Understanding Data-Driven Organizational Culture: A Case Study of Family League of Baltimore

Abstract

Human service organizations have long been encouraged to utilize performance measurement to track their efficiency and effectiveness. But recent trends move beyond the measurement of outcomes to the management of large, often messy, datasets surrounding programmatic impact . Given the resources required for tracking performance measures, organizational data has the potential to be of value for nonprofit organizations (i.e., grants, fundraising), but can data be considered an organizational value? Using a multimethod case study of Family League, a human service organization in Baltimore, Maryland, this research found that there are varying attitudes about efforts to be data driven among staff of the organization suggesting that data as an organizational value has not yet been solidified. Utilizing Family League as an example, this research explores how organizations can promote an internal culture that clarifies the meanings of data and the incorporation of data into decision-making processes. This research adds a fourth pillar to Scott’s Institutional Theory that seeks to promote knowledge utilization as the basis of order within an organization.