Accidental activists: headhunters as marginal diversity actors in institutional change towards more women on boards

• Author: Elena Doldor,Ruth Sealy,Susan Vinnicombe
• Date: 01 July 2016
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/1748-8583.12107
• Published date: 01 July 2016

Accidental activists: headhunters as marginal

diversity actors in institutional change towards

more women on boards

Elena Doldor,Centre for Research in Equalityand Diversity, School of Business and

Management, Queen Mary University of London, UK

Ruth Sealy, Departmentof Psychology, City University London, UK

Susan Vinnicombe, Cranfield Schoolof Management, UK

Human Resource Management Journal, Vol 26, no 3, 2016, pages 285–303

We present a qualitative study that examines the role of headhunters as actors in a broader institutional

change process aiming to increase gender diversity on corporate boards. We draw on institutional and

diversity management theories to conceptualise their change agency in the broader field of women on

boards. We describe their role as ‘accidental activists’and theorise two micro-processes that define their

change agency in this field: voluntaristic framing of intentionality and role redefinition by drawing on

competing logics. This conceptualisation does not match the heroic image of the institutional entrepreneur

driving institutional change, or that of the tempered radical championing diversity, but rather casts light

into a marginal and previously neglected change role. We demonstrate the opportunistic and precarious

nature of this role with regard to both institutional change and diversity management and discuss its

possibilities and perils.

Contact: Dr Elena Doldor, Centre for Research in Equality and Diversity, School of Business and

Management, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, UK. Email: e.r.

doldor@qmul.ac.uk

Keywords: institutional change; change agency; women on boards; diversity management;

headhunters

INTRODUCTION

Mounting international pressureto increase the share of women on boards(WoB) has

led scholars to examine national institutional factors that account for varying

proportions of WoB (Grosvold and Brammer, 2011) and for the introduction of

remedial policies such as gender board quotas (Terjesen et al., 2014; Terjesen and Sealy, 2016).

While this emerging literature begins to identify macro-level drivers of institutional change

in the field of WoB, it lacksa closer examinationof the role of institutional actorsin driving this

change (Seierstad et al., 2015). Actor-focused perspectives are important in understanding the

unfolding of institutional change processes (Battilana et al., 2009) as actors actively interpret

logics, create new practices and engage in institutional work that maintains or disrupts

institutions (Lawrence et al., 2006). Seierstad et al. (2015) note the importance of politicking

processesamong multiple actors in creatinginstitutional changein the WoB field across several

countries.

Using the UK as the empirical context for our study, we examine an unusual institutional

change role emerging in this setting –the role of headhunters as change actors in the field of

WoB. Headhunters were identified as key actors in changing the composition of boards in a

wider institutional change process triggered by the Davies Review on WoB (2011), which

spurred them into an unwitting change role. The mandate to make board selection more

HUMAN RESOURCEMANAGEMENT JOURNAL, VOL26, NO 3, 2016 285

©2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd

Please citethis article in press as: Doldor,E., Sealy, R. and Vinnicombe,S. (2016) ‘Accidental activists:headhunters as marginaldiversity actors in

institutionalchangetowards more women on boards’.HumanResourceManagement Journal26:3,285–303

doi: 10.1111/1748-8583.12107

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inclusivewas at odds with the logics and practices of headhunters,who typically enforce board

homogeneity by resorting to narrow pools of candidates (Hamori, 2010) and by emphasising

social fit when assessing candidates (Khurana, 2002). We aimed to understand how

headhunters assumedtheir novel role and contributedto this change process: (a) despitebeing

‘thrown’into it and not intentionally driving the institutional change (Lawrence et al.,2011)

and (b) despite typically reinforcing the status quo among corporate elites (Faulconbridge

et al., 2009).

To explore this, we utilised conceptual tools from two literatures: institutional change and

diversity management. Recent institutional scholarship focuses on the role of individual

agency in shaping social structures and processes that underpin institutional arrangements,

with a focus on institutional entrepreneurs (IEs) (Maguire et al., 2004; Lawrence et al., 2011).

Diversityscholarship examines the roleof individuals engaged indiversity work by unpacking

their rhetorical and practical strategies (Kirton et al., 2007; Tatli, 2011) but tends to focus on

actors who operate within organisations, whose primary remit is diversity management. We

sought to understand how headhunterscontribute to a change agendarelated to WoB, without

driving change as IEs, and without having diversity management as their primary role. Both

institutional change and diversity management literatures undertheorise institutional and

diversity work performed ‘from the margins’; therefore, examining headhunters’role in the

WoB field expands and enriches conceptualisations of change agency in both of these

literatures.

Our study draws on qualitative interviews with key actors in the field, observations and

secondary documents pertaining to therole of headhunters in the WoB changeagenda. Based

on our analysis, we conceptualise headhunters as ‘accidental activists’(AAs) in the field and

reveal two micro-processes that define their agency: (a) the voluntaristic framing of

intentionality and (b) role redefinition, by drawing on competing logics related to diversity

management and executive selection.We compare accidental activism with other conceptions

of agency and draw outthe motivation and strategies used by AAs.In relation to institutional

theory, we demonstrate that accidental activism differs from established conceptualisations of

institutional entrepreneurship (Battilana et al., 2009) and relies on the opportunistic utilisation

of competing logics. In relation to diversity scholarship, we chart the role of actors involved

in diversity work from outside organisations, and we explain how this novel diversity role

differs from ‘tempered radicalism’–aconcept used to describe the agency of internal diversity

actors (Scully and Meyerson, 1995; Kirton et al., 2007). The AA role that we theorise may be

pivotal to the institutional change and the diversity agenda, despite being opportunistic. We

discuss its opportunities and perils.

In subsequent sections, we consider research on institutional work, diversity work and

executive search. Next, we explain the study’s context and the methods used. Findings are

organised around two key themes that describe how headhunters frame their intentions and

enact their new role. We finishby discussing the study’s theoreticaland practical implications.

LITERATURE

Change agents doinginstitutional work

Recent institutional scholarship attempts to theorise the agency of actors who transform

institutionsby focusing on the role of IEs as individuals who instigatechange in ‘fields in crisis’

(Fligstein, 1997), strategise counter-hegemonic challenges (Levy and Scully, 2007), create new

norms and legitimise new roles (Reay et al., 2006; Delbridge and Edwards, 2008). Central to

the work of IEs is thenotion of institutional logics –sharedunderstanding of the goals pursued

Accidentalactivists

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©2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.