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Founder’s syndrome is when one individual holds disproportionate power and influence in an organization. It is not limited to the founder of an organization and can be found particularly in dominant and charismatic organizational leaders. While the nonprofit leader in this case was not a founder, he was highly charismatic and was granted as much authority as a founder. He became reluctant to share power, even when it was clear he needed help to build the capacity of the organization. The board of directors did not feel it necessary to check the executive director’s power because he had been so successful in growing the organization up to a point. When it was discovered he was having an inappropriate affair with a subordinate employee, however, the board did ask him to resign. Yet it allowed him to name his successor, and accepted the executive director’s nomination of the employee with whom he had an affair. Board and staff of nonprofit organizations have obligations to act in good faith in the governance of the organization and to enforce the duties of care and obligation. This requires transparent communication. Without two-way symmetrical communication maintained throughout the organization, this executive director abused the power granted him for his own gain.

A change in leadership can often be stressful for an organization. Miriam, the Founding Executive Director of a supporting foundation for a rural hospital, was primarily a servant leader, providing volunteers and staff with the tools needed for successful fundraising. As the initial Executive Director for this small nonprofit organization, she established an organizational culture that fit the needs of the community; volunteers became accustomed to that culture and the organization flourished. Upon Miriam’s retirement, her replacement brought a very different type of leadership rooted in hierarchical structures and authoritarianism. Accustomed to a more supportive organizational culture, many volunteers flatly refused to work with the new executive director. He exacerbated the problem by refusing to acknowledge any missteps he might have taken and was not receptive to any ideas not his own. He was not supportive of staff or even the organization’s own board members. The new executive director was accustomed to being in control and misunderstood managing the needs of multiple stakeholders. He moved too quickly to consolidate his own power without consideration of the organization’s needs. He tried to instill a “heroic” leadership style in a culture of shared leadership. The credibility of the organization suffered as a result, not only among volunteers and hospital staff, but, as they talked within the community, publically as well.

The authors empirically examined social capital factors affecting patients' social support acquisition with the aim of providing guidance to patients seeking social support online.

The authors used social network analysis to extract data about social capital factors from online health communities and text mining to identify forms of informational support and emotional support grounded in online, text-based communication. Moreover, the authors employed a random coefficient model to understand the dynamic influence of social capital factors on both informational and emotional support.

The results from the empirical analyses show that structural connections have a lasting impact on the acquisition of both types of support; that is, social connections developed in the past will have an effect on the future. For relational capital, strong ties were less important; the quantity of connections mattered more than the quality when acquiring informational support. The use of health-related language increased the amount of informational support acquired. Over time, patients gained increasing social support, which primarily came from the patients' historical threads, likely via searches from peers facilitated by accumulated social capital.

The authors' research adds to the literature on social capital and social support in online health communities by exploring how the three dimensions of social capital affect social support acquisition. The authors' research also contributes to the online health care literature by examining social support from a dynamic perspective. Practically, the authors' findings provide guidance for patients on what decisions to make to acquire more social support.