Purpose
Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) face increasing expectations to transform themselves into flexible, more responsive units that make efficient use of their scarce resources, while serving the needs of their various stakeholders more effectively (Moreau, 2016; Akingbola, 2013a; Ridder, Pienning and Baluch, 2012). NPOs are simultaneously confronted with the need to demonstrate accountability, comply with funders’ priorities and provide more, high quality services against a background of drastic financial cutbacks and increasing market-related competition (Kellock Hay et al. 2001). In light of these demands to improve performance, HRM is claimed to play an increasingly important role in enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of NPOs. Thus, we propose a study with the following objectives:
- To determine the key HRM practices in nonprofit organizations.
- To analyze the impact of the application of HRM practices on job satisfaction in these organizations.
Design/Methodology/Approach
We adopted a two-fold design to accomplish the 2 main aims of the present study: (i) validating and defining a measurement scale to assess the management style in this specific setting of organizations and (ii) assessing the impact of this management style on employee satisfaction. Specifically, with respect to the first aim, we conducted an initial explanatory factor analysis (EFA) using principal components, and second, we proceed with a confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) through the structural equation modelling (SEM) technique. For practical reasons, in addition to the assessment of this scale, the analysis of employee satisfaction was also conducted.
The analyzed sample is composed of 62 organizations that answered the annual social report of 2012. These organizations represent 56.879 people associated as partners, board members, volunteers, etc. They have 2.030 employees. And they account for 48.1 million Euros in annual billing and collect 10.4 million Euros in public subsidies.
Findings
The results indicate that 8 out of the 20 analyzed variables determine the HRM style of these organizations. These variables are related to the adaptation of the work to the employee knowledge, work autonomy, training and professional development opportunities, work environment, forms of conflict resolution and quality of leadership, support from colleagues, equality and respect to the environment. These results confirmed that some practices as recruitment and selection, training and development benefits are crucial to define HRM style of the organizations (Condway and Monks, 2008; Rowold et al, 2014). Though, we found that there are other practices that define HRM style too.
We have demonstrated the existence of other variables that they do not appear to be determining factors when deciding on the HRM style in these types of nonprofit organizations. In that sense, Cunningham (2005) suggested that pecuniary compensations were not a crucial factor for nonprofits employees.
According to the results obtained, we can claim that job satisfaction is related to the construct that contains 8 variables related to management style. These results coincide with previous studies done by Berg (1999), Petrescu and Simmonds (2008) and Kaya et al. (2010). These authors concluded that HRM practices as employee autonomy, recruitment and selection, on-going learning and work conditions would influence employee satisfaction in commercial companies. We have found that same factors influence employee satisfaction in nonprofit organizations. Our findings confirmed that employee participation in the general running of the organization, flexibility and balance between work and personal life, or stability and compensation have no significant effect on employee satisfaction in nonprofit organizations. This outcome is important for the design of the employee incentive systems in nonprofit organizations.
Relevance/Contribution
These results are relevant due to the lack of similar studies and the significance of nonprofit organizations as job creators in the European Union. Nonetheless, we believe that the study was performed with a reduced sample of organizations that were focused in a very constricted geographical scope.
Main references
Akingbola, K. (2013a), "Contingency, fit and flexibility of HRM in nonprofit organizations", Employee Relations, 35 (5), 479 – 494.
Berg, P. (1999), “The effects of High Performance Work Practices on Job Satisfaction in the United States Steel Industry”, Relations Industrielles, 54, 1, 111-134.
Conway, E., & Monks, K. (2008). HR practices and commitment to change: An employee-level analysis. Human Resource Management Journal, 18(1), 72–89.
Kaya, N., Koc, E. and Topcu, D. (2010) “An exploratory analysis of the influence of HRM activities and organizational climate on job satisfaction in Turkish banks”, The International Journal of HRM, 21, 11, 2031-2051.
Moreau, C. (2016). Professionalization of human resource management in social enterprises. Thesis dissertation. Université de Liège. HEC Liège-Management School.
Petrescu, A.I. and Simmons, R. (2008), “Human resource management practices and workers’ job satisfaction”, International Journal of Manpower, 29, 7, 651-667.
Ridder, H.G., Piening, E.P. and Baluch, A.M. (2012), “The Third Way Reconfigured: How and Why Nonprofit Organizations are Shifting Their Human Resource Management”, Voluntas, 23, 605-635.
3. Governance, employment and human resource management
HRM_complete_document_annals_reviewed2.pdf 