Slack and innovation: The role of human resources in nonprofits

Abstract

Resources are often seen as a key factor in innovation. For business organizations, it has been shown that there is a relation between the lack or abundance of resources and the innovativeness of organizations. It is specifically abundance that fosters innovations, not shortage. We investigated this relationship for nonprofits based on a cross‐sectional survey of 250 Austrian nonprofit organizations (NPOs). According to levels of disposability, we differentiate between available slack, recoverable slack, and potential slack. Turning to the type of resources, we distinguish financial slack from different types of HR slack: levels of motivation and qualification and levels of compensation, addressing the level of employees' wages. Our results indicate that in NPOs human resources slack rather than financial slack has a positive impact on innovativeness.

Organizational innovativeness and its determinants in South Korean nonprofit human service organizations

“…In particular, a lack of financial resources suggests that innovation is an important strategy for achieving the maximum effect with minimal resources, which is the ultimate goal of human services management. The recent increase in research on the issue of organizational innovation in human service organizations (e.g., Choi, ; Glisson, ; Jaskyte, ; Mano, ; McMurray, Islam, Sarros, & Pirola‐Merlo, ; Meyer & Leitner, ; Osborne, ; Shier & Handy, ; Verschuere, Beddeleem, & Verlet, ) reflects the importance of innovation in the field of human services. Nonprofit human service organizations in South Korea are no exception to the importance of innovation.…”

Does managers' motivation matter? Exploring the associations between motivation, transformational leadership, and innovation in a religious organization

“…Their demands are not directed toward achievement of instrumental goals, but rather directed to social and personal benefits such as friendship and mutual support. As such, management of human resources is of significance, which is also indicated by Meyer and Leitner () showing that human resources slack (including motivation and qualification) rather than financial slack has a positive impact on innovation in nonprofit organizations. Taking good care of human resources has been given increased attention across organizational contexts, and religious organizations have had a long and strong focus and extensive experience in this.…”

“…The resources of religious organizations are classified under headings such as “ideas” in addition to “people” (Beckford, , p. 51), and innovation seems to be of importance in religious organizations. Innovation is vital to the successful performance of organizations (Anderson, Potocnik, & Zhou, ) and is regarded as “a core function of nonprofit organizations” (Meyer & Leitner, , p. 1), which are created and exist primarily to give expressions to social, religious, and moral values as well as to complete specific tasks (Jeavons, ). Transformational leadership behavior might have a great bearing on innovation (McMurray, Islam, Sarros, & Pirola‐Merlo, ; Mumford & Licuanan, ).…”

Managing occupational identity threats and job turnover: How former and current fundraisers manage moments of stigmatized identities

“…Although higher‐level fundraisers, such as Chief Development Officers, have an average tenure of over three years, they still have a recently reported annual turnover rate of 25% (Reed, ). This high turnover rate couples problematically with Nonprofit Employment Practices’ (NEP, ) reports that fundraising is the most anticipated growth need area in the nonprofit sector and with Meyer and Leitner's () recent finding that abundance in human resources, referred to as human resources slack, correlates with higher levels of innovation in nonprofit organizations.…”