With the increasing emphasis on risk management in not‐for‐profit organisations, this study is timely in its examination of risk management practices in the Australian not‐for‐profit sector. Specifically, the study investigates the relation between not‐for‐profits’ organisational culture and the maturity of enterprise risk management (ERM) practices. The results show that the organisational culture factors of Outcome Orientation (valuing achievements and results) and Innovation (valuing receptivity and adaptability to change) are associated with the maturity of not‐for‐profits’ ERM. This finding demonstrates the important role that organisational culture plays in shaping ERM practices in not‐for‐profit organisations and the crucial role that leaders play in creating and nurturing such a culture within their organisations. The results also have implications for regulatory policy‐making in, and for, the not‐for‐profit sector.

Motivated by the importance of understanding how managers of not-for-profit organizations (NFPs) in Australia perceive and prioritize their stakeholders, this study tests and applies Mitchell et al.'s (1997) stakeholder salience framework, enhanced by Neville et al.'s (2011) developments to the framework, in the not-for-profit context. The study examines the salience of six key stakeholder groups in NFPs, as perceived by top management, and the relation between three stakeholder attributes of power, legitimacy and urgency, and salience. Data were collected from 260 Australian NFPs in the education and health service areas. It was found that managers in sampled NFPs weighted the three stakeholder attributes differently. In particular, urgency is weighted strongly across all stakeholder groups, a condition that we suggest is a consequence of enhanced immediacy and reach of media to escalate and manage crises in the contemporary environment of the 21st century. The study contributes to the stakeholder salience literature and has important implications for policy making and regulatory reform for NFPs in Australia as well as managerial practices in NFPs.

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We use survey and archival data from 271 fee-generating not-for-profit human service organisations in Australia to examine how the use of performance measurement systems affects those organisations' client performance. Using Simons' levers of control, we find that interactive and diagnostic uses of performance measurement systems are positively related to client performance. We also find beliefs control to positively moderate the relation between diagnostic use of performance measurement systems and client performance, and boundary control to negatively moderate the relation between interactive use of performance measurement systems and client performance. The findings have implications for research and practice.

This study investigates the multifaceted nature of accountability mechanisms in Australian not‐for‐profit organizations (NFPs), the association between organizational culture and the use of these mechanisms, and the association between accountability mechanisms and perceived NFP social performance. The findings support the theorization of multifaceted accountability mechanisms in NFPs, including upward accountability (to funders), downward accountability (to clients), and lateral accountability (to employees). The findings highlight that the use of lateral accountability mechanisms is positively associated with the use of both upward and downward accountability (i.e. external accountability) mechanisms. Also, it is found that the culture of respect for people is positively associated with the use of all three accountability mechanisms, whereas the culture of outcome orientation is positively associated with the use of upward and lateral accountability mechanisms. Further, the findings suggest that all three types of accountability mechanisms have positive relations with perceived NFP social performance.

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Using survey and archival data for 180 not-for-profit aged care organisations, we find that interactive use of performance measurement systems positively affects the organisations' revenue growth, while the diagnostic use negatively affects revenue growth. We also find that organisational culture, specifically attention to detail, innovation and respect for people, moderates these effects.Our findings have implications for the literature in terms of understanding the combinatorial effects of formal management control and culture on organisational performance. The findings also have practical implications for designing performance measurement systems and developing organisational cultures, to create an internal environment effective in enabling revenue growth.

We examine the relation between stakeholder culture and managers’ perceptions of stakeholder attributes of power, legitimacy, and urgency in Australian not‐for‐profit (NFP) organizations. Examination of this relation is important because managers’ perceptions of stakeholder attributes determine how stakeholder relationships are managed, which affects (positively or negatively) the ability of NFP organizations to fulfil their social mission. Data were collected through a survey of top managers of 478 NFP organizations. Our results show that the stakeholder cultures of altruist and instrumentalist, manifesting different moral values, differentially affect NFP managers’ perceptions of the three stakeholder attributes for clients and government. Specifically, an altruist stakeholder culture affects managers’ perception of client legitimacy, while an instrumentalist culture affects managers’ perception of government power. We also investigate the mediating effects of power and legitimacy on the relation between stakeholder cultures and urgency. We find that managers’ perceptions of power and legitimacy act as crucial cues for managers to perceive stakeholder urgency. Our study contributes to the stakeholder management literature and has important implications for managers of NFP organizations in managing stakeholder relationships in the contemporary environment.