The changer and the changed. Evolving theories and practices of change in ADVANCE calls for institutional transformation

• Date: 11 March 2019
• Pages: 140-159
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0192
• Published date: 11 March 2019
• Author: Sandra L. Laursen,Kristine De Welde
• Subject Matter: Hr & organizational behaviour

The changer and the changed

Evolving theories and practices of

change in ADVANCE calls for

institutional transformation

Sandra L. Laursen

Ethnography & Evaluation Research,

University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, Colorado, USA, and

Kristine De Welde

Departments of Women’s and Gender Studies and Sociology,

College of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, USA

Abstract

Purpose –The purpose of this paper is to examine the evolving theories of change of the US National Science

Foundation’s (NSF) ADVANCE program to increase the representation of women on academic faculties in

science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). ADVANCE supports efforts to transform the

cultures and structures of US institutions of higher education by removing gendered barriers to STEM

faculty women’s employment, advancement and success, and by developing change strategies that others

may adopt.

Design/methodology/approach –The empirical study is based on qualitative, longitudinal analysis of

nine requests for proposals (RfPs) for the ADVANCE program (2001–2016), complemented by historical

analysis of funded ADVANCE projects using public records.

Findings –The analysis identifies changes over time that suggest shifts in NSF’s rationale and theory of

change for ADVANCE. Increased guidance directs how institutions should best undertake change, document

outcomes and share best practices. The RfPs reveal growing attention to equity, rather than simply to

representation, and to intersectionality –how gender, race, social class and other identities intersect to

produce disparate experiences and outcomes for individuals differently positioned in social systems.

Gendered organizations theory helps to place these experiences and outcomes in a structural context. Iterative

processes of organizational learning are postulated to account for these changes over time.

Originality/value –While many studies have examined ADVANCE projects’activities and outcomes, none

have examined the premises and design of the ADVANCE program itself. This analysis offers insight into

how the ADVANCE RfP has driven innovation and learning about transformative institutional change to

advance gender equity in STEM.

Keywords Organizational learning, Intersectionality, Gender equity, Gendered organizations,

Theory of change, Institutional transformation

Paper type Research paper

The US National Science Foundation’s (NSF) ADVANCE program was announced in 2001

and is still active.This is long-lived for any grants programat NSF, but perhaps especially for

a cross-disciplinary program focused on “broadening participation”of diverse people and

institutions –at that time, a newly explicit goal at NSF (NSF, 1999). Supported by

contributions from directorates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics

(STEM) disciplines, the existence of ADVANCE was no small political feat to orchestrate

(Rosser,2017). Its longevity, thus, speaks to NSF’scommitment to foster “the most meritorious

ideas”and nurture “talent wherever it may be found”(NSF, 1999, 2008). Within NSF,

ADVANCE is also pioneering in its institutional approach to change, seeking to transform

Equality, Diversity and Inclusion:

An International Journal

Vol. 38 No. 2, 2019

pp. 140-159

© Emerald PublishingLimited

2040-7149

DOI 10.1108/EDI-09-2017-0192

Received 21 September 2017

Revised 19 January 2018

14 June 2018

Accepted 22 July 2018

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

www.emeraldinsight.com/2040-7149.htm

This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation through Award No.

HRD-0930097. The authors are grateful to colleagues throughout the ADVANCE community for

insight and conversation over many years.

140

EDI

38,2

institutional structures and cultures to improve education and optimize the use of resources

through collaboration and networking.Thus, it offers an institutional changemodel for other

education and diversity initiatives at NSF (James and Singer, 2016; Córdova, 2016).

As Rosser (2004, 2010, 2017) traced, decades of experience at NSF had demonstrated that

it was not enough to simply recruit women into the sciences and support their career

development. Rather, women faced barriers intrinsic to institutional structures, such as

biased selection and promotion systems, inadequate structures to support those with family

and personal responsibilities, and old-boy networks that excluded even successful women

from receiving formal recognition or advancing into top leadership roles (De Welde and

Stepnick, 2015). These barriers are enlarged and entangled when multiple marginalized

identities intersect for women who are also in non-dominant groups due to their race,

ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, citizenship or physical abilities.

Seeking increased traction on the persistent problem of women’s underrepresentation on

STEM faculties, ADVANCE represented a shift from dispersed, individual-directed

programs intended to “fix women”scientists and engineers, to systemic, institution-directed

efforts to fix the environments in which women scientists and engineers work. This shift

reflected NSF’s then-new understanding of the problem and how it could be solved –a

change in its theory of change. While prior studies (e.g. Bilimoria et al., 2008; Bilimoria and

Liang, 2012; Fox, 2008; Laursen and Austin, 2014) have focused on the community response

to NSF’s call –the actions and strategies of ADVANCE awardees –here we focus on the

shifting language and meanings of the call itself, as the ADVANCE theory of change

continued to develop.

Unpacking NSF’sintentionsandtheirevolutionoffers import ant context for

understanding ADVANCE projects and how they have changed over time. Indeed, our

analysis is stimulated by prior research on organizational change strategies in ADVANCE

Institutional Transformation (IT) projects (Laursen and Austin, 2014; Laursen et al., 2015),

where we noticed differences in the change strategies undertaken by institutions that were

funded at different times. We trace some of these changes to community learning from

earlier IT projects, as investigators freely shared their successes and challenges, enabling all

to adopt and adapt tested ideas to varied institutional settings. But the evolution of NSF’s

call for ADVANCE proposals suggests that learning also happened at NSF. As program

officers guided peer review of proposals, made award decisions, observed funded projects

and interacted with the community, their learning as individuals was institutionalized in

subsequent calls for proposals, through writers’emphasis and choice of language, and in

proposal rationale, guidelines and requirements. Because of this institutionalization by

program officers acting as agents of the organization (Argyris, 1977), we consider this an

instance of organizational learning (OL) (Crossan et al., 1999), and the requests for proposals

(RfPs) a record (albeit incomplete) of what was learned.

Here we examine how the ADVANCE theory of change has evolved over time. We track

and analyze changes in NSF ADVANCE RfPs from 2001 through 2016 and make inferences

about NSF’s theory of change. In doing so, we answer the research questions:

RQ1. How has the ADVANCE request for proposals changed over time, especially the

IT program?

RQ2. What can be inferred from these changes about NSF’s theory of action for

increasing the representation of women in academic STEM?

Conceptual frameworks

To understand the content of the ADVANCE RfPs, we use frameworks that consider

inequalities and inequities as outcomes of institutional arrangements –policies, procedures

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The changer

and the

changed