Leadership understandings of organizational effectiveness: An exploration within the context of faith-based international nongovernment organizations

The purpose of this multiple case study is to explore how senior-level organizational leadership understands organizational effectiveness, how they assess or measure it, and the steps they take to resolve disagreements in these understandings that hinder the development of an organizational consensus on what organizational effectiveness entails. This study involved interviews with 28 senior leaders in two faith-based international nongovernmental organizations (INGOs). The primary research question that guides this study is: How does senior-level organizational leadership understand organizational effectiveness and how are differences in these understandings addressed? Data for the study were collected through personal interviews and from organizational documents. Several fields of literature provided the basis for this exploration: the characteristics of nonprofit, INGO, and faith-based organizations; organizational effectiveness, both generally and within the context of nonprofits and INGOs; stakeholder theory; and organizational identity.;Effectiveness of the organization's program activities dominates participants' understandings of organizational effectiveness. This includes achieving their stated organizational goals, keeping their promises to stakeholders, and being able to substantiate their impact. Since organizations have multiple goals, these goals must be prioritized at the organizational level to unify everyone around a common direction, a common purpose, and common identity. Many of these leaders understand organizational effectiveness as also including well-functioning organizational systems, efficiency, and sustainability. Each of these factors, however, is viewed as important only to the extent that they help the organization deliver on its stated mission. Senior-level leadership is seen as stewards of the organization's shared vision and needs to be able to work together as a team from a strategic, big picture perspective.;Negotiated agreement over what the organization intends to do and how, provides the organization with the necessary foundation for assessing its effectiveness. It is important to identify the indicators the organization will use to assess effectiveness and how to interpret them as part of the strategic planning process. To avoid the complexity of current multi-dimensional models these indicators need to be carefully developed and priorities established to make sure they are reasonable to track and that they really do address what organizational members view as organizational effectiveness.