Female leaders and board performance in member‐serving nonprofit organizations

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21402
• Author: Beth Gazley,Lauren Dula,Jill Nicholson‐Crotty
• Date: 01 June 2020
• Published date: 01 June 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Female leaders and board performance in

member-serving nonprofit organizations

Lauren Dula

1

| Jill Nicholson-Crotty

2

| Beth Gazley

2

1

Department of Public Administration,

Binghamton University, SUNY,

Binghamton, New York

2

Department of Public Affairs, Paul

H. O'Neill School of Public and

Environmental Affairs, Indiana

University, Bloomington, Indiana

Correspondence

Lauren Dula, Department of Public

Administration, Binghamton University,

SUNY, Binghamton, NY.

Email: ldula@binghamton.edu

Abstract

Despite an active stream of “good governance”

research, there is not yet much nonprofit scholarship

examining how the gender composition of a board or

its leadership relates to board performance. This article

helps to fill this gap, focusing on the governance prac-

tices of US-based nonprofits serving a domestic or

international membership. A structural equation model

finds that the presence of female leaders relates to the

performance of nonprofit boards both directly and indi-

rectly through these leaders' presumed influence on

board characteristics and operation. This research

advances the field by empirically testing a longstanding

theory that board performance is both multi-

dimensional and contingent on the market and labor

environment, organizational capacity and other

characteristics—in this case, gender dynamics. We find

there are some positive relationships between female

board leadership and clearly defined measures of board

performance. These findings also suggest that a strategy

to balance a board's gender may serve many nonprofits,

but gender representation works in tandem with other

board characteristics.

1|INTRODUCTION

Under United States law and that of many other countries, all nonprofit organizations must

have a governing body (e.g., board of directors, trustees, governors). These boards oversee the

actions taken by the executive, monitor financial health, and strategize for organizational mis-

sion achievement. Ideally, the board focuses on the big picture elements of the organization,

Received: 20 December 2018 Revised: 19 December 2019 Accepted: 6 January 2020

DOI: 10.1002/nml.21402

Nonprofit Management and Leadership. 2020;30:655–676. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/nml © 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. 655

while the Executive Director manages day-to-day operations (Brown & Guo, 2010). The size of

boards varies greatly, with states setting minimum numbers but not maximum numbers. Most

frequently, the minimum legal requirement is three directors, although in some states just one

individual is permitted (Harbor Compliance, 2017). U.S. filing charities from 1998 to 2003 had a

mean number of board members of 13 and a median of 10 (Aggarwal, Evans, & Nanda, 2012),

while a 2013 study of member-serving organizations found a mean of 18 and a median of

15 (with a large standard deviation) (Gazley & Bowers, 2013). Also under the laws of most

countries, boards of directors are expected to perform their fiduciary duties at a certain level of

competency to fulfill public expectations and to meet regulatory standards.

Less clearly understood is how the quality or composition of the board relates to overall organi-

zational performance (Herman & Renz, 2000). An active stream of research has therefore

attempted to address perceived gaps in our understanding of what “good governance”means and

how boards contribute to organizational performance. Out of this literature has emerged an under-

standing, based in large part on institutional and agency theories, that the conditions leading to

high board performance are complex and difficult to identify (Herman & Renz, 2000) but that cer-

tain overall patterns of behavior are expected of all boards (Miller-Millesen, 2003). Because of the

multifaceted nature of influences on board performance, scholars have suggested that a contingent

or systems view of boards is useful as it takes into account the myriad influences of an organiza-

tion's ecology (e.g., markets, human capital) on organizational development (Bradshaw &

Toubiana, 2014; Cornforth, 2012; Miller-Millesen, 2003; Ostrower & Stone, 2010).

These variable influences on nonprofit board behavior and therefore performance include

characteristics of organizational culture, life cycle, human dynamics, and market dynamics,

reflecting in turn variations in funding, human capital, capacity considerations and most especially

the voluntary nature of board governance itself (see for example Eisinger, 2002). How variations in

managerial quality influence nonprofit performance has also been actively explored, although not

always at a level of nuance that helps to connect managerial behavior to board behavior or perfor-

mance. Nonetheless, there have been calls for more research on how board composition relates to

organizational performance (Stone & Ostrower, 2007). Dula (2018) argues that despite the active

governance research and the helpful emergence of a “systems”perspective, “the governing mecha-

nisms involved in developing and implementing these systems remain relatively unexplored, par-

ticularly in regard to the social composition of the board members themselves”(p. 9–10).

This article extends Dula's argument about the social composition of boards to the contexts

of gender and board performance. The large literature on gender in other management contexts

(explored below) suggests that, under certain conditions, men and women may lead, manage,

and participate differently in boards, and that institutional and cultural changes arising from

these differences can influence governance outcomes. This study develops and tests hypotheses

that draw on this literature to explore the ways in which female leaders may relate to the per-

formance of nonprofit boards both directly and indirectly through their influence on board

characteristics and operation.

2|LITERATURE ON THE INFLUENCES ON NONPROFIT

BOARD PERFORMANCE

What observers tend to believe drives nonprofit board performance is heavily influenced by the

strong anecdotal and subjective normativism of the field. One outcome is the strong mimetic

pressure to follow prescribed practices whether or not they have been tested in one board's

656 DULA ET AL.