Nonprofit Board Balance and Perceived Performance

• Published date: 01 June 2015
• Author: Joseph M. Petrosko,Denise M. Cumberland,Sharon A. Kerrick,Jason D'Mello
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21135
• Date: 01 June 2015

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N M  L, vol. 25, no. 4, Summer 2015 © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) DOI: 10.1002/nml.21135

Journal sponsored by the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University.

Correspondence to: Denise M. Cumberland, University of Louisville, Department of Education, Cardinal Blvd.,

Louisville, KY 40292. E-mail: denise.cumberland@louisville.edu.

Nonprofi t Board Balance and Perceived

Performance

Denise M. Cumberland, Sharon A. Kerrick,

Jason D’Mello, Joseph M. Petrosko

University of Louisville

Based on prior literature, this article offers a reconciliation of the core roles of nonprofit

boards and aligns these role-sets with organizational theories. A survey instrument was

developed and validated to measure each of four role-sets (monitoring, supporting, partner-

ing, and representing) to assess whether emphasis on specific roles affects board members’

perception of performance. Our study of nonprofit boards in a midsized midwestern city

found that balance across the role-sets was associated with effective organizational perfor-

mance. Furthermore, when board members describe any of the four role-sets as deficient,

they perceive the organization as less effective. The results of the study provide practition-

ers with a validated survey tool that provides nonprofit boards with a method to identify

which roles their board emphasizes.

Keywords: boards, roles, nonprofit sector, effectiveness

DESPITE EXTENSIVE RESEARCH IN THE NONPROFIT sector on board roles, there remains

a gap in understanding what roles boards perform or should perform (Cornforth and

Edwards 1999; Ryan, Chait, and Taylor 2012). Although early studies have linked board

eff ectiveness to nonprofi t organization eff ectiveness (Green and Griesinger 1996; Herman

and Renz 2000; Jackson and Holland 1998), ambiguity remains with respect to whether the

boards’ emphasis or de-emphasis of certain role-sets aff ects organizational eff ectiveness.

Brown and Guo (2010) asserted that knowing how nonprofi t boards prioritize their roles is

critical for engaging board members and measuring performance. Hence, the purpose of this

article is twofold. First, the aim is to reconcile board activities into core role-sets aligned with

theory. Second, we focus on board member stakeholders and examine their perceptions of

organizational eff ectiveness as they relate to emphasis given to the core role-sets. Our work

extends the research stream on whether board members’ view of organizational eff ectiveness

is derived from the performance of specifi c roles.

We begin by reviewing the characterization of board roles in the nonprofi t literature. We

then off er a reconciliation of how board roles are conceptualized by identifying four role-

sets. Using a multitheoretical lens to explain these four role-sets, we off er a set of hypotheses