Fostering enablement: How employee engagement in planning and control activities drives operational performance in philanthropic organizations

This study examines the relationship between employee engagement in planning and control processes and operational performance within nonprofit organisations. Contributing to the debate on adopting business-like practices, our research investigates the mediating role of employee enablement. Drawing on the enabling controls framework, we sought to uncover the emergent patterns in the experiences of 171 employees from prominent Italian grant-making foundations. The goal was to shed light on the connections between engagement in practices like budgeting, ex-post impact evaluation, and long-term planning and perceptions of autonomy, competence, and dedication as key measures of employee enablement. Our analysis reveals a pattern in which active involvement in planning and control processes is strongly linked to a greater employee enablement, which is then associated with perceived improvements in operational performance. Interestingly, our evidence indicates that an overemphasis on goal commitment could undermine this positive perception.