This dissertation explores the negotiation styles of Chief Diversity Officers (CDOs) in United States higher education. CDOs must work with various institutional stakeholders to promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice (DEIJ) within an educational community. Despite CDOs reporting the ubiquity of negotiation in their professional work, CDO scholars have given insufficient attention to how CDOs negotiate with institutional stakeholders to advance DEIJ efforts. Similarly, negotiation scholars have given some attention to diversity, equity, and inclusion in negotiation and to the role of negotiation in social justice movements. However, negotiation scholars have not yet turned their attention to diversity professionals like CDOs. This dissertation study begins to fill the void on CDO negotiations, in general, and CDO negotiation styles, in particular, by answering the following research question: How do CDOs understand and use their negotiation styles? Using generic qualitative methodology, I collected data through 11 participants completing Shell’s (2006, 2018) negotiation style assessment and semi-structured interviews. Shell’s (2001, 2006, 2018) five-style framework and critical race theory are employed as my conceptual framework. This dissertation study offers important contributions to the theory and practice of CDO negotiations, with significant practical implications for DEIJ in higher education.
Read
