Management in Non-Government Organizations - Essay Example

Management in Non-Government Organizations: Various have identified the skills and competencies required of management. Should non government managers need more or different skills than managers in other sectors? If yes, why â what is intrinsically different? Will or should the sector take on globally dominant ideas about what constitutes a good management? Table of Contents Table of Contents 2 Introduction 4 NGO Management and Practices 6 Conclusion 12 References 14 Bibliography 16 USAID. “New Partnerships Initiative: NGO Empowerment”. September 16, 2010. Pubs, 2000. 16 Introduction The third world countries have witnessed a spectacular change and transformation in the recent years with the tremendous increase in its number. The transformation had far reaching influence not only on the magnitude but also the nature of the activities carried out in the non-profit organization. Salamon (1994) has mentioned about the global association revolution with respect to the third world organization, for its outstanding credibility in the arena of the social, civil, cultural, economic and political aspects. The volunteering activity lends high profile image to these third sector organization. Non-Government Organizations, also known as NGOs, forms the most important subgroup of the third sector organization. The origination of the NGOs typically took place in the United Nations after the Second World War as the provision for those international citizen organizations, independent of the UN government members, to actively participate in the affairs of the country. The NGOs cover a wide range of issues such as health, education, welfare and other related social and environmental cause. Red Cross for instance represents one of the most important by products of NGO. On account of high degree of diversity there exists a lot of complexity in providing the specific definition to the term NGO. In simple words, NGOs may be stated as the subgroup of the third world organizations whose sole purpose is to eradicate the poverty and promote development in the regional, national and global level (Lewis, “The management of non-governmental development organizations”). In this context many scholars have attempted to differentiate between the private, public and non-profit organization. There are mainly three criteria advanced by Seibel and Anheier (1990) to demonstrate the differences between the third world sector and other sectors. Firstly, a number of political scientists have emphasized upon the third world sector as the mediator between the market and economy, on the basis of the institutional characteristics of the organizations. Secondly on the basis of the course of action followed in the three sectors, whereby the non-profit organizations in contrast to the other profit seeking organization is characterized by the heterogeneous goals and organization structure which often tends to create a lot of confusion and conflict in the organization. Lastly, the institutional functions served by the non-profit organization which encompasses the goods and services rendered to the society which cannot be provided by the other profit seeking organization. Thus, the third sector organization provides the holistic approach towards the market and government failure (Dollery & Wallis, “The political economy of the voluntary sector: a reappraisal of the comparative institutional advantage of voluntary organizations”). Though the contribution of NGOs exceeds that of the government agencies incorporating the same ideals and services but at the same time the management inefficiencies and limited resource availability cannot be undermined. Management is the essence of any type of organization be it public, private or third sector organizations. The success and failure of any organization is an important implication of the skills and competencies of the mangers. The importance of the management has emerged in NGOs on account of the increasing size and complexities in its activities. It’s high time that the NGO managers get rid of their traditional belief and adopt the new concept of managing for change to reach to the international dimension (Gilson, “The potential of health sector non-governmental organizations: policy options”). NGO Management and Practices Management is an old concept which is very critical for the development of the organization. It requires a detailed planning accompanied by the appropriate course of action to achieve the objectives of the organization. Managers are entrusted with the responsibility of the effective and efficient management of the organization. The managerial competency is an assemblage of the skills, knowledge and behavior of the manager within the organization (Manjunath & Nagendra, “Entrepreneurship & Management”). NGO is typically a heroic organization as it is mostly focused on the good deeds and ventures. There has been a rising debate over the roles played by the NGOs in the process of development but little have anyone thought about the ways of managing these roles and responsibilities. NGOs in South Africa faced a criticism for not complying with the humanitarian standard in the governance. This is not only confined to the developing countries, most of the developed countries in the world such as United States list grievances in relation to NGO’s operation and management. One of the reasons for the increasing complexity in the management of the NGOs is the diversity criteria. Since the NGOs are found to operate in the far-flung areas with diverse workforce therefore definitely there are number of problems which arise in bringing about an effective integration by the managers of NGOs. A number of of the commentators have back-lashed NGOs for lack of accountability and transparency in the governance. The management practice mostly prevalent in the NGOs is the top down approach rather than bottom to top approach which helps in the synchronization of the knowledge, skills, active participation as the prime focus on open system. There are a few distinct management challenges faced by the NGOs as regard to their quality and quantity against those of private and public sector organization. There is definitely the need for the NGO managers to grasp the distinct management skills and competencies as compared to the other sectors. As suggested by Handy (1988) NGOs are basically value driven and there are several distinctive challenges faced in the process of management. For instance the motivations for joining NGO may not always be altruism or public status especially when the organization is linked with the foreign organization; rewards and materialism do become prominent. Apart from that there exists anomaly in the transaction of the fund. A number of of the major challenges faced by the NGO managers are the effective monitoring of the organizational performance, multiplicity of accountability, restructuring of management to balance the stakeholders and distinguishing between the professionalism and volunteerism. NGO management requires a perfect mix of competencies and skills with the combination of the distinct ideas and solutions that justifies the characteristics and activities of NGOs. The main problems manifested in the efficient management of the NGOs by the managers are that the top level management in the process of the recruitment selected those candidates hardly meeting the eligibility criteria, negligence on the part of managers to install proper information system, wrong decision with regard to the location of the office and local partners and improper functioning of the vehicles. This has lead to the failure of the NGOs in the sphere of Humanitarianism and emergency protocol. NGOs are under managed with the growing process of evolution and development. Dichter (1989) has rightly pointed out that the NGO managers should initiate plain thinking over the fancy idea and incorporate the basic management tools and tasks in their managerial decision. It is important for them to understand the issues of budgeting and staff, undergo comprehensive analysis of the markets, legislation and environmental impact; and facilitation of communication infrastructure, information and assets. NGOs should support people oriented participatory management practice as opposed to dualistic ideas (Lewis, “The management of non-governmental development organizations”). There are intrinsic and extrinsic factors motivating the employees to work in the organization. The extrinsic factor depends upon the tangible rewards while the intrinsic factor includes the job satisfaction and pleasure. Most of the workers in the Non Government Organizations regard their work as calling, where it is easy to predict that the people join the workforce for lofty non-material purposes. It is essential for the managers to identify the traits in the recruitment and set the performance appraisal accordingly to offset any disadvantages in the management. Similarly, for the profit seeking organization the lucrative tangible rewards are the main object of the motivation. Accordingly the strategy to be implemented will differ (Franco, “Leading Philippine organizations in a changing world: research and best practices”). Recruitment plays an important role in the success of the organization. People tend to join and stay in the organization where there is a strong correlation between the organizational culture and value and that of the individual value and orientation. The moral value of the employer should perfectly match with that of the employee. This is found to be especially true in case of the non-profit organization where the organizational value defines the core business. It is the main criteria of those people who are willing to volunteer their time and money just to see that such values are grafted. The managers adorn the role of the leader in realizing the goals and vision of the organization. Hence it is important to include such aspects in the advertisement scheme by the managers. Most of the NGOs show less apprehension in the effective development of the advertisement which often leads to the recruitment of the inappropriate candidate. This is in contrast to that of the profit seeking organization which spends great deal of time and money in building the effective advertisement to attract the potential candidate for the recruitment. There is a legal difference between the profit and non-profit organization with respect to the distribution of the organizational earnings. Since the NGOs are value driven organization they do not have the right to distribute the profits amongst the stakeholders such as members, directors, and officers. Their main objective is the attainment of the mission and goals of the organization. On the other hand, the maximization of the wealth is the primary objective of the profit seeking organization. The value expressive characteristics represent an important difference between the NGOs and other sectors where Drucker (1990) has described the NGOs as the selfless social service entity which embodies certain values and principles. Accordingly, Jeavons (1992) has claimed it to hold higher ethical values as compared to the other two. The moral and ethical standards are secondary to that of the profit in the profit seeking organization. The performance standards, professional code and conduct and positive work culture influence the decision making process in case of the non-profit making organization. However, the market behavior and bureaucracy forms an integral part of the management decision in profit seeking organization. It is a well known fact that the employees working in the NGOs have comparatively lower salary than those working in other sectors. These people choose to volunteer in an attempt to gain intrinsic satisfaction over the extrinsic material benefits. Therefore the main challenges faced by the mangers of the NGOs are diverse source of funds, utilization of volunteers and complexity of governance (Green & Dalton, “Values and virtues or qualifications and experience? An analysis of non-profit recruitment advertising in Australia”). It is essential for the any organization to develop a global competency. This will enable the managers to contribute effectively towards the competencies with respect to the communication, diversity, work-culture and ethical standard. Since, NGOs follow democratic structure within the organization, which have evidently led to the rise of criticisms against it. The inclusion of the global competencies might enable it to strengthen the management activities and overcome several of the devastating governance practice. NGOs are by far experiencing the greatest diversity in terms of the diverse workforce such as gender, age, language, culture, and education. This has led to the complexity in the efficient management of the organization by the NGO managers. It is essential for the managers to develop the strong leadership quality to reinforce the goals, work culture and support the learning in diversity. Since the NGOs have high ethical standard in comparison to the profit and government service sector. This is because of the value expressive image held by it that the people working in it as well as the people for whom they are working expect high level of the ethics to be maintained in the organization. However, there are few incidents where the top level management of the NGOs is found to indulge in the materialistic possession and other unethical practices within the organization. It is crucial for the NGOs manager to incorporate ethical values and principles in the decision making process. It depends on the managers to induce the corporate social responsibility where the employees are made to understand and develop the ethical practice to improve the transparency and accountability towards all the stakeholders of the organization. To achieve the global competency among the NGO managers in order to increase the credibility of the management practice, the first step that the managers should take is the removal of the complicated hierarchical level. NGOs working in different areas comprise of diverse workforce dealing with diverse issues. It depends upon the managers to develop good interpersonal skill and competency in an attempt to provide the leadership towards the achievement of the goals of the organization. Global scenario is constantly evolving; in this context change is the key to success. Unless and until, the NGO managers adapt to the inevitable change it is quite difficult to harbor the better management scenario. Most of the incompetencies arise due to the inability of the managers to come up with the changing behavior and practice. Hence, by fostering the change through careful planning, the NGO managers will be able to enforce the distinct management practice (Manjunath & Nagendra, “Entrepreneurship & Management”). Conclusion It is seen that the structure and the nature of activities of the NGOs vary significantly. There are number of questions raised with respect to the management of NGOs and the importance of basic management tools and practice in usage. A few of the innovative techniques of the private sector such as management by objectives and employment of auditors should be increasingly emphasized by the NGOs to induce professionalism for the enactment of the value driven factor within the organization. Many new ideas and the management practice such as participatory concept that forms the building blocks of NGOs have actually been made to the public sector organization. Participatory concept encompasses both topics of management and development. Participatory management represents the strategic approach towards the management of NGO. As it deals with the wide issue covering broad social phenomena hence, participatory management provides the right mechanism to approach these aspects with the help of the both the external and the internal stakeholders. It more or less conforms to the bottom-up approach since the ultimate benefit is not realized by those managing the organization to those whom NGOs serve. It is essential for the NGO to incorporate informal communication with the intention that there is no delay in between the process of decision-making and enforcing it. For the NGOs to foster better management of the organization, it must be supported by the sufficient empowerment of NGOs in view of the broad social concept covered by it. This calls for greater economic, environmental and political freedom to be facilitated for the efficient functioning of the NGOs on the local, national and global level. Any intervention in the functioning of the NGO is found to have a negative impact not only upon the organization but also upon the society, it is serving at large. NGOs encompass inspirational concept striving to make this world a better place to live in. Though there is a considerable variance in both the quality and quantity in the yielded results but the impact is often far reaching. The value–oriented mission and vision of the NGOs demand the management to create the environment necessary for the efficient and the effective development of competencies in the organization. Good management and administration play a very crucial role in the sustainable long term development of the NGOs. References Dollery, B. & Wallis, J. The political economy of the voluntary sector: a reappraisal of the comparative institutional advantage of voluntary organizations Edward Elgar Publishing, 2003. Franco, E. Leading Philippine organizations in a changing world: research and best practices Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008. Gilson, L. “The potential of health sector non-governmental organizations: policy options”. September 16, 2010. Oxford Journals, 2010. Green, J. & Dalton, B. “Values and virtues or qualifications and experience? An analysis of non-profit recruitment advertising in Australia”. September 16, 2010. Employment Relations Record, 2007. Lewis, D. The management of non-governmental development organizations Taylor & Francis, 2006. Manjunath, V.S. & Nagendra, S., No Date. Entrepreneurship & Management Pearson Education India. Bibliography Sheehan, J., No Date. “NGOs and participatory management styles: a case study of CONCERN Worldwide, Mozambique”. September 16, 2010. Participatory management and the NGO management debate. Smillie, I. & Et. Al. Managing for change: leadership, strategy, and management in Asian NGOs Earthscan, 2001. Shulman, D. “More Lies than Meet the Eyes:Organizational Realities and Deceptions in Nonprofit Organizations”. September 16, 2010. The International Journal of Not-for-Profit Law, 2008. < http://www.icnl.org/knowledge/ijnl/vol10iss2/vol10iss2.pdf> USAID. “New Partnerships Initiative: NGO Empowerment”. September 16, 2010. Pubs, 2000. Read More