Date of Conferral

2022

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Management

Advisor

Hamid Kazeroony

Abstract

In the United States, leaders who manage the one and a half million nonprofit organizations (NPOs) nationally are aging and preparing to retire. The nonprofit sector faces a leadership development deficit as many NPOs are without a succession plan. The management problem is that NPOs have struggled to employ strategies to prepare Millennials or Generation Z (Gen Z) workers to assume leadership roles in NPOs. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to explore the strategies NPOs employ to prepare Millennials or Gen Z workers to assume leadership roles. The research question asked: What strategies do NPOs employ to prepare Millennials and Gen Z workers to assume leadership roles. The study’s conceptual framework included human capital and succession planning theories undergirded by constructivism. Administering surveys through a purposeful sampling of eight leaders in San Diego County and Orange County, California, provided the study’s population. Data analysis used a linear analytic structure appropriate for exploratory case studies. Research results showed that too much corporate involvement can hinder the growth and logical trajectory of NPOs and a supportive position gives NPOs and their leaders the flexibility and speed to analyze the landscape and make customized and relevant strategic initiatives relevant to the NPO. This study’s potential positive social impact might be the creation of a tool to help NPOs offer more robust plans to ensure their survival and raise awareness for NPOs that effective and well-defined succession planning should go above just grooming an individual to take over an NPO when the current NPO leader vacates the role.

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