The interaction of Personal factors, Structure and Performance in NGOs

Abstract

There are various elements that interact to render performance outcomes in Non-governmental organizations. These could be organizational, personal and environmental factors. This study set out to examine the interaction of personal factors, structure and the likely performance outcomes so as to inform strategy theory and practice in nongovernmental organizations. We tested for the interaction of personal factors namely tenure, education, profession and age, structures of NGOs classified as national, international and network and performance outcomes. The data was drawn from 113 NGOs operating in Uganda. The results showed that under the different structure settings personal factors differed in their strength of predicting performance. Save for education under network structure, the rest of the factors had very low and insignificant coefficients. The study raised questions for further investigation into the behavior of Non-governmental organizations and the influence of personal factors. The outcomes provide rich insights for both scholars and practitioners towards a better understanding of this growing sector in African countries. We recommend further empirical examinations of strategy elements in NGOs.