A Study on Change Leadership : The Case of Non-Profit Volunteer Organizations

Abstract

Volunteer non-profit organizations face changes continually, as well as the private and public sector (Moran and Brightman 2000, p.66; Burnes, 2004). Leading change is an essential part of leadership for organizations that wish to stay fresh and up to date. These non-profit organizations have a social/humanitarian mission objective, are usually owned by their members, and instead of seeking financial profits, they often desire social/humanitarian impact. The difference between non-profit, for-profit, and public organizations could affect the way organizations should handle challenges and changes in non-profit organizations compared to for-profit, and public organizations. This thesis investigates the associated factors of successful change in volunteer non-profit organizations. A qualitative research method with an exploratory design was used to identify these factors. We found indications that a guiding coalition and convincing communication (Kotter, 1995) had a positive influence on change. Also, we observed signs of a positive impact from increasing the formal power of position, limiting formal membership democracy, and having an intent culture-focus. Along with these factors, we also found indications of a positive influence from two elements of transformational leadership in our findings, inspirational leadership, and idealized influence/charisma. Together with these seven factors, we isolated vision-focus from transformational leadership as an 8th identified factor (Avolio, Bass & Jung, 1999; Bass, 1985b).