| TITLE | A Comparison of the Leadership Practices of Key Administrators in Non-Profit Human Service Organizations With those of Key Administrators in For-Profit Businesses |
| RESEARCHER | Constance G. Masneri Department of Counselor Education Indiana University of Pennsylvania Doctoral Dissertation: May 1996 |
OBJECTIVE
To examine and compare current leadership practices in for-profit
businesses and non-profit human service agencies.
METHODOLOGY
A total of 114 questionnaires were received from top administrative
staff of human service organizations (60% response rate) as randomly selected from the
Allegheny County United Way Directory and 83 (42% response rate) were received from
a random selection of business corporations in the Business Directory published by the
Pittsburgh Chamber of Commerce. Respondents completed the LPI-Self and provided
demographic information. Male respondents were 49% of the total number from human
service organizations and 98% of those from the for-profit sector. Eighty-six percent of
all respondents had at least a college degree; the average years of managerial experience
was 15% for human service managers and 24% for business organization managers.
KEY FINDINGS
There were no statistically significant differences for Challenging,
Inspiring, Enabling, and Modeling between administrators from non-profit human service
organizations and those from for-profit businesses. Non-profit administrators scored
significantly higher on Encouraging the Heart than did their for-profit counterparts.
Gender and level of education and years were not significantly correlated with
Challenging, Inspiring, Enabling, or Modeling. Those with above average (19+ years or
more) years of managerial experience reported significantly more Inspiring and,
Modeling, but no differences were found on this demographic variable for Challenging,
Enabling, or Encouraging. On Encouraging, females reported greater frequency than
males; those in human service organizations also reported Encouraging more frequently.
Note, in regards to the findings about Encouraging, that females comprised less than 2%
of the for-profit respondents and hence it is ambiguous about whether the Encouraging
differences are truly due to gender or organizational differences.
