Building purposeful organisations from the inside out: a feminist's exploration of experiential agency

Scheepers, Ella

Building purposeful organisations from the inside out: a feminist's exploration of experiential agency

Thesis / Dissertation

2026

Publisher

University of Cape Town

Department

Graduate School of Business (GSB)

Faculty

Faculty of Commerce

Abstract

Social purpose organisations across the world are experimenting with new possibilities and challenging power for more just and caring societies (Lynch et al, 2021). This research examines how organisations fighting for social change live those goals internally instead of perpetuating the inequality and injustice they aim to fight (Nilsson & Paddock, 2014). This research seeks to build on theoretical insights into the emerging field of agency and positive institutional work (Nilsson, 2015), focusing on the experience involved in pursuing social goods (Hampel et al, 2017). It draws on developing literature on institutional work and its transformatory possibilities, in conversation with feminist institutionalism (Mackay, 2009; Kenny, 2011; Montoya, 2016) and politics of care literature (Toronto, 1991; Woodly et al, 2021; Lynch et al, 2021), to offer a more experiential understanding of agency in institutions. To do this, this research also reignites a multiscalar conceptualisation of power in new institutionalism to reflect the deeper societal forces at play that affect the institutional work of organisations and the individuals that experience them. Insight was built via a qualitative inquiry and empirical exploration into the practices and experiences of agency that constitute and maintain experiential legitimacy in three social purpose organisations in South Africa. Experiential legitimacy refers to how organisational members perceive that their lived, subjective experiences reflect—or fail to reflect—the organisation's espoused social purpose. The inquiry shows that organisation members felt most connected to each other and their organisation's purpose through specific practices, such as surfacing subjective experiences, communing as whole persons, and dialoguing around purpose and meaning. It was evident that the question of how experiential legitimacy is accomplished was linked to organisation members' experience of agency as they work to become more conscious and effective participants (Lawrence et al, 2011) in the mutual ongoing inquiry involved in pursuing social goods with a collaborative spirit (Nilsson, 2015). My findings highlight how a deeper understanding of power, experience and agency underscores the transformatory potential of institutional work demonstrating alternative modes of relating inside organisations (Benschop, 2021), specifically building on feminist ideas of agency as a situated, embodied and relational phenomenon (McNay, 2016). By engaging in positive institutional work, organisation members deepen their experience of each other and their organisation's purpose. This research cultivates the idea of experiential agency as the iterative collective process through which actors connect their social purpose goals to their everyday experiences through positive institutional work.

Keywords

social change

feminism

Reference:

Collections

PhD / Doctoral

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