Abstract

Abstract

SUCCESSION PLANNING IN THE RELIGIOUS NON-PROFIT SECTOR: UNDERSTANDING ASSOCIATE PASTORS’ EXPERIENCES OF SERVING AS INTERNAL INTERIMS

Darius Chapman

Committee Co-Chair: Andrea D. Ellinger, Ph.D.

Committee Co-Chair: Rochell McWhorter, Ph.D.

The University of Texas at Tyler

May 2017

The concept of succession planning is not new for organizations, as most will experience the loss of key personnel for a variety of reasons including retirement, termination, death, and unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, having a deliberate and systematic process for identifying, developing, and retaining key personnel makes succession planning critical to the long term viability of organizations.

However, challenges in the global marketplace, such as talent shortages, and the impending mass exodus of Baby-Boomers are making it more difficult to fill such vacancies. These challenges are even more pronounced in the non-profit sector which tends to have fewer resources to institute effective succession plans.

An important aspect of the succession planning process is identifying temporary replacements who can serve in the vacant positions until they are filled. These individuals are referred to as interims, but they have been largely neglected in the succession planning and non-profit literatures. Therefore, this research examined how associate pastors within a non-profit protestant religious denomination, who served as internal interims, perceived and processed their experiences during and after serving in these capacities when they were not selected to fill the senior pastor positions permanently.

Accordingly, a qualitative phenomenological multiple-case embedded case study design was employed to explore the interim experiences of 15 associate pastors. Data was collected through semi-structured Skype interviews, observations and field notes. Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) was used to analyze the data. The findings from this study contribute to the limited existing literature on internal interims and offer several practical implications and pathways for future research.

Date of publication

Summer 7-31-2017

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

english

Persistent identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10950/587

Committee members

Andrea D. Ellinger, Ph.D., Rochell McWhorter, Ph.D., Paul Roberts, Ed.D., Jerry W. Gilley, Ed.D.

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Human Resource Development

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