Nonprofit Employees to their Bosses: It's Not About the Money!

Abstract

As the nonprofit sector faces increasing demand for services at the same time as declines in funding and job satisfaction, leaders need to find leadership behaviors that can foster high motivation, job satisfaction and organizational commitment. However, there is a dearth of research exploring leadership and motivation theories in the nonprofit context. Transformational leadership behaviors have been shown to help foster an environment in which employees exhibit high organizational commitment and job satisfaction. In recent years, research into transformational leadership behaviors in the nonprofit sector has been increasing. And over the past 20 years there has been a large increase in research into the construct of public service motivation (PSM). While this research has focused primarily on organizations in the public sector, there is evidence that PSM may be applicable to the nonprofit sector as well. This research addressed whether transformational leadership behaviors can work through public service motivation to affect employee outcomes in nonprofit organizations. This understanding could help nonprofit leaders enhance their recruitment and retention of talent in order to create a competitive advantage in a difficult economic environment. This study found positive relationships between transformational leadership, public service motivation, and employee organizational commitment and job satisfaction in the nonprofit sector.