Director locus of control and financial viability among indigenous NGOs in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa

Indigenous non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have become increasingly important to sustainable development efforts as evidenced by upward trends in funding amounts and participation levels, acting as distribution channels for development assistance. However, in-depth knowledge of these organizations is lacking, especially in the area of organizational behavior. This research attempts to replicate the theory linking locus of control to small business performance and survival to the nonprofit sector of a developing economy context. Based upon previous findings in the for-profit sector of developed economies, it was expected that NGO directors who exhibited a more internal locus of control would manage more financially viable organizations as demonstrated by the organizations' engagement in and employment of financially entrepreneurial activities. This research is cross-level in design and employed a self-administrated survey, including a modified version of Rotter's Internal-External locus of control scale. The sample was derived from a series of lists of indigenous NGOs operating in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa; the response rate was 56% with a sample size of fifty-six organizations. Although the relationship between director locus of control and organizational financial viability was not significant at the 0.05 level, the findings suggest that a significant relationship might have been detectable had the sample size been larger. Older directors with longer tenure as director who had received foreign training were significantly more likely to manage NGOs engaged in financially entrepreneurial activity. This finding suggests that select training positively affects entrepreneurial behavior within Senegal's NGO sector and indicates a need for future research linking training content to practice. Respondents' inability to provide reliable financial data demonstrates a lack of sophistication in financial accounting and reporting practices among NGOs, suggests a lenient regulatory environment, and alludes to the influence of other external factors on NGO financial control and monitoring practices. This study exposes the difficulties of conducting research in a developing world context and recommends future research on the appropriateness of various methodologies to generate empirically-based information and thereby contribute to the body of knowledge on the behavior of indigenous NGOs and their potential viability and role in sustainable development efforts.