Human resources practices overcoming dysfunctions in NGOs: the role of mental structures.

Abstract

Associative organizations have become major players globally, increasingly expected to plug the hole of market and government failures (Edwards, 2014). Faced by growing needs, resource scarcity, and the ever-shifting donor priorities (AbouAssi and Tschirhart, 2018), non-profit organizations, particularly the more managerially developed NGOs, are prone to failure and the risk of breakdown (Ahmad, 2002; Piwowar-Sulej, 2021). NGOs are hence undertaking transformations to improve their performance to add efficiency to their civic engagement. Understanding organizational performance and the ability to adapt to the accelerating change regularly shores on a discussion about the omnipotence of mental structures and organizational culture. These concepts are appended with all the “incomprehensible and irrational aspects of what goes on in groups, occupations, organizations, and other kinds of social units that have common histories”, which is why it could simultaneously explain both failures and successes (Schein, 2010:21). Therefore, disentangling the transformation process of the NGO model requires expanding our horizon beyond the issue of organizational culture and towards an entrepreneurial paradigm of value creation based on evidence and strategic vigilance (Savall and Hillon, 2017). Today, NGOs are formalizing their practices, HR importance is increasingly being recognized and no longer denied. New practices are being introduced with the rise of technology, flexible organizational boundaries, virtual organization, outsourcing, mergers and acquisitions, etc…