About
39
Publications
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Introduction
Ruth Bernstein currently works as an Assistant Professor in Nonprofit Management at Pepperdine University. Ruth does research on inclusive interactions, diversity, and nonprofit board governance.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
August 2020 - present
Position
- Professor (Assistant)
Description
- Assistant Professor of Nonprofit Management
Publications
Publications (39)
How can organizations better achieve inclusion, equity, and superior performance from diversity? Decades of stalled progress require a wider range of policies. Applying a system thinking approach to a transdisciplinary synthesis of research findings, the authors' comprehensive framework guides inquiry and practice by identifying problematic dynamic...
Using secondary data collected as part of a national survey of nonprofit organizations, this research examines compensation outcomes of 704 nonprofit Chief Executives (CEO), integrating and social and performative aspects of governing/governance to explain compensation (in)equity. Theorizing governance as a socially complex and functionally consequ...
This case study focuses on Cascade Public Media (CPM), a nonprofit whose mission is to inspire a smarter world through public broadcasting, which chose to deliberately change their organizational and board culture to be more equitable and inclusive. In this case, students and practitioners will learn the importance of adopting diversity, equity, an...
To offer guidance to nonprofit leaders desiring to leverage diversity for inclusion, performance, and equity, we develop a framework for a comprehensive, mission-enhancing policy. The policy fits nonprofit organizations’ distinctive characteristics of shared mission attainment and values focus among members. The framework proceeds from an extensive...
Nonprofit educational programs have been housed in a multitude of departments or schools, including Schools of Management or Business, Public Administration, and Humanities, and incorporated a variety of approaches, including course offerings and types of degrees awarded. In this paper, we delve into the history of nonprofit educational programs, w...
Our contribution lies in exploring loci and reach of leadership diversity’s influence on proximal and distal performance outcomes to understand how and where these can be mobilized. Our moderated-mediation modeling decomposes the direct, indirect, and interaction effects of demographic diversity among three types of focal actors in governance – Boa...
Although the practitioner and the academic literatures both note the importance of ethno-racial diversity in the nonprofit sector, we pursue a better understanding of this sector’s ethno-racial diversity dynamics by exploring the drivers of ethno-racial diversity at multiple organizational hierarchy levels—boards of directors, executive staff teams...
This research examines the relationship among Board Diversity, Social Capital, and Governance Effectiveness by asking, “does board ethno-racial diversity moderate the relationship between Social Capital and Governance Effectiveness, and if so, how?” Exploring the direct and interacting effects of demographic diversity and Social Capital, and their...
This paper develops a practice-based Theory of Generative Interactions across diversity that builds on empirical findings and conceptual frameworks from multiple fields of study. This transdisciplinary review (Montuori in World Futures 69:200–230, 2013) draws on the disciplines of sociology, social psychology, organization studies, and communicatio...
The Governance Section of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Associations (ARNOVA) is pleased to continue an ongoing collaborative relationship with the Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership in 2020 to publish teaching and research-based case studies examining contemporary nonprofit governance challenges....
We are pleased to present these five case studies delving into racial equity, diversity, and inclusion in governance. They provide wonderful learning tools for use in the classroom and training workshops and have been designed for instructors, consultants, students, board members, and executive directors. The set of cases is followed by a study gui...
this chapter reviews diversity and inclusion practices at the organizational, group and individual levels. The authors drew on their own and other extant research to identify effective methods at each level that are likely to yield a diversity dividend, resulting in positive outcomes associated with harnessing and leveraging the social identities a...
This research examines the relationship among board diversity, social capital, and governance effectiveness by asking, “does board ethno-racial diversity moderate the relationship between social capital and governance effectiveness, and if so, how?” Exploring the direct and interacting effects of demographic diversity and social capital, and their...
The need for greater diversity among organizational leaders and directors remains a challenge for organizations within the third sector, and beyond. This study examines diversity through a critical mass lens; that is, we examine an alternative approach to understanding the relationship between the ethno-racial composition of boards of directors and...
High-quality cross-ethnic interactions contribute to college students’ development, but knowledge is scant concerning campus settings and conditions that promote these interactions. This study indicates that distinct social practices in particular settings create such conditions. Phenomenological analysis of current and past members of a voluntary...
Using principal–agent theories, this study examined differences in the perceptions of nonprofit chief executive officers (CEOs) and board chairs on key governance aspects, including board performance, leadership, satisfaction with diversity, and board meetings. Using data from the CEOs and board chairs of 474 nonprofit organizations, we found stati...
Purpose
– Responding to findings of psychological discomfort impeding interracial/interethnic attitude and skill development, the purpose of this paper is to investigate group-level factors as possible antecedents to individuals’ comfort in interracial/interethnic interactions. Among individuals experiencing diversity during a key developmental sta...
This study examines how and when nonprofit board performance is impacted by board diversity. Specifically, we investigate board diversity policies and practices as well as board inclusion behaviors as mediating mechanisms for the influence of age, gender, and racial/ethnic diversity of the board on effective board governance practices. The empirica...
Purpose
– Using survey data of nonprofit board members from racial/ethnic minority groups, the purpose of this paper is to investigate how the three work group perspectives toward diversity theorized by Ely and Thomas (2001) – discrimination-and-fairness (P1), access-and-legitimacy (P2), and integration-and-learning (P3) – are associated with minor...
The purpose of this research is to examine the impact that university student groups’ practices have on their members’ intercultural behavioral comfort and interactions and their cultural learning. We surveyed 360 undergraduate members of a national voluntary service organization at 50 U.S. four-year colleges. Findings indicate that an organization...
