Marginal Matters: Exploring the Advancement of LGBTQ-Friendly Changes at a Catholic College in the United States

Extant scholarship and theory tends to overlook and mis-theorize the role that marginal actors play in organizational change and development. Therefore, this study employed and centered a multidimensional concept of marginality in an in-depth exploration of a specific organizational change and development context: a Roman Catholic College advancing LGBTQ-friendly change. An ethnographic research design employed over the course of 6 months revealed that one's marginal positionality--in relation to conditions of Invisibility, Resource Neglect, and Obedience--impacts whether and how actors advance LGBTQ-friendly change. Specifically, marginality was found to impact whether and how actors advance change through "Being Out, Educating and Speaking Out," and through an approach referred to in this study as "Felix Culpa." Additionally, an actors marginal positionality was found to impact 3 Levels of Connection (LoCs) to LGBTQ-friendly change at Catholic College: No Connection; an Empathetic and Galvanizing Connection; and a Structural and Intersectional Understanding (of LGBTQ-friendly change). A synthesis and theoretically sensitized interpretation of the findings revealed that--through their unique capacity to draw upon, strengthen, and nourish "Legitimate Alternative Structural Configurations" or LASCs, marginal actors have been critical to LGBTQ-friendly change at Catholic College, and are, more broadly, instrumental in both formal and cultural change within organizations. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]