Manifesting Change: Developing Change Agents in a Digitalised World

Abstract

This chapter explores the impact of equality, diversity, and inclusivity (EDI) on internal change agents’ (ICAs) personal and professional development. We have surveyed 117 ICAs that undergo a four-year digital development programme at Edinburgh Business School (EBS). Our survey design draws from expectancy, surprise, sensemaking, and attribution theories to test four hypotheses using Spearman’s rank. We found that diversity features such as gender, age, sector affiliation, work experience, management responsibility, and programme stage do not strongly impact ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. Surprisingly, some diversity features had a modest or moderate impact on ICAs’ experience of personal and professional development. This disconfirmed our basic assumption about the effectiveness of inclusivity practices in the digital development programme at EBS. We conclude that future research should further investigate the impact of evaluation on ICAs’ personal and professional development and how we can secure it in a digital Business School context.

Citation

Pfefferkorn, T., Randall, J. and Scheuring, F. (2023), "Manifesting Change: Developing Change Agents in a Digitalised World", Kucukaltan, B. (Ed.) Contemporary Approaches in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: Strategic and Technological Perspectives (International Perspectives on Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, Vol. 9), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 149-170. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-233320230000009009