Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs): The Relationships Between Organizational Structure, Institutional Commitment to Inclusive Excellence, and CDOs’ Perceptions of Their Performance in Facilitating Transformational Change

The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the relationship between the archetypes of vertical structure and chief diversity officers’ (CDOs) perceptions of their performance in facilitating transformational change. This study also sought to examine CDOs’ perceptions of their institutions’ commitment to inclusive excellence and CDOs’ perception of their performance in facilitating transformational change. Semistructured interviews were conducted with nine CDOs, who were employed by the State University of New York system, to identify under which model the CDOs were working, using the archetypes of vertical structure, either collaborative, unit-based, or portfolio-divisional. Data was analyzed by reviewing audio tapes of every interview and coding written transcripts to identify Kouzes and Posner’s five practices of exemplary leadership. Narrative analysis was applied to tell the unique stories of the relationships between the archetypes of vertical structure, institutional commitment to inclusive excellence, and the CDOs’ perceptions of the their performance in facilitating transformational change. The results of this study revealed that CDOs operating in the portfolio-divisional archetype were most likely to facilitate transformational change based on their ability to effectively apply the five practices of exemplary leadership. The findings also indicate that the CDOs functioning in the portfolio-divisional model received higher levels of institutional commitment based on consistently implementing five of the seven indicators of inclusive excellence. The researcher concluded that all CDOs, regardless of type or size of their institutions, would be more likely to facilitate transformational change if they were operating within the portfolio-divisional model with a high level of institutional commitment