Date of Graduation

5-5-2004

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Nonprofit Administration (MNA)

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the respective effects of mechanistic and organic organizational structures on employee satisfaction. Employees from four youthserving nonprofit organizations participated. The respondents were primarily direct service and administrative professionals in the field, but they also included interns and executive staff. It was hypothesized that satisfaction would be positively correlated with organic organizational structure and negatively correlated with mechanistic organizational structure.

The measuring instrument was a survey questionnaire created for this study. The data were responses to 50 Likert-based questions that assessed three variables: mechanistic structure, organic structure, and employee satisfaction.

The research hypothesis was supported, the results indicating a significant positive correlation between employee satisfaction and organic structure, as well as a significant negative correlation between employee satisfaction and mechanistic structure. All correlations were significant at the 0.001 and accounted for 43% to 48% of the variance. Correlations were significant even with attitudes towards agency training, respect for superior's knowledge and job stress partialed out. The findings suggested that youth-serving organizations that are more organic in structure have more satisfied employees.

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