A systematic review of management styles in non-profit organisations: implications for research and practice

Not-for-profit organisations are considered the third cornerstone of community development, along with businesses and public organisations. Despite recent developments, these organisations have encountered several obstacles, including limited financial resources and major operational inefficiencies, forcing them to resort to strategic management frameworks. Most non-profit organisations, however, seem to fail to adapt new management roles to organisational priorities. As a result, to promote strategic thinking in this context, the present work provides a systematic review of the history of management styles in non-profit organisations. By searching the related keywords in the Scopus database and based on the three-stage monitoring of titles, abstracts, and texts, 23 sources, out of 703, were finally selected, being deeply investigated, and classified under the main axes of theoretical foundations, patterns of strategic thinking and planning, senior management tasks, and cooperation framework in non-profit organisations. Some management implications are also presented for a non-profit conglomerate.