WHICH TRAINING FOR SENIOR MANAGERS OF NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IN AN ERA OF PROFESSIONALISM?

Abstract

Non-Profit Organizations (NPOs) are still scarcely representeded within the work and organizational psychology literature, even if they are growing in both economic and societal terms (Salamon, Sokolowski & List, 2003). The present paper aims at identifying the training needs of senior managers of Italian Non-Profit Organizations, with special reference to Human Resource Management. The theoretical framework we make
reference to is that one of Human Resource Psychology, enriched by the perspective on Intellectual Capital. In particular, following the recent contributions by Kong (2007; 2008), according to whom intellectual capital provides a conceptual framework for non-profit strategic management, we tried to investigate the strengths and the weaknesses of senior managers of NPOs on training and Human Resources management, along with the representations of training and educational needs that senior managers express, and the values they attribuite to the socalled sociopsychological training. The research was developed through the administration of a semi-structured interview to 122 senior managers of as many Italian NPOs. Interviews were audio taped and transcribed and subsequently analyzed by trained independent judges. Data analysis has been run using a triangulation of qualitative and quantitative techniques of analysis, discourse analysis, as well as the statistical analysis of questionnaire’s responses. In terms of results, data analysis shows that senior managers of Italian Non-Profit Organizations assess as very different their training needs from those of for-profit and public organizations and they perceive the development of their skills and competencies in Human Resources management as a priority, even if their representation of training and educational opportunities is far to be well defined and clear. In addition, it seems that money and time constraints, combined with poor quality of training and educational opportunities as well as the selection procedures adopted, have a negative impact on skills and competencies of senior managers of NPOs on Human Resources management.

KEY WORDS Non-Profit Organizations | Strategic Human Resource Management | Training.