The effects of staff competency, organizational size and revenue on financial management in religious bodies operating in rwanda:the case

Abstract

"Organizations whether secular or religious, ever face the problem of resource scarcity. For this reason, resource management systems have been developed to help organizations to better use the available scarce resources. Financial management is one such system among others and perhaps the most prominent given the high liquidity of the financial assets especially money. Religious organizations differ in a number of ways from the secular organizations, and more so the corporate organizations, For example, membership is ‘free’ and voluntary. The need for transparency and accountability in religious organizations, though expected, is not clearly embedded as it is in the secular organizations. Recent academic literature as well media reports has exposed cases of financial mismanagement in various churches in world. In Rwanda, this problem has many a times been a cause for bitter rivalry among members of the same church. Unfortunately, not many studies have been carried out to systematically generate information about the real root causes and nature of financial mismanagement in such bodies. Financial management literature presumes that, staff competency is necessary condition for prudent financial management. Size of organizations in various dimensions including turnover and number of employees, are also said to be correlated with the quality of financial management. This study, attempted to find out how such variables affect financial management at ADPER church. Using primary data collected from church staff tasked with financial issues, the study found that, both staff competency and church size (member size) are significantly correlated with the quality financial reporting at ADEPR. The two variables together explain about 47 percent of the variation in level of financial reporting. Tentatively, the study therefore recommends that the church employs qualified and competent staff to who can handle their financial matters effectively. But that alone is not enough; openness of the consumers of the financial management’s reports and ‘punishment’ for any mismanagement should be affected. The study also recommends further research in a number of aspects for instance by expanding the scope to include other churches and also to use more concrete data (secondary data) and just options."