The purpose of this paper is to consider whether those nonprofit organizations which exhibit more similar characteristics to market organizations regarding the percentage of paid employees with functions similar to the ones in market organizations in relationship with total workers have a different model of human resource management in relation to their CEO than those organizations which exhibit fewer similarities to market organizations.
The hypotheses proposed in this study have been tested using a sample of 1,999 Spanish nonprofit organizations.
The results show that the CEOs of nonprofit organizations with most similarity to for‐profit organizations will have a more formalized employment relationship and a higher level of education than the CEOs of nonprofits with least similarity to for‐profit organizations.
This paper has several limitations from the heterogeneity of the sample to the fact that the conducted study is a cross‐sectional study of the current situation.
The practical implications of this paper imply that nonprofit organizations which are evolving, in terms of their workforce, towards a high percentage of paid employees or those who are already in this position will have to adapt to the way in which for‐profit organizations operate if they wish to achieve levels of effectiveness and efficiency to make them competitive in this sector.
One of the reasons for proposing this work is the small number of empirical studies trying to address systematically the relationship between the CEO and the characteristics of nonprofit organizations.
