Within-Group Consensus in Nonprofit Leadership Teams: Two Approaches for Analyzing and Visualizing Within-Group Consensus

This study explores the dynamics of consensus within nonprofit leadership teams, including management team members, board members, and highly involved advisors or members of additional specialist committees. This article has three main aims: (1) demonstrate the potential for research and practice of incorporating a within-group consensus perspective into nonprofit (leadership) studies; (2) provide a comprehensive overview of theoretical and methodological considerations for scholars and practitioners when studying within-group consensus as a core construct in their nonprofit (leadership) studies; and (3) offer empirical insights into within-group leadership consensus on perceived organizational purposes by illustrating consensus mapping and plotting approaches, and comparing the benefits and challenges of rating versus ranking methodologies. We use a two-wave dataset comprising 473 nonprofit leadership team members from 56 nonprofit organizations, to demonstrate how different survey question formats impact within-group consensus reporting and elucidate the role of within-group consensus in shaping organizational purpose. Given the content of our data, which focuses on organizational purposes perceived by nonprofit leadership teams, we also frame our findings in the theoretical discussions on nonprofit leader team dynamics. Our showcase analysis outlines future research avenues, both methodologically and theoretically.