Globalizing diversity?: An examination of the adoption and institutionalization of diversity offices in universities worldwide, 1989-2023

• In Event: Higher Education supporting Global Partnership: Sustainability, Capacity Building, and International Cooperation

Proposal

[[1. Introduction]]

Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives have become lightning rods for controversy amidst illiberal attacks on higher education (Schofer, Lerch, & Meyer, 2022). Against this backdrop, we examine the research questions: how did diversity structures diffuse so widely in the first place, and under what conditions have they persisted over time? In line with the conference theme, we view diversity offices as organizational infrastructure that links higher education to broader projects of peace and pluralism in a divided world.

This paper examines the rise of diversity offices in 500 universities across 85 countries between 1989-2023. We argue that diversity offices provide a meaningful case of an organizational innovation that emerged in the U.S. amidst civil rights struggles, diffused globally as a marker of legitimacy, and now faces illiberal challenges. By examining the adoption and persistence of diversity offices, we advance debates in global and organizational theory about when innovations spread and why they endure.

[[2. Theory]]

We anchor our work in neoinstitutional theory by foregrounding how organizations respond to cultural scripts, global models, and demands for legitimacy (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983; Meyer & Rowan, 1977). This literature often treats adoption as synonymous with institutionalization, yet in practice organizations frequently engage in decoupling by symbolically embracing global models, without embedding them in organizational routines.

We argue for distinguishing diffusion, which reflects responsiveness to cultural models, from institutionalization, which reflects the extent to which these models become embedded in organizational identity and routines. Following Colyvas and Jonsson (2011), we conceptualize institutionalization as evidence of persistence by which organizational structures endure beyond symbolic compliance.

The case of diversity offices foregrounds this distinction. We further argue that diffusion and institutionalization are multilevel processes, such that external country-level factors drive diffusion, while internal organizational features predict persistence and institutionalization.

[[3. Data & Methods]]

We construct an original dataset of 500 universities representing 85 countries from every region of the world. For each university, we collected data on the existence and year of adoption of a formal diversity office, defined as a dedicated administrative unit with staff and resources devoted to diversity-related activities (e.g., Office of Diversity, Human Rights and Equity Unit). Data were drawn from university websites, press releases, and other archived digital sources to track historical adoption dates, as well as any cases of office closures.

We conduct a three-stage analysis. First, we look at the descriptive diffusion of these offices. Second, we use multilevel event history analysis to identify the mechanisms that predict universities’ initial adoption of diversity offices between 1989-2023. Third, we use multilevel panel logistic regression analysis to analyze the mechanisms that predict year-to-year persistence of diversity offices after their initial adoption.

We test different predictors at the country level (Anglosphere, liberal democracy, ethnic/linguistic/religious fractionalization, curricular pluralism, globalization, polarization) and university level (public/private, size, prestige, founding year). Data for these predictors are drawn from the World Bank, the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) dataset, and the World Higher Education Database.

[[4. Findings]]

By 2023, we find that all U.S. universities, 85.7% of non-U.S. Anglosphere universities, 55.6% of Western European universities (excluding the U.K.), 37.5% of Sub-Saharan African universities, 31.4% of Latin American universities, 25.9% of East and Southeast Asian universities, 11.5% of Middle Eastern and North African universities, 8.8% of Central and European universities, and 2.7% of South and Central Asian universities in our sample have adopted a diversity office. The names of diversity offices have generally diffused globally to encapsulate notions of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Yet diffusion varies, prompting our multilevel analyses.

Our multilevel event history analyses show that country context is the strongest driver of initial diffusion and adoption. In particular, universities in liberal democracies, or in countries with higher religious fractionalization, are significantly more likely to adopt diversity offices. This suggests that more liberal political and religiously plural environments facilitate greater diffusion of organizational change. Curricular pluralism also matters, such that countries with increasingly pluralistic school curricula are more likely to have universities with diversity offices. Finally, university prestige predicts adoption in an individual model, but this relationship weakens once country-level variables are accounted for. In short, adoption reflects responsiveness to country-level cultural and political environments, with liberal democracy and curricular pluralism as especially powerful predictors.

Turning to institutionalization, we find that organizational characteristics predict the persistence of diversity offices over time. The prestige and large size of a university strongly predict the continued presence of diversity offices over time, whereas private universities are significantly less likely to sustain these offices. Finally, at the country level, liberal democracy continues to matter for persistence, as do religious fractionalization and curricular pluralism.


[[5. Contributions]]

Our findings suggest that diversity offices have diffused across every world region through a two-stage process. Initial diffusion and adoption are predicted by macro-level political, cultural, and educational mechanisms, while persistence is more likely to be predicted by organizational characteristics. National contexts therefore interact with organizational features to shape the adoption and embedding of diversity in universities’ organizational identities.

Our study makes three contributions. First, most research on diversity in higher education is U.S.-centric, whereas we examine 500 universities across 85 countries. Second, we demonstrate that adoption and persistence are distinct processes. Adoption reflects alignment with global scripts, while persistence reflects organizational embedding. This extends neoinstitutional theory by specifying conditions under which symbolic adoption translates into “sticky” (Colyvas & Jonsson, 2011) institutionalization.

Finally, our findings help contextualize today’s backlash against diversity, equity, and inclusion. The U.S. is now a site of retrenchment and retreat from diversity, such that other regions may increasingly emerge as leaders in shaping new models of diversity governance. This study therefore not only explains the trajectory of diversity offices globally, but also provides a theoretical framework for analyzing other contested institutional innovations. In doing so, it invites further research on the conditions under which organizational commitments to pluralist ideals endure or erode in an age of backlash.

Authors

• Seungah Lee

• Hannah K D'Apice, Stanford University