Executive Leadership and Resource Dependence in Nonprofit Organizations: A Frame Analysis

Abstract

How is the management of nonprofit organizations affected by the growing partnership between government and nonprofit organizations? Richard Heimovics, Robert Herman, and Carole L. Jurkiewicz Coughlin examine the actions of effective chief executive officers of nonprofit organizations in their leadership role as they respond to the changes and stresses in this partnership. Using resource dependence theory, the authors find that effective executives are more likely to employ a political frame as part of a more complex multiple-frame perspective than a group of executives not deemed especially effective. Such findings, according to the authors, explain bow effective executives work ''entrepreneurially' to find resources and revitalize missions for their organizations.