How Leaders Facilitate Transformative Faculty Agency During Organizational Change

• In Event: Cultivating a Culture of Change: Creating Environments for Successful Transformation in Higher Education

Abstract

Organizational change in higher education is notoriously difficult. In this case study of a seven-year, grant-funded, equity-centered change project in an engineering department, we characterize how faculty used their agency to shape departmental changes, as well as how change leaders facilitated the development of transformative agency. We selected and analyzed interactional data related to faculty’s understanding and use of assessment. Findings indicate that faculty’s expressions of transformative agency were often misaligned with project aims. Leaders supported greater alignment with project aims by continuously inviting engagement and positioning stakeholders as valued participants throughout the change process. This paper offers an expanded toolkit for examining the development and facilitation of transformative agency within organizational change and discusses implications for research and practice.

Authors

• Susannah C. Davis, University of Washington

• Vanessa Svihla, University of New Mexico