Appropriation or Disappropriation: A Ventriloquial Analysis of Employees’ and Managers’ Perspectives on a Diversity Change Initiative

This paper examines how organizational members concretely appropriate equity, diversity and inclusion initiatives. This article results from a case study within a large Canadian organization, a study that was designed to explain the appropriation or disappropriation of discursive elements inherent to the implementation phase of new equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) initiatives. Using interview data, I explain how these elements contribute to the ways in which organizational members adapt and respond to these new organizational initiatives and practices. This research proposes to mobilize a Communicative Constitution of Organization (CCO) perspective that can aid in understanding how individual appropriation/disappropriation of diversity discourse could have implication for the emergence and sustainability of EDI initiatives. The paper identifies various forms of appropriation (compliant/unconditional, fully aligned, equivocal/conditional and disappropriation) performed by organizational members. Moreover, the findings introduce a gradient approach to appropriation, revealing how the process can evolve over time.