Who will bear the torch tomorrow? Charismatic leadership and second-line leaders in development NGOs

Competent leadership has always been considered vital in every organisation and there has been considerable research on mainstream leadership issues in the corporate sector and in politics.1 But there has been very little research on leadership issues in the emerging sector of development NGOs. The issue of second-line leadership development2 is an important one not only for the NGOs themselves but also for the aid industry, the poor and vulnerable people for whom they work and for society as a whole. This paper investigates and analyses the question of NGO leadership in Bangladesh and UK and the problems NGOs encounter in developing second-line leaders. Through collection and analysis of data from primary and secondary sources, this document endeavours to relate existing ‘leadership research’ to the case of NGOs; assess the state of second-line leadership development in NGOs; and recommend possible strategies out for the future. The paper concludes that in spite of the exceptional qualities of many NGO leaders, there has been no systematic approach to the development of successful second-line leadership

Practice, power and meaning: frameworks for studying organisational culture in multi-agency rural development projects

Culture has received increasing attention in critical development studies, though the notion that there are important cultural differences within and between development organisations has received less consideration. This paper elaborates elements of a framework for studying organizational culture in multi-agency development projects. It draws on selected writings in anthropology and in organizational theory and suggests that these two bodies of literature can be usefully brought together, as well as on insights from ongoing fieldwork in Bangladesh, Burkina Faso and Peru. At the centre of this framework is the analysis of context, practice and power. Where development projects involve multiple organizations (such as donors, government agencies, non-governmental organizations and grassroots groups) an analysis of cultures both within and between organizational actors can help explain important aspects of project performance. The paper argues that organizational culture is constantly being produced within projects, sometimes tending towards integration, often towards fragmentation. This fragmentation, indicative of the range of cultures within development organizations, is an important reason why some projects fail, and why ideas stated in project documents are often not realized, especially in the case of the newer and more contentious objectives such as 'empowerment'

Governance based on partnership with NGOs: Implications for development and empowerment in rural Bangladesh

10.1177/0020852304044255International Review of Administrative Sciences702271-29

Beyond the development text: the World Bank and empowerment in practice

The World Bank's recent concern for 'empowerment' grows out of longer standing discussions of participation, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society. While commitments to empowerment enter World Bank texts with relative ease, their practice within Bank-funded projects is far more contingent, and the meanings they assume become much more diverse. This paper considers the relationship between such texts and the development practices which emerge, using an analysis of the 'organisational cultures' of the Bank and the many organisations on which it depends in the implementation of its rural development programmes. The paper presents a framework for analysing these organisational cultures in terms of (a) the broader contexts in which organisations and their staff are embedded; (b) the everyday practices within organisations; (c) the power relations within and among organisations; and (d) the meanings that come to dominate organisational practice. A case study of a development programme in Bangladesh is used to illustrate the ways in which cultural interactions between a variety of organisations�-�the World Bank, government agencies, NGOs, organisations of the poor, social enterprises�-�mediate the ways in which textual commitments to empowerment are translated into a range of diverse practices.