeper roots and historical standing, but only recently have become more widely discussed (and, arguably, hold even greater salience in a post-2020 era of governance research). They warrant active study as the field develops.
Conclusion
We delight at the substantial 50-year progression that characterizes the field of nonprofit governance research. This literature has grown so substantially it is exceptionally challenging to do it justice in a single article. Our review of the literature of this domain leads us to conclude that important insights and perspectives have emerged as scholars from a growing range of disciplines and fields have studied nonprofit boards and governance systems to learn more about how they are organized, the practices they employ, and the impact they have on nonprofit performance and even their larger communities. This review highlights that research has expanded across a broad range of levels, from the micro of individuals and groups to the macro of nonprofit organization and network governance systems—inclusive of yet not limited to boards as we more fully recognize the many others also involved in the process of charity governance. We have learned more about the individuals who are a part of the governance process: what motivates them, how they engage in their work, and the implications of their behavior and performance for performance. And at the opposite end of the spectrum, we have learned more about systems of governance that engage yet extend well beyond the scope of individual organizations as more and more nonprofits embrace networks and alliances. And the work of the field has expanded substantially beyond the work of North America and the United Kingdom to respect and engage insights from across much of the rest of the world. As a field, we have indeed begun to embrace a richer portfolio of theoretical and research traditions and perspectives as we continue to study and explain the complex and multifaceted phenomenon of nonprofit governance.
Limitations
While every effort was made to identify and categorize relevant reviews for this review, and we have a high degree of confidence in the completeness of this review, there certainly are limitations and constraints that impact the results of this essay. Because this is a domain review of “mainstream” reviews, each of which inherently reflects the dominant research orientations and biases of its era, such biases inherently contribute to a bias in this essay’s observations. Furthermore, as we noted earlier, much of the early nonprofit governance research and reviews examined U.S.-based nonprofits, so our review reflects that sample bias as well. We also must acknowledge that some relevant reviews may have been overlooked as a result of our choice of search keywords, abstract contents, or the limitations of the search engines we used.
By definition, our process also was limited by sole reliance upon English-language resources—both in the use of the search engines and in the actual review of the reviews themselves—and so we have not considered reviews published in languages other than English. We consider this especially significant with regard to reviews about East Asian and certain African and South American nations. Likewise, our Delphi process for gathering and rating research topics was conducted in English, and the polled networks are those that have chosen to be affiliated or connected with either ARNOVA or one or more of the authors and their institutions. In spite of the global breadth of ARNOVA’s membership, this approach certainly has the potential to fail to include others whose opinions and insights would add substance and value.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-nvs-10.1177_08997640221111011 – Supplemental material for The Evolution of Nonprofit Governance Research: Reflections, Insights, and Next Steps
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-nvs-10.1177_08997640221111011 for The Evolution of Nonprofit Governance Research: Reflections, Insights, and Next Steps by David O. Renz, William A. Brown and Fredrik O. Andersson in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly
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.
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