Organizational Culture and Innovation
in Nonprofit Organizations

Introduction

In 2003, with the support of the National Science Foundation, the School of Social Work at the University of Georgia undertook the research project to examine the role of organizational culture in  facilitating innovation in nonprofit organizations.

The data collection was a three phase process. The first phase of the study (2003-2004) included data collection in the state of Georgia (48 sites).  During the second phase (2004-2005) data was collected in the states of Florida (10 sites) and South  Carolina (15 sites). The third phase of the study involved testing and validation of the proposed model in 29 CIS programs in the state of North Carolina. While the researchers visited a total of 102 organizations, after numerous follow up calls and mailing out of the reminder cards, satisfactory response rates were obtained for 79 organizations.

The study sought to answer the following questions pertaining to three culture variables: 1. Is cultural consensus (the degree to which employees agree on a set of organizational values) associated with organizational innovativeness? 2. Are organizational values associated with organizational innovativeness? 3. Is the interaction of cultural consensus and organizational values associated with organizational   innovativeness? 4. Is the structure of organizational culture associated with organizational innovativeness? 5. Will organizational culture be related to organizational innovativeness after controlling for the effects of alternate explanatory variables? 6. Will the effect of organizational culture differ depending on the type of innovation, its nature, and the stage of its implementation?

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0323222.
Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation (NSF).