Applying Black Intellectual Thought to Organizational Theory: Toward Critical Collaborative Institutional Agency in Higher Education

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Abstract

This paper applies Bridwell-Mitchell’s (2016) theoretical concept of Collaborative Institutional Agency to understand how a cross-functional group of university stakeholders engaged in peer learning, community interactions, and cultivation of shared understandings to foster micro- institutional changes en route to larger, longer-term culture change that better supports historically marginalized students’ success. Empirical case study data illustrate the mechanisms that facilitated the change process. We intentionally center the intellectual work of a Black woman scholar, Bridwell-Mitchell, as a tool for conceptualizing and actualizing the power of critical organizational transformation efforts. This theoretical orientation illustrates how institutional change can unfold from the inside out, from micro-level to macro-level, and it extends how we see agency through a collective and collaborative vantage point.

Authors

• Mariama Nagbe, University of Southern California

• Zoë Corwin, University of Southern California

• Ronald Hallett, University of Southern California

• Adrianna Kezar, University of Southern California

• Liane I. Hypolite, California State Polytechnic University - Pomona