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Growth of intrapreneurialship in mature knowledge-centric firms

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Content Running head: GROWTH OF INTRAPRENEURIALSHIP 1

Growth of Intrapreneurialship in Mature Knowledge-Centric Firms:
An Innovation Study

Bryan B. Bechtoldt

A Dissertation Presented to the
faculty of the USC Rossier School of Education
University of Southern California
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of
Doctor of Education

May 2020
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Copyright by Bryan B. Bechtoldt 2020
All Rights Reserved

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Abstract

Mature knowledge-centric firms are under increasing pressure to innovate and grow their business
as the democratization of information continues. At the core of value for a client from a mature
knowledge-centric firm are the relationships with people, the professionals of the firm, and the
trust and insight that accompanies the knowledge they provide. To grow mature knowledge-centric
firms, these organizations need to expand and develop new networks for their business to serve.
The expansion of networks is a people-based process, and takes different minds and perspectives
to do so successfully. Therefore, to grow, mature knowledge-centric firms must recruit and
develop talent. The talent must be skilled and qualified to represent the firm credibly in network
expansion. Ideally, this talent would be a group diverse people that can provide access to new
networks, not previously accessed by the organization. This study is focused on how to prepare an
organization to develop a diverse workforce of highly skilled and qualified people to lead the firm
into net new markets.

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Dedication
I dedicate this dissertation to who supported me through the process of learning to
become a researcher and had the patience required to be supportive in the difficult times. I
dedicate this work to my business partners, who opened themselves up to me, were vulnerable
and transparent in their beliefs and opinions, and gave me the insight required to hopefully
contribute something of value to this field of study.
Most significantly, I dedicate this to my wife and son, who encouraged and helped me as
I worked through the years of research and writing.
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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Dr. Kimberly Hirabayashi for her guidance and support throughout
the OCL program. Without her belief in my ability to complete the program, I doubt I would
have stayed the course or endured long enough to finish.
To Dr. Wayne Combs, who was my first instructor in the program and a mentor
throughout my three years at USC. The power of positivity that he brings to everything he does
has changed the way I look at the world.
To Dr. Courtney Malloy, whose feverish challenge of the concepts presented in my
manuscripts forced me to look deeper and deeper into the data and literature to find new ways of
looking at the problem of practice and to develop new ideas to present to the audience.
To all the faculty of the OCL program and the environment they created for our cohort.
We tackled some significant topics, were encouraged to explore the differences and similarities
between us and strove to build a deeper understanding of leadership. It takes great experience
and confidence to allow a cohort the latitude to do this, and for this I am eternally grateful. The
faculty is clearly what makes USC such a special place – FIGHT ON!

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Table of Contents
Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3
Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... 5
List of Tables ............................................................................................................................ 10
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................... 12
Chapter One: Overview of the Study ......................................................................................... 13
Introduction to Problem of Practice ............................................................................... 13
Organizational Context and Mission .............................................................................. 14
Importance of Addressing the Problem .......................................................................... 14
Organizational Performance Goal .................................................................................. 15
Stakeholder Group of Focus and Stakeholder Goal ........................................................ 16
Purpose of the Project and Questions ............................................................................. 17
Review of the Literature ................................................................................................ 18
The Cultural Basis of a Firm’s Intrapreneurial and Innovative Orientation ......... 18
The Mindset Required to Grow the Incumbent Firm ........................................... 21
An All-Inclusive Multicultural Approach to Building Intrapreneurship .............. 22
in a Firm
Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational Influences ................................................. 23
Knowledge Influences ........................................................................................ 24
The Development of Procedural Knowledge of How to Consider ........... 26
Diversity in the Hiring Process
Metacognition and its Role in Building an All-Inclusive Culture ............ 26
Motivation Influences ........................................................................................ 27
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Efficaciously Believing that Business Growth is Achievable .................. 28
Organizational Influences................................................................................... 29
Organizational Barriers ...................................................................................... 30
Organizational Culture ....................................................................................... 30
Cultural Models ................................................................................................. 31
The MSF Leadership’s Belief in the Value of Diversity to Develop ........ 31
Networks for Business Growth
The Need for Trust Between the Companies of MSF in Order to ............ 32
Develop Networks to Grow the Business.
Interactive Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................ 33
Qualitative Data Collection ....................................................................................................... 35
Documents and Artifacts ............................................................................................... 35
Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 36
Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................ 37
Documents .................................................................................................................... 37
Interviews ...................................................................................................................... 38
Findings .................................................................................................................................... 38
Research Question 1: What are the stakeholder knowledge and motivation .................... 39
needs related to increasing employee diversity?
Knowledge .................................................................................................................... 39
Procedural Knowledge Findings ......................................................................... 39
Metacognitive Knowledge Findings ................................................................... 40
Motivation ..................................................................................................................... 41
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Beliefs of the Value of Diversity ........................................................................ 42
Self-Efficacy and Confidence in the Ability to Build Diversity in....................... 44
the Organization
Cultural Setting ............................................................................................................. 45
Research Question 2: What is the impact of organizational culture and context on ......... 47
stakeholder knowledge and motivation?
Commonly Held Belief in the Organizational Value of Diversity ....................... 48
Trust Between the Firms .................................................................................... 49
Solutions and Recommendations ............................................................................................... 52
Research Question 3: What are the recommended knowledge, motivation, and .............. 52
organizational solutions?
Knowledge Recommendations ....................................................................................... 52
Increasing Procedural Knowledge of How to Address Diversity in the ............... 53
Hiring Process
Increasing Metacognition of Considering the Significance of Diversity to .......... 54
Capture New Business is Important for the Accounting Leaders of MSF
Motivation Recommendations ....................................................................................... 55
Value ................................................................................................................. 56
Self-Efficacy ...................................................................................................... 57
Organization Recommendations .................................................................................... 59
Cultural Models, Including Diversity in Decision Making .................................. 60
Increasing Trust in and between Companies at MSF .......................................... 62
Limitations and Delimitations ................................................................................................... 63
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Recommendations for Future Research ..................................................................................... 64
Conclusion ................................................................................................................................ 64
References ................................................................................................................................ 66
Appendix A: Participating Stakeholders with Sampling Criteria for Interviews ......................... 73
Appendix B: Protocols .............................................................................................................. 74
Appendix C: Credibility and Trustworthiness ............................................................................ 78
Appendix D: Ethics ................................................................................................................... 80
Appendix E: Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan .................................................... 82

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List of Tables
Table 1: Organizational Mission, Global Goal, and Stakeholder Performance Goals 17
Table 2: Organizational Mission, Global Goal, Stakeholder Performance Goals, and 25
Knowledge Influences
Table 3: Organizational Mission, Global Goal, Stakeholder Performance Goals, and 27
Motivation Influences
Table 4: Global Goal, Stakeholder Goals, Organization Influences, and Organizational 29
Influence Assessments
Table 5: Accounting Leaders Understanding of the Procedure for Considering Diversity 40
in Hiring
Table 6: Accounting Leaders’ Thoughts on Reflection 41
Table 7: Individual Accounting Leaders Value of Diversity 43
Table 8: Confidence of the Leaders 45
Table 9: Data from Documents Reviewed 47
Table 10: Belief in the Value of Diversity at an Organizational Level 49
Table 11: Need for Trust Between the Different Firms of MSF 51
Table 12: Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations 53
Table 13: Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations 56
Table 14: Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations 60
Table B-1: Sampling Strategy and Timeline 74
Table B-2: KMO Influences, Interview Prompts and Questions and Document Analysis 76
Table B-3: Documents Sources, Data Gathered, and KMO Influence 77
Table E-1: Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes 83
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Table E-2: Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation 84
Table E-3: Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors 85
Table E-4: Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program 88
Table E-5: Components to Measure Reactions to the Program 89

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List of Figures

Figure A: Conceptual Framework 34

Figure E-A: Mock-Up of Four Block Four Program Reporting 91

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Chapter One: Overview of the Study
Introduction to Problem of Practice
Researchers have estimated that over 70% of jobs created in the United States derive
from new business development (Decker, Haltiwanger, & Miranda, 2014). Business growth
typically comes from innovation, which mature firms struggle with due to what has been called
“the incumbent’s curse” (Tellis, 2013, p. 3). Numerous studies have suggested that the culture of
an organization drifts away from entrepreneurship orientation once the organization is successful
and becomes mature (Park, Kim, & Krishna, 2014; Sarros, Cooper, & Santora, 2008).
Entrepreneurial orientation of a mature firm is called intrapreneurialship and can aid in
innovation as a source of firm growth (Rule, 1988). Bosma, Stam, and Wennekers (2010) has
explained that intrapreneurialship comes from within an organization, unlike entrepreneurialship,
which typically comes from the top of the organization—the entrepreneur. Bosma et al. found
that intrapreneurialship is rare, with only 5% of employees in mature firms able to adopt an
intrapreneurial mindset. This situation is problematic, as the available resources inside a mature
firm—such as experience, expertise, supporting talent, and cash for innovation (Tellis, 2013)—
are usually far superior to those of the entrepreneur’s start up. Therefore, when mature firms fail
to be intrapreneurial, economic growth suffers.
Teaching firms to become more intrapreneurial is important, as these mature firms are in
the best position to deliver innovations to market (Tellis, 2013). Organizing these mature firms to
practice intrapreneurialism through the development of intrapreneurial mindsets in their
organizations could have a significant impact on job creation and the economy.

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Organizational Context and Mission
Mature Services Firm (MSF) is a 40-plus year-old professional services firm in the
United States. MSF focused on client success in accounting, wealth management, trust services,
and strategic management solutions. The mission of MSF was to stay an autonomous
professional services firm providing business owners and executives the financial and
technology solutions to meet their challenges, capitalize on their opportunities, and balance their
risk and reward. MSF had been founded in 1974. MSF serviced clients in over 30 states in its
fiscal year 2019, concentrating on growth-based and transformational-focused clients. At the
time of this study (2019), MSF employed over 400 people across its four operating companies.
Importance of Addressing the Problem
Solving the problem of growth intrapreneurialship in mature, knowledge-centric firms is
important for a variety of reasons. First, innovation and new business ideas are instrumental in
creating new jobs. However, according to Adelino (2017), the majority of new business ideas do
not commercialize in existing firms; that, in fact, many new business ideas are commercialized
by people formerly employed by larger, more mature firms. These circumstances are due to the
failure of older firms to act on the opportunities around them (Tellis, 2013). Consequently, those
working at mature firms and see opportunities often have no recourse but to leave their firms to
bring new ideas to market (Bosma, 2010; Tellis, 2013). Of particular importance in this regard is
joining the entrepreneurial mindset and culture found in innovative startups with the resources
available to the entrepreneur inside these existing firms. Evidence indicates that when leaders
understand the mindset of an intrapreneur, they are able to spot talent. Talent may include people
of diverse backgrounds, which may further enhance innovation. Diversity for this study is
defined as gender, race, and ethnic diversity. Some researchers found that innovation was
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enhanced by the inclusion of diverse people, which extended the field of participant experience
in the solution development and helped avoid the pitfalls of group think in problem analysis
(Lattimer, 1998; Raguz, Filipovic, & Matijevic, 2014). Basset-Jones (2005) called the positive
impact of diversity on intrapreneurialship “creativity in a problem solving capacity” (p. 172).
The extant literature also indicates that developing a trust-based culture safe for innovative
thought is essential to rebuilding the entrepreneurial spirit of a firm in an intrapreneurial way
(Auer & Antoncic, 2011; Dovey, 2009; Tellis, 2013). Critically, Stull and Aram (2010) found
that trust has a powerful influence over intrapreneurial behaviors.
For mature firms to reclaim their entrepreneurial spirit and become intrapreneurial, they
must innovate. It is clear that innovation benefits from diversity as it promotes creative solution
development. In this way, implementing a diversity program in a mature firm can potentially
enable innovation and intrapreneurialism. But to do so, mature firms must change. Change
includes the mindset of its leaders—to focusing on hiring and recruiting diverse populations of
people and creating a supportive trust-based environment for innovation and diversity to co-
exist. Leadership in mature firms must build a culture that aligns with innovation and motivate
the organization to innovate, with the express purpose of creating business performance (Rauch,
Wiklund, Lumpkin, & Frese, 2009; Sarros et al., 2008; Tellis, 2013).
Organizational Performance Goal
At the time of this study, MSF’s goal was—by May 2021—to grow the organization’s
networks by 25% to achieve its necessary business growth. The chief executive officer (CEO)
established this goal during the leadership retreat in September of 2018. The CEO chartered a
stakeholder alignment cycle, from which leaders identified key areas on which to focus in order
to achieve the CEO’s goal for the organization. Goal achievement for MSF’s growth program
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was to be measured via the annual calculation of earnings before officer compensation (EBOC).
Evaluating the organization’s ability to achieve the stated growth goals will help the group
understand how to set and achieve goals.
Stakeholder Group of Focus and Stakeholder Goal
The stakeholder group that stood to benefit from an innovative look at the organization’s
ability to achieve goals was MSF’s accounting leaders, the executive body of the firm,
accountable for firm survivability and growth as well as for the cultural model for the accounting
firm. One potential factor that created this complexity in the cultural model for the accounting
leaders’ community was the multiple roles an accounting leader might have. At MSF, an
accounting leader was an employee. But an accounting leader might also be a corporate officer
or a member of board of directors. An accounting leader could also be a client of the firm’s
wealth management group, and often was.
The accounting leaders in MSF’s accounting firm managed the cultural setting of the firm
and were responsible for critical processes that supported firm growth. These critical processes
include recruiting and hiring, developing employee benefits, and establishing organizational
structure to support the cultural model sought by the leader community of MSF’s accounting
firm. The firm’s lifeblood was its relationships. If the relationships of a firm are growing, then
the firm is likely growing. If the relationships of a firm are shrinking then the firm is likely
shrinking. Relationships are organized into networks. A network is symbolic of how people are
connected in different ways. Networks are considered the fabric by which the firm communicates
its capabilities, needs, and advancements. The development of networks allows for a broader
audience to which the firm can communicate. To develop networks, the leaders of the firm must
demonstrate value to new groups of people, gain their trust, and develop relationships. A 25%
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growth number of new networks is believed to yield similar business financial growth, which is
critical to the mission of remaining an independent professional services firm.
To develop new relationships and networks, the firm needs people who bring new
connections to communities which were not previously connected to the firm. To this end, the
development of a firm diversity program that focuses on recruiting and hiring diverse population
of highly skilled and qualified professionals with a proven track record of success can create
access to new networks for the firm to communicate its capabilities, needs, and advancements.
Because networks overlap, to gain access to the 25% desired network growth, it was decided to
grow the rate of diversity of the workforce to a higher percentage: 35% non-White male.
Table 1
Organizational Mission, Global Goal, and Stakeholder Performance Goals
Organizational Mission
MSF is an autonomous firm providing business owners and executives the financial and
technology solutions to meet their challenges, capitalize on their opportunities, and balance their
risk and reward. We are able to accomplish this aim by recruiting and retaining the most
knowledgeable and passionate professionals in a collaborative culture that enables them to thrive
both professionally and personally.
Organizational Global Goal
By May 2021, grow the organizations networks by 25% to achieve its necessary business growth.
Stakeholder Goal
By May 2021, the accounting leaders of MSF will need to recruit and develop a diverse and
multicultural population of professionals at MSF with a goal of obtaining a 35% non-White male
ratio of people in the firm.

Purpose of the Project and Questions
The purpose of this innovation study was to determine how a mature professional
services firm can create new growth by adding a diverse population of professionals with
connections to networks and the ability to access those networks to benefit MSF. This project
reviewed the cultural basis of firm intrapreneurial orientation, the mindset required to grow the
incumbent firm, and the role of a diversity approach in building a culture and mindset of
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innovation. The questions directed to the leader community of the accounting firm MSF
included:
1. What are the stakeholder knowledge and motivation needs related to increasing
employee diversity?
2. What is the impact of organizational culture and context on stakeholder knowledge
and motivation?
3. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions?
Review of the Literature
This review covers literature under three topic areas that emerged from the review
process: the cultural basis of firm intrapreneurial orientation, the mindset required to grow the
incumbent firm, and the role of an all-inclusive multicultural approach to building a culture and
mindset of innovation. While these topics have many applications, this review is focused on the
literature’s application to the problem of intrapreneurship in aging professional services firms as
a means to improve business performance.
The Cultural Basis of a Firm’s Intrapreneurial and Innovative Orientation
The development of a cultural basis of firm intrapreneurial action is significant to
generating firm business growth. Creating an entrepreneurial orientation in a firm can have a
positive effect on firm performance (Rauch et al., 2009). Baruah and Ward (2015) found that
organizational complexities can be managed substantially through the innovation development
that comes from intrapreneurship. Further, Baruah and Ward explained that organizational
complexities are influenced by organizational factors like structure, available resources, and
culture, and may include environmental considerations such as customer demands and
competitors. Carrier (1996) found that intrapreneurialship is a means to stimulate innovation and
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that small business can benefit from the literature on intrapreneurialship. Building a culture that
supports innovation can have positive impacts on a firm’s business performance. Through the
use of a structural equation model, Auer and Antoncic (2011) demonstrated a relationship among
intrapreneurship, employee satisfaction, and firm growth. Business performance components
included elements of employee satisfaction that lead to ongoing intrapreneurship activities such
as new business venturing, process, and technology innovation as well as self-renewal (Auer,
2011). Motivational leadership must build and develop a culture of intrapreneurship in order to
develop business performance in a firm. The results from the Sarros et al. (2008) structural
equation model, which is based on responses to a survey of 1,158 managers, show that
creativity—a major part of innovation—is connected to strong visionary leadership.
Significantly, Sarros et al. found that supportive cultures have deep structures of organization,
with a foundation of values, beliefs, and assumptions held by the members of the organization.
Sarros et al. (2008) continued by predicting that organizational culture “will mediate the
relationship between transformational leadership and climate for organizational innovation” (p.
148).
In a study that surveyed 528 companies with at least 300 employees, Park et al. (2014)
found that when management built real trust-based relationships with employees, it encouraged
them to be motivated to be intrapreneurial. James (qtd.in Sarros et al., 2008) wrote that
intrapreneurialship can become a significant part of the culture if a leader allows it to develop.
James (qtd.in Sarros et al., 2008) also posited that “culture is the lens through which a leader’s
vision is manifested and helps build the climate necessary for organizations to become
innovative” (p. 148). Tellis (2012) identified three traits that cause a firm’s culture to inhibit
innovation: “A fear of cannibalizing current successful products, a focus on solving current
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problems, and an intolerance for risky, uncertain innovations” (p. 20). Gupta (2016) concluded
that, to obtain growth-based innovation, firms must support intrapreneurship, which they found
strengthened ties with employees and helped increase profits—benefits particularly relevant in
mature, well-established firms. Mature or incumbent firms have significant advantages over
startup firms. Incumbent firms have vastly more resources available to them than traditional
entrepreneurs (Tellis, 2012). In building a culture that supports growth and innovation,
identifying employees with an intrapreneurial mindset can prompt a cultural transformation. An
intrapreneurial mindset is much different than an employee mindset, as it connects with
leadership activities such as mobilizing teams, fighting against the status quo, and taking
ownership (Seshadri & Tripathy, 2006). Molina (2009), importantly, identified an intersection of
individual learning, organizational learning, and intrapreneurialship as an added dimension of the
intrapreneurial and innovative mindset, finding that learning was a driver to better organizational
outcomes in intrapreneurial firms. The intrapreneurial mindset can contribute to a firm’s ability
to innovate and, as a result, achieve better business performance (Rule & Irwin, 1988). Rule and
Irwin added that the higher the value of the organization’s human capital, the greater the impact
of organizational structures on innovative performance.
Motivating people to engage in change is rooted in two factors. The first is in convincing
the people in the business that the market has, indeed, arrived at a point where they no longer
have a viable business; and, secondly, that adopting a new business model is the way a firm can
grow and survive (Brown, Nasarwanji, & Catulli, 2010). When mature firms drift away from
entrepreneurialism, it hurts the global economy because these once growth-oriented firms cease
new development.

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The Mindset Required to Grow the Incumbent Firm
A certain mindset can support a person’s effort to be successful in pursuit of innovation.
This mindset is one of openness and learning (Richard, 2007), with the ability to associate what
one learns with things one knows and to come up with new concepts. For those working in
mature firms, this mindset is one of intrapreneurialship—and is about making things happen
(Thompson, Heinonen, & Scott, 2014). A core element of enabling a growth-based mindset is to
develop firm trust between management and team members (Dovey, 2009). Lakos and Phipps
(2004) found that “nothing inhibits innovation, creativity, team building, and a sense of purpose
more than the lack of trust” (p. 358). When people trust leadership, they are less fearful of taking
the risks that can enable growth. When people free themselves of fear, they become more open
and have a better chance of changing their enterprises. Fostering an open mindset prepared to
embrace growth in governed ways can contribute to innovation. Intrapreneurs are committed to:
“seeing opportunities to grasp and actions to take” (Thompson et al., 2014, p. 269).
Organizations must also balance risk and grow with integrity and in governed ways.
Specifically, organizations focused on survival through a “grow at all cost” approach often lose
sight of the long-term consequences of their short-term growth-based actions—what has been
referred to as “the ethics of the rational self-interested agent” (Dubnick, 2003). Dubnick
described this scenario as driven by an individual, usually toward power or wealth. While growth
is essential to a firm’s survival so is preservation of a firm’s reputation. A firm needs people
engaged in intrapreneurial activities to believe their success is due to a stable cause, such as
improved innovation practices and competence in growth-based activities. Weiner (1972) stated
that when people believe their achieved and desired outcomes are from stable causes, they have a
greater likelihood of being positive in the future—because they believe they can repeat the
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success. This belief will help the firm develop a culture of success, where achievement is
attributed to hard work and better practice rather than to luck; therefore, the outcomes are more
in their control (Bandura, 2000; Weiner, 1985).
Fostering an open mindset prepared to embrace growth in governed ways can contribute
to innovation, which itself can be enhanced by the inclusion of diverse people. Multicultural
teams have the ability to generate a large number of ideas and to decrease group think (Raguz,
Filipovic, & Matijevic, 2014). Amplifying diversity in a firm’s culture improves its ability to see
things in different ways and increases the likelihood of becoming innovative and spurring
intrapreneurship in the firm.
An All-Inclusive Multicultural Approach to Building Intrapreneurship in a Firm
An all-inclusive multicultural approach can help build a culture of intrapreneurship in a
firm, bringing diversity in the form of a heterogeneous team. Increasing cultural diversity yields
positive outcomes that fuel the transformation process, allowing people to learn more about each
other (Gonzalez, 2010). Such learning can open minds to new ways of solving problems.
Multicultural diversity can have a positive impact on creativity, fostering deeper interactions,
encouraging more effective communication, and allowing for greater team understanding (Stahl,
Mäkelä, Zander, & Maznevski, 2010). Harrison, Price, and Bell (1998) argued that the longer a
diverse workforce was together, the deeper its diversity was, and the more meaningful the
interactions between team members were.
Supportive cultures have deep structures and organizations formed by their values,
beliefs, and assumptions held by members of the organization (Sarros et al., 2008). These
supportive cultures can impact how the workforce feels about the firm and how people trust
decision making by the leadership. Brooke and Tyler (2010) found that procedural justice in the
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workplace means that when employees feel they are being treated with fairness, they work
harder. Research suggests that work group diversity can impact work group performance in
positive and negative ways (Van Knippenberg & Schippers, 2007). Setting the organization up
for success with diversity may require cultural readiness to enable the positive impact of
multicultural diversity to occur. A supportive culture can help create the right conditions for a
positive impact from multicultural diversity in a firm. Ely and Thomas (2001) found that when
people begin to maximize the impact of a multiculturally diverse workforce and deal with
identity, tensions, and the notion of value within the organizations and between colleagues, deep
work began to emerge. Interestingly, when “both social integration (a sense of cohesion and trust
among team members) and self-verification (a process by which team members express their
unique perspectives and receive acknowledgement about them from their teammates)” (Maloney
& Zellmer-Bruhn, 2006, p. 698) exist in an organization, teams reap the benefits of a
multiculturally diverse environment.
An all-inclusive multicultural approach (AIM) has been proven to have a significantly
higher acceptance rate than noninclusive approaches. Acceptance of an all-inclusive approach to
multiculturalism was assessed as part of the AIM study, which measured the inclusion of all
people versus a multicultural program focused on minority groups. The findings in the all-
inclusive approach yielded a 61% positive acceptance rating versus the 24% acceptance rate of
the noninclusive approach (Stevens, Plaut, & Sanchez-Burks, 2008). This approach for firms
could significantly impact the adoption of a positive multicultural diversity program.
Knowledge, Motivation, and Organizational Influences
The framework for this study was modified from the gap analysis method developed by
Clark and Estes (2008). This gap analysis uses three main diagnostic components to review
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organizational performance issues. These diagnostic components focus on knowledge,
motivation, and organizational influences on an issue in an attempt to understand how to correct
issues or establish a proper environment for effective change. This study began with assumed
knowledge influences that might lead to identifying gaps in peoples’ understanding. The study
then reviewed motivational factors that might explain a failure of the stakeholder community to
achieve goal obtainment in growing the accounting firm. Lastly, this study looked at
organizational factors and barriers that potentially harmed the stakeholder’s ability to achieve
their stated goals. Clark and Estes indicated that having the proper resources and materials is
critical to achieving stated goals; likewise, the failure to have them available to the stakeholders
can harm goal achievement. By using this framework, I was able to analyze factors that may be
precluding the account leadership from achieving its performance goals and potentially
influencing the stakeholder group’s ability to achieve its goals in a positive way.
Knowledge Influences
The goal of growing the organization’s networks by 25% to achieve its necessary aim
was both ambitious and critical to MSF’s mission. MSF sought to remain an autonomous
professional services firm dedicated to its clients and to the care of its employees. MSF defined
staying autonomous as having no material change in firm ownership, such that the existing group
of leaders loses autonomy of decision-making for the firm. To this end, MSF had to redefine its
approach to its market and find new avenues for growth-related business activities to occur. To
accomplish this goal, the firm had to develop new ways of servicing clients and be adept at
solving problems in alignment with society’s general progression. Critically, to accomplish this,
the accounting firm of MSF had to adjust its diverse and multicultural make up to be one of
openness and all-inclusiveness. Such a change to MSF allowed all people to feel part of the
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firm’s forward direction—unlike traditional diversity programs that focus on either
colorblindness or gender equality. Implementations of such diversity programs are often met
with resistance from minority and nonminority groups (Stevens et al., 2008). For the firm to
reach its growth goal, it had to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to successfully
practice business activities that shift the firm to an all-inclusive multicultural entity. Table 2,
below, shows MSF’s organizational mission, organizational goal, stakeholder goals in place at
the time of the study.
Table 2
Organizational Mission, Global Goal, Stakeholder Performance Goals, and Knowledge
Influences
Organizational Mission
MSF is an autonomous firm providing business owners and executives the financial and technology
solutions to meet their challenges, capitalize on their opportunities, and balance their risk and reward.
We are able to accomplish this by recruiting and retaining the most knowledgeable and passionate
professionals into a collaborative culture that enables them to thrive both professionally and
personally.
Organizational Global Goal
By May 2021, grow the organization’s networks by 25% to achieve its necessary business growth.
Stakeholder Goal
By May 2021, the accounting leaders of MSF will need to recruit and develop a diverse and
multicultural population of professionals at MSF with a goal of obtaining a 35% non-White male ratio
of people in the firm.
Knowledge Influence Knowledge Type
(i.e., declarative (factual or
conceptual), procedural, or
metacognitive)
Knowledge Influence
Assessment
The accounting leaders need to
know how to address diversity
in the hiring process
Procedural Accounting leaders will need to
be interviewed to discover their
familiarity with considering
diversity in the hiring process.
The accounting leaders need to
reflect upon the significance of
diversity to capture new
business
Metacognitive

Accounting leaders will need to
be interviewed to determine
their level of reflection in the
hiring process.

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The development of procedural knowledge of how to consider diversity in the hiring
process. Understanding procedurally how to consider diversity in the hiring process addresses
how accounting leaders function in the hiring process—specifically what skills are required for
them to be successful as well as the techniques, methods and steps necessary to successfully
consider diversity in the hiring process. Importantly, Connerley (2005) found that increasing
awareness of multiculturalism and diversity of knowledge and skills increases purpose-driven
decision making that appreciates different cultural influences and delivers real and tangible
outcomes for the organization. Clearly, building skills and techniques for considering diversity
are also important to diversity in the hiring process.
Metacognition and its role in building an all-inclusive culture. As a baseline for
learning about all-inclusive multiculturalism—and to meet with a degree of success—MSF’s
accounting leaders had to become self-aware. Of particular importance to building knowledge
and developing skills associated with this implementation was that MSF accounting leaders
assess and monitor their own knowledge and abilities as a basis for the learning process and its
impact on the accounting leader’s ability to grow. Furthermore, to make self-knowledge acquired
from metacognitive processes relevant to the learner, the learner must practically apply the
processes through growth-minded activities. The importance of organizational support for
professional learning is convincingly articulated by Clark (2008), who asserted that managers
must support the application of knowledge and skills acquired through training in order for
learners to be enthusiastic about applying what they have learned. True understanding of self and
every individual’s biases is essential for the transfer of knowledge to occur.

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Motivation Influences

For the problem of growing diversity in MSF, I reviewed the relevant motivational-
focused literature. Generally, this problem is complex because the goal, while well-formed and
straightforward, may be affected by a lack of motivation to diversify on the part of MSF
accounting leaders. It was critical to identify the source of this disincentive before forming
solution methods and beginning implementation. Below, in Table 3, are the mission, goals, and
motivational influences that drove this analysis.
Table 3
Organizational Mission, Global Goal, Stakeholder Performance Goals, and Motivation
Influences
Organizational Mission
MSF is an autonomous firm providing business owners and executives the financial and technology
solutions to meet their challenges, capitalize on their opportunities, and balance their risk and reward. We
are able to accomplish this by recruiting and retaining the most knowledgeable and passionate
professionals into a collaborative culture that enables them to thrive both professionally and personally.
Organizational Global Goal
By May 2021, grow the organizations networks by 25% to achieve its necessary business growth.
Stakeholder Goal
By May 2021, the accounting leaders of MSF will need to recruit and develop a diverse and multicultural
population of professionals at MSF with a goal of obtaining a 35% non-White male ratio of people in the
firm.
Assumed Motivation Influences Motivational Influence Assessment
Value – Accounting leaders need to see the value of
increasing employee diversity.
Interview questions will need to inquire about
firm leaders’ belief in the value of increasing
employee diversity.
Self-Efficacy – Accounting leaders need to believe
they are capable of growing the business through the
development of a diverse and multicultural network.
Interview questions will need to probe
accounting leaders’ belief that they achieve
business growth through the development of a
diverse workforce.

The accounting firm of MSF organization clearly established a specific, measurable, and
time-bound goal. The organization agreed as to the importance of accomplishing this goal. Due
to the amount of learning required to achieve this goal, a motivational element was involved.
Clark (2004) posited that motivation has three elements: active choice, persistence, and mental
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effort. The lack of stakeholder engagement at MSF indicated that the problem may have been
rooted in an active choice not to undertake genuine efforts toward growth-based activities. I
explored this thesis through the lens of attribution theory and self-efficacy theory.
Efficaciously believing that business growth is achievable. Self-efficacy is a
fundamental element of social cognitive theory through the review and analysis of human agency
(Bandura, 2000). Generally, efficacy is people’s need to believe that they can achieve desired
results. If they do not believe they can achieve the desired results, then they fail to make the
active choice to engage autonomously in working toward goal obtainment (Bandura, 2000;
Clark, 2004; Ryan & Deci, 2006). Clark (2004) stated that work on what drives human behavior
has focused on “expectancy and control, efficacy and agency, and effectance” (p. 82). Clark
(2004) continued by combining these principles into a single definitional term: “effectiveness,”
explaining that the “desire to be effective” (p. 83) is a motivational driver for humans. The ego
can complicate this behavior. Graham (1991) suggested that ego is a key distinction in
understanding why people might actively and autonomously choose not to engage in goal
attainment—because they are attempting to cover up what they believe is a shortcoming. When
people feel that they lack the ability to succeed, do not know how to succeed, and do not want to
be seen as ineffective, the antecedents that reside in the organization become significant barriers
to achieving the stated goals and desired results.
The accounting leaders of MSF may not have felt that they could be, or understood how
to be, effective in growing the firm’s diverse populations of highly skilled and qualified
professionals with a proven track record of success. As such, they might have made an
autonomous choice not to actively engage in the behaviors that would yield business growth
through employment of a multicultural population.

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Organizational Influences
Many organizational influences can impact an organization’s ability to achieve its goals.
It is important to keep in mind that the organization and stakeholder goals as you begin your
review of the organization influences overall. Below, Table 4 shows the list of goals for the
organization and stakeholders with the assumed organization influences and influence
assessments.
Table 4
Global Goal, Stakeholder Goals, Organization Influences, and Organizational Influence
Assessments
Organizational Global Goal
By May 2021, grow the organization’s business networks by 25% to achieve its necessary
business growth.

Stakeholder Goal (If Applicable)
By May 2021, the accounting leaders of MSF will need to recruit and develop a diverse and
multicultural population of professionals at MSF with a goal of obtaining a 35% non-White
male ratio of people in the firm.
Assumed Organizational Influences

Organization Influence Assessment
The leaders of MSF needs to believe in the
value of employee diversity in order to
develop networks for business growth.
Interview questions that inquire about the
interviewee value of employee diversity.

Review of the employee handbook for
evidence of the value of employee diversity
for the firm.

Review of the public website for
acknowledgment of a focus on employee
diversity in the firm.
The leaders of MSF need to have a culture of
trust between the different companies of
MSF to develop networks for business
growth.
Interview questions presented to the MSF
leaders that inquire into their opinions of
trust inside the accounting firm, and between
the other firms with MSF.

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Organizational Barriers
Fundamental to the successful achievement of an organizational goal is removing barriers
to the stakeholder community (Clark & Estes, 2008). Motivation and knowledge give the
stakeholder community the capability to achieve a goal, but removing organizational barriers
allows the stakeholder community to successfully accomplish a goal. Barriers can be removed by
the stakeholders themselves; or barriers can be analyzed as part of a solution and applied
organizationally as part of a solution implementation. It is important to consider barrier removal
in the solution because barriers themselves can sometimes prevent the acquisition of requisite
knowledge to achieving a goal and can likewise negatively impact the leaders’ motivation in
working toward a goal (Clark & Estes, 2008). Schein (2017) found that removing barriers also
had to include developing the necessary supporting structures and systems for stakeholder goal
achievement. This finding suggests that successful implementation of a goal-oriented solution
should not be limited to removing barriers; the organization also needs to consider the
development of new structures and systems that enable the organization’s stakeholders to
achieve the stated goals. To shift the mindset of MSF accounting leaders, it was necessary to
remove barriers as well as work on a supporting system and structural development. This effort
may require culture shifts, as stakeholders in change programs often have to make significant
changes to their belief systems.
Organizational Culture
Organizational culture has three levels: the organization’s artifact, its espoused beliefs
and values, and its basic underlying assumptions (Schein, 2017). Generally, the artifacts contain
things that are tangible—like structure or process. These tangible things create the cultural
setting of the organization (Schein, 2017). The espoused beliefs and values are made up of the
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ideologies and rationalizations of the organization. The basic underlying assumptions are the
unconscious beliefs and values in an organization—things that are not spoken but are always
present. These espoused and unconscious beliefs and values together contribute to the cultural
model of the organization (Gallimore & Goldenberg, 2001; Schein, 2017). To understand what
the organization needs to do to create a supportive climate for the stakeholder community to
succeed, one must understand cultural settings and models, review barriers to goal achievement,
and analyze new structures and systems.
Cultural Models
Cultural models are deeply engrained in an organization and its people. The cultural
model derives, in part, from the organization’s cultural DNA, which gives the organization its
unique identity in the form of acceptance into the group. Schein (2017) described cultural DNA
as the stability component of the group. It is formed in the early stages of the organization and is
considered the reason for its success. He further stated that cultural DNA “is the source of the
group’s stability and cannot be changed without changing the group altogether” (Schein, 2017, p.
7). There must be careful consideration of the cultural model, beliefs and values, and/or people to
prepare the accounting leaders for goal achievement.
The MSF leadership’s belief in the value of diversity to develop networks for
business growth. Cultural settings at MSF that supported stakeholder goal achievement were
based in the firm’s rising acceptance of diversity and understanding of its potential impact. The
firm had a high population of female leaders relative to peer firms. The firm saw this balance as
an area of strength and had begun a “women’s program” focused on the development of women
professionals inside the organization as well as outside the organization—into the community.
These programs focused on the successes of female executives in the community, the unique
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needs of women in the community, and building a network for women to engage in business
collaboration. This experience and success is helpful in creating a cultural setting that includes
diversity in its cultural artifacts. The organization may need an expanded culture of diversity in
order to find innovations and new networks in which to grow the business. Multicultural
diversity in a firm’s culture strengthens its ability to see in different ways and increases the
likelihood of becoming innovative and growth based (Raguz et al., 2014). The diversity program
at MSF might consider going beyond gender into an all-inclusive multicultural program to aid in
generating the long-term growth activities required for firm renewal.
The need for trust between the companies of MSF in order to develop networks to
grow the business. The cultural model developing at MSF that supported the growth of
networks was trust between the different companies of MSF. This trust level lived at an
organization level and aided in the development of networks for growth by introducing new
people from the firm’s different companies to network relationships among individual firm
leaders. To enable this activity, trust must be high. Relationships in an individual leader’s
network are critical to that leader’s ability to be successful in their profession. Entrusting their
relationships is a big step and requires a belief that once new leader from MSF is introduced to
an existing network relationship, the relationship will be enhanced and the new MSF leaders’
presence in the relationship will produce better outcomes. These better outcomes come from
networking activities aid in new idea generation for innovation. Trust underpins the cultural
requirements essential to innovation in an organization (Dovey, 2009). Specifically, Dovey
identified these requirements as collaborative learning, idea generation, and idea realization. It is
important to have trust between the companies of MSF, as the lack of trust damages the
organization’s ability to grow. Importantly, Lakos and Phipps (2004) found that “nothing inhibits
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innovation, creativity, team building, and a sense of purpose more than the lack of trust” (p.
358).
Interactive Conceptual Framework
A conceptual framework is a system or way of thinking about how to research a problem
that creates the basis for a study (Maxwell, 2013; Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). This dissertation
focused on exploring stakeholder knowledge and motivation as well as the cultural influences on
the stakeholder goal of MSF accounting leaders recruiting and developing a diverse and
multicultural population of professionals with the goal of reaching a 35% non-White male ratio
of people in the firm. Study of these factors intended to identify probable causes and potential
solutions to organizational problems. The interplay of knowledge, motivation, and organizational
culture as it influences the problem of firm growth for the accounting leaders of MSF will be
reviewed in this conceptual framework.
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Figure A. Conceptual framework. Illustrating the organization’s global goal and the relationships
among knowledge, motivational, and organizational influences that affect MSF accounting
leaders ability to accomplish the goal.

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Qualitative Data Collection
I used interviews and performed a document and artifact review to gather data for my
research and to understand the current state of the firm’s knowledge, motivation, and
organization. My conceptual framework explored how the organization values hiring a diverse
population of highly skilled and qualified professionals with a proven track record of success to
spur business growth. The organization’s cultural setting provides tangibility to the cultural
model and was the primary focus of the document and artifact review.
For the exploration of knowledge, motivation, and organization, I used an interview set of
MSF accounting leaders. This group of people was aware of the firm’s need to grow and was a
direct beneficiary of the firm’s business outcomes. As such, the members of this group were
motivated to participate and be forthcoming with their thoughts on growth, or lack thereof.
According to Patton (2002), we interview people to determine things that we cannot see when we
observe them.
Documents and Artifacts
Documents and artifacts are a natural part of the research setting and provide valuable
information (Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). In gathering these data, I sought to assess aspects of the
firm’s cultural setting that supported the right climate for firm-based growth. Merriam and
Tisdell (2016) stated that, with regard to documents and artifacts, a researcher should keep an
open mind as doing so can lead to good findings. For my document and artifact discoveries, I
looked for evidence of openness to all people in the review of recruiting activities and public
information sources by the firm’s business development and human resources organizations. The
documents and artifacts for this purpose included both physical and online materials (Merriam &
Tisdell, 2016). These sources included the web site, postings about job opportunities, and the
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employee handbook. I also looked for any written material that supported an environment open
to all as well as images that presented a welcoming environment.
Interviews
The study began by executing a sampling strategy that was a purposeful nonrandom
sampling method with deep analysis of nine of the leaders in the MSF accounting firm. I
employed a face-to-face interview method for all nine participants. The interviews were 1 hour
in duration and were conducted in the MSF offices. Interviews were conducted between May 1,
2019 and July 5, 2019. The interview questions were unstructured, pre-created, and open ended.
Creswell and Creswell (2017) have said that the advantage of this type of sampling method is to
“elicit views and opinions from the participants” (p. 190). The purpose of these interviews was to
gain insight into the attitude of the accounting leaders’ group toward growth—including how to
grow through the development of diverse networks and whether growth was possible with the
development of diverse networks. Access to interviewing these accounting leaders was gained
through a request to the board of directors of the MSF organization and sponsored as an
independent study to validate opinions and ideas from the accounting leader’s community.
The interview method was chosen for data collection to gain a better understanding of the
mindset of the stakeholder community as it related to the KMO elements of the problem of
growth for the accounting leaders of MSF. In the data collection process, I focused on efficacy
and value theory in the hope of highlighting certain solution aspects that would prepare the
organization for change.
I conducted my interviews post-document review. The document review was utilized
primarily for assessing the cultural setting in the organization. During my interviews, I was able
to consider the cultural setting from the document review while gathering the knowledge,
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motivation, and other organizational data from my participants. During my interviews, I adhered
to Merriam and Tisdell’s (2016) guide to be “respectful, nonjudgement and nonthreatening” (p.
129), the qualities of a good interviewer. I interviewed each candidate in his or her place of
business, one at a time, for 60 minutes, and performed no more than four interviews per week.
My total interview time was 9 hours in length. I recorded the interviews, as Merriam and Tisdell
maintained that this practice allows for the capture of everything the respondent has said. I
conducted the recording with a recording pen and a linked electronic notepad for ease of taking
hand-written notes of the audio recording. I provided each participant with a verbal informed
consent and an assurance that his or her information was to be kept private and secure. I had a
copy of the interview protocol with me for participants who wanted to see the questions.
Data Analysis
Documents
The review of documents took place in the Spring 2019. I reviewed the website, job
posting, and employee handbook for signs of the firm being welcoming to all people. During this
process, I reviewed both text and visual elements. In the visual elements, I specifically looked for
pictures that showed people of diverse populations, including racial, ethnic, gender, and age
diversity. This review was intended to assess the cultural climate of the organization as it relates
to the organization’s preparedness to attract a diverse workforce. Once the interview data were
gathered, I compared my findings from the document analysis phase to triangulate the data from
the job posting, website, employee handbook, and interview data to aid to answer the research
questions. The combination of the data collected was beneficial to understanding the stakeholder
knowledge, motivation, and organizational barriers to the stakeholder’s ability to attract a diverse
workforce to develop networks for business growth.
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Interviews
After conducting the nine recorded interviews with the accounting leaders, I submitted
my recordings to Rev.com for transcription services. Upon receiving the returned transcripts
from Rev.com, I conducted two reviews of the transcripts. The first review ensured that the
identities of the participants and organization were protected by removing any use of proper
names of people or the name of the organization. To this end, I assigned the pseudonyms
accounting leader 1, 2, 3, and so on. To protect the identity of the organization, I replaced its
proper name with the pseudonym MSF, as utilized throughout the case study. On the second
pass, I reviewed the transcripts with the voice recording to ensure accuracy of transcription.
I then coded the transcribed interview by developing a structure for review and analysis
in Excel, using labeling to correlate responses from the respondents. In the second phase of the
review process, I took the primary labels and attempted to identify relationships in the data. The
third and final review of the data involved aggregating data into themes and then calculating the
percentage of respondents that aligned with the prevailing directionality of the group. The
directionality of the group based on theme was then used to answer the research questions and to
tie to the researcher’s conceptual framework.
Findings
The results and findings of this study utilized a combination of interviews with members
of MSF’s accounting firm as well as a document analysis of key artifacts from the cultural
setting of MSF. In particular, this study reviewed the employee handbook for policies that related
to diversity hiring practices and the MSF corporate website as sources of information. Nine of
the 16 accounting leaders were interviewed. All data collected were coded and categorized for
use in the study. The goal of the document analysis was to determine if resources were present to
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inform the organization about its commitment to hiring a diverse population of professionals and
if public persona indicated that MSF was a friendly organization for people of diverse
backgrounds. The researcher performed a qualitative approach and leveraged a gap analysis
framework to identify any strengths or gaps.
Research Question 1: What are the stakeholder knowledge and motivation needs related to
increasing employee diversity?
Knowledge
This study uncovered knowledge factors that included procedural knowledge gaps as well
metacognitive gaps in how the accounting leaders performed in considering diversity in the
hiring process. This study found motivational gaps in the form of issues with value, both
expectancy and utility, and with the self-efficacy of the accounting leaders. These knowledge
and motivation gaps are explored in the sections below.
Procedural knowledge findings. Procedural knowledge is knowledge of the methods
and steps needed to take to accomplish a task (Krathwohl, 2002). As part of this study, the
interviewees involved in the hiring process at MSF were asked if they followed certain hiring
steps that considered diversity. While accounting leaders seemed to understand that the
organization might benefit from a diverse workforce, they did not understand the steps, possess
the skills, or understand the methods necessary to addressing this need. Of the nine accounting
leaders interviewed, all who responded indicated that they did not take specific steps in the hiring
process to consider diversity. Table 5, below, shows the accounting leaders’ responses to the
interview question “What steps do you consider regarding diversity when hiring?”

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Table 5
Accounting Leaders Understanding of the Procedure for Considering Diversity in Hiring
Leader Response
1 “We don’t.”
2 “I don't follow many things very strictly.”
4 “I don't think diversity is really key in the whole
strategy around hiring.”
5 “I would say no.”
6 “I don't think we have any specific steps that really
address diversity in the hiring process.”
7 “There's not.”
9 “I'm not aware of any kind of prescribed steps.”

Metacognitive knowledge findings. Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge of oneself,
conditional knowledge, and knowledge of cognitive tasks (Krathwohl, 2002). When the
accounting leaders were posed with the question about reflection in the hiring process, only six
out of nine responses indicated they did reflect on the need for diversity in order to increase
business. While there appears to be awareness of the importance of reflecting on the need for
diversity in the organization, there did not seem to be a common way of reflecting; therefore,
there was a lack of consistency among the respondents as to what it meant to reflect on the need
for diversity.
Table 6 shows brief quotations from respondents answering the question “When hiring,
how do you reflect upon the need for diversity in order to increase business?”

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Table 6

Accounting Leaders ’ Thoughts on Reflection

Leader Comment
2 “To answer your question when I reflect on it, I don't know if you paint the
picture of diversity at your angle, I think you wanna make sure that when
you have the candidates that have diversity when you interview them I
know it naturally comes to fruition.”
4 “The more people we have that reflect what's out in the market place, the
more attractive we look.”
5 “Do I personally think about it? I do. I really wish when resumes come
across my desk for consideration, I wish there was more...”
6 “Yeah, I think we do. And I think especially as we hire higher levels.”
7 “Yeah, I think we don't necessarily refer to it, or often times I don't refer to
it as diversity, versus what do we need? And then how are we going to get
to our end goal? What do we need to get there? And often times that might
be a person that thinks differently. And the way you're going to think
differently is you're going to have a different background, likely.”
9 “When I was involved in recruiting at (a big 6 firm) it was definitely
something that we would think back on, are we reflective of our population,
of our client base, of our potential client base? Probably more so than here
at MSF.”

Motivation
The motivation influences of this study included expectancy-value to understand people’s
belief that hiring a diverse highly skilled and qualified workforce of professionals with a proven
track record of success will increase business outcome and the accounting leadership’s self-
efficacy or the belief that they can be successful. Motivational literature contains evidence that
expectancy-value—the belief that when people have higher expectancies of success and
confidence they will succeed—increases people motivation (Eccles, 2006). The motivational
literature also shows that high self-efficacy can have a positive impact on people’s motivation
and belief that they can accomplish a task (Bandura, 2000; Clark, 2008; Pajares, 2006; Ryan &
Deci, 2006).
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Beliefs of the value of diversity. The accounting leaders demonstrated individually that
they saw value in a diverse workforce that is highly skilled and qualified from a diverse set of
backgrounds with a proven track record of delivering business growth through network
development. Their responses captured important ideas on the value of diversity in the workforce
as a means to grow business. Leaders mentioned the significant benefits found in the literature
review on diversity. Respondents specifically valued expanded networks, avoidance of group
think, innovation, and stronger culture as major benefits to adding a diverse population of
professionals to the firm. What is clear from the accounting leaders’ data is that there was no one
understanding of the value of diversity at the firm level; responses were highly individualized.
This lack of common understanding demonstrated that the organization had not yet formed its
opinion on the value of diversity to the organization. While there was promise in accounting
leaders’ attitudes toward diverse professionals, there was a lack of organizational commitment to
maximizing the value of diversity for the organization.
Accounting leaders were asked the following questions: “How valuable do you think
diversity is to the firm? In what ways is it important?” Brief quotations from respondents are
shown in Table 7, below.

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Table 7
Individual Accounting Leaders Value of Diversity
Leader Remarks
1 “Now, if diversity includes homosexual individuals? We do have, you know, a... openly
gay female that works with us. I think there's one thing that she does bring that is unique
to what others bring, there's a connection to the community that has brought clients form
within that community that we otherwise probably wouldn't have gotten. It's annually.
Right. It's tax work for same sex couples, it's tax work those and accounting work for
you know, those that are in businesses that this individual happens to know,
recommended them to the firm.”
2 “How do I value it? I value it in that their bringing a far different experience to the table.
I mean if we heard everyone that had the same experience I think we would be brutally
bottle necking our thought process. To me when we talk to these people who have
greatly, hugely diverse background in comparison to other people, they bring such an
interesting perspective of what we're trying to do. That interesting perspective - to me I
value, I highly value it because it helps us problem solve.”
3 “I mean I. . . Take a step back, I studied just enough of innovation to have read about the
concept of the best ideas come not from getting the best thinkers in the room but getting
the biggest range of thinkers in the room of all levels of knowledge and so half of them
might be people that nobody would have said, that's person a great thinker but it's more
important to get the diverse range of ideas than to have the people who everybody would
say those are the best idea makers.”
5 “If we had a more diverse staff or workforce that might open opportunities for us in the
community and our marketplaces in terms of like client growth or professional
connections, adding different COIs to our black books, if you will.”
6 “And I think from a lot of the same aspects, I would think it's important in terms of new
markets, new groups we could potential reach into through that new hire. You know,
potentially somebody who has got a different background to maybe expanding into new
products, new service lines- that somebody else might have some experience or thought
about, that the rest of just aren't ready to tackle and bring on.”
7 “It's extremely valuable. I would say that the benefits are very large as far as trying to
create an organized business, an organization, grow an organization, and more
importantly do different things. And I think that's a lot what we're looking to do is, how
do we do different things? Well, often times that's bringing in somebody that can, that
thinks differently that maybe does those different things, new things. Or somebody that
challenges what we're doing and how we're doing it.”
8 “I think it's important because obviously in this day and age we don't want to just provide
a commodity. We want to be able to provide something for a client, a service that's not
just commoditized. Because then I think we're going to be able to charge more. When I
do my little spiel on, "How to increase the value of your company, one of the biggest
things is you want to differentiate yourself. Because once you've differentiated yourself,
you can charge more now. And so you want to figure out ways that you can do that.”
9 “It brings you different viewpoints. It brings you access to different communities. It just
builds a stronger weave in your culture.”

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Self-efficacy and confidence in the ability to build diversity in the organization. Six
out of nine accounting leaders had some level of confidence in their ability to impact diversity in
the hiring process. The results of the data demonstrated that this qualified confidence was based
largely on the accounting leaders’ positionality in the organization: a position of power. All of
the interview participants were equal shareholders in the organization, and therefore had the
concerns of an owner. As owners, the accounting leaders interviewed demonstrated some belief
that they had enough control over the hiring process to affect an outcome through their grants of
authority in a decision-making capacity. This might be a sign of overconfidence in the
accounting leaders’ ability to impact an outcome since they seemed to lack the knowledge of
how to procedurally consider diversity in the hiring process and did not seem capable of
reflecting on the need to hire a diverse population of people to grow the firm. Table 9, below,
shows the accounting leaders’ brief answers to the questions: How confident are you personally
in your ability to impact diversity within the organization? What influences this confidence (or
lack of confidence)?

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Table 8
Confidence of the Leaders
Leader Remark
1 “Yes. Given the task I think I could do that.”
2 “I guess I'm relatively confident that I can help others see any . . . to see
their biases when we're in the Approval process and bring those to light.”
3 “I would say it feels like an uphill battle because I think some of . . . I
think it's the nature of any organization and including ours that some of the
people that are in power got there by being just like their boss.”
4 “I would say today, right now, I don't think I would have a lot of impact.”
5 “Well, I think as a principal and shareholder, I'm finally to that point where
hopefully my opinion and my thoughts and requests are more well
accepted and listened to maybe than previously. So I think it's going in the
right direction.”
6 “I don't think I alone could make this a much more diverse, or really
increase the diversity in the firm.”
7 “I feel very confident through my, like we have an L Ten group, so that's
kind of a management group of how we run our division. We have a hiring
recruiting team, and I'm part of that team, so I feel like I have all the tools,
and the ability to hire people. And I have an influence over when we're
making those decisions, so what do we need to be successful in the future?
I have an influence over on what that looks like.”
8 “I'm pretty confident, like I said, MSF has really provided me a lot of
freedom in my positions here.”
9 “I think I'm fairly confident to the extent that I'm able, I can have a voice.
One, is because I think of the way we operate as a firm. I've been on the
board, you are on the board. We have all sorts of different leadership roles
regardless of what your current positions are. And we work in a very
collaborative way where we listen to one another.”

Cultural Setting
The document and artifact review of this study focused primarily on the cultural setting
of MSF. The intent was that by looking at the information available to people, both external and
internal, we could see what the tangible artifacts with regard to being open to all people. Of
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particular focus in the study was the web site for MSF, which was owned by the business
development organization, and the jobs sites and employee handbook, which was created by by
the human resources organization. The following analysis is the primary lens through which I
reviewed the cultural setting.
The document analysis revealed that MSF’s cultural setting with regard to diversity was
mixed. Three groups are important to understanding these mixed results. The first was the
stakeholder community of this study: the accounting leaders. The second was the business
development group that was responsible for the public website. Lastly, there was the human
resources group, which was responsible for the job postings and employee handbook. There
appeared to be incongruence among these three groups about their understanding of the value of
hiring a diverse workforce to develop new networks for business growth. The document review
indicated an understanding of the need to present images on the public website that signaled
openness to people with racial, ethnic, gender, and age diversity. Therefore, the business
development group seemed to see value in a diverse workforce for the organization. However,
job postings and the employee handbook did not specifically reference diversity as part of their
messaging. Therefore, it appeared that the human resources group did not see value or did not
feel that the firm valued hiring a diverse workforce to develop networks for business growth.
This finding suggests a lack of common value of diversity to the organization, and organizational
alignment on the utility and expectancy value is required. The organization as a whole thus did
not seem to share an understanding of the value of diversity; the incongruence between the
internal departments of business development and human resources created an inconsistent
cultural setting for the organization’s diversity needs. Below, Table 9 shows the findings from
the document review.
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Table 9
Data from Documents Reviewed
MSF Accounting Firm Website
Home Page Prominently displays pictures of racial, ethnic, gender, and age
diversity. No text that indicates a commitment to diversity.
Services Sub Sites Sub sites prominently display diverse people and MSF professionals on
100% of the pages. No text that indicates a commitment to diversity.
About Page No text that indicates a commitment to diversity.
Careers Page Prominently displays pictures of racial, ethnic, gender and age diversity.
No text that indicates a commitment to diversity.
Online Job Postings
Jobs Site – viewed
9 postings May
2021
No text that indicates a commitment to diversity.
Employee Handbook
Reviewed current
version last edited
Thursday,
September 22,
2016. Excerpt text
in full
Equal Employment Opportunity
It is the policy of MSF to provide equal opportunity to all applicants and
employees regardless of race, religion, color, sex, national origin, age,
disability, pregnancy, genetic information, military service, and any
other protected classification under federal, state, or local law. This
policy is applicable to all phases of employment to include recruitment,
hiring, promotions, demotions, pay and benefits, appraisal systems,
training and career development programs, terminations, and all other
treatment of the employees of MSF. MSF employees and applicants are
also protected from retaliation in the event the individual complained
about discrimination, filed a charge of discrimination, or participated in
an employment discrimination investigation, administrative action, or
lawsuit.

Research Question 2: What is the impact of organizational culture and context on
stakeholder knowledge and motivation?
This study of the impact of the organization’s culture and context on accounting leaders’
knowledge and motivation used interview protocols to review cultural models and a document
and artifact review for analysis of the cultural setting. The findings suggest that the accounting
leaders were beginning to understand that a diverse workforce can help develop new networks to
grow the business. In the interview data, we found evidence that the individual accounting
leaders believed in the value of inclusion to ensure that the highest qualified people were joining
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the firm regardless of gender, race or ethnic makeup. Interviewees cited the diversification of
ideas—and specifically the reduction of group think—as another key advantage to recruiting a
diverse population of professionals to the firm. However, the data also suggest that the
organization itself had not formed a direction for people in organizational support groups—such
as business development and human resources—to support the development of this belief system
by the accounting leaders. Therefore, there was a lack of common understanding of the value of
diversity at an organizational level, which created a barrier to accounting leaders as well as to the
organization’s ability to commit to goal achievement.
Commonly held belief in the organizational value of diversity. The accounting leaders
did not indicate a commonly held belief in the value of diversity at an organizational level. The
respondents could not point to any specific organizational message or direction on how the
organization valued diversity or the impacts it might have. The organization as a whole had not
adopted a vision for the value of hiring a highly skilled and qualified population of diverse
professionals to grow the firm. Therefore, with the organization lacking a common vision, its
individuals could not commit to a common goal. The below interview data suggest that the
cultural model or cultural setting of MSF did not include a shared understanding or common
belief in the value of diversity. However, the data also suggest that the individuals would
potentially be supportive of shifting to a cultural model that focused on diversifying the
workforce, to recruit highly skilled and qualified candidates from a diverse set of backgrounds,
to aid in the organization’s developing its networks to grow business.
Table 10, below, shows the responses from the accounting leaders to the question “How
valuable do you think diversity is to the firm? In what ways is it important?”

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Table 10
Belief in the Value of Diversity at an Organizational Level
Leader Remark
1 “I don't think they've thought about it. So no, I don't think they think
it's important. Evidence of an organization that thinks something is
important is, number one it starts to get at least good lip service.”
2 “I mean that's a big part of it or talent if we exclude anyone raised
sector or whatever you want to call it, of talent, we would damage
ourselves hugely.”
4 “But I think overall, with the exception of the consulting company, I
don't think of the firm, its right at the forefront like it should be. I
think it's more of an afterthought, and that's something that we're
positioning ourselves and making really intentional about.”
5 “I don't hear the term diversity a lot here, I think it's coming more.”
6 “I think diversity is important to MSF. And I think for our firm for our
industry group we got a relatively diverse leadership group.”
7 “I feel like we've been talking a lot more about different mindsets.
Different mindsets obviously are gonna come out of diversity. So in
our accounting firm we particularly have a lot of likeminded
individuals. So talking about how we change and we grow, we’re
gonna need a diverse group among that.”
8 “I think it's really important again, because I think right now with all
the accounting firms and the mergers going on.”
9 “I don't feel like I'm alone in wanting to see some different points of
view, some different heritages brought in to help us look at things
differently, to be more successful as we continue to grow because
we're going to continue to grow.”

Trust between the firms. The accounting leaders generally acknowledged the need for
trust in the organization, however, they were split in their belief in its current level,
demonstrating the need for more trust by indicating some felt it might be improving. There is
some evidence that the generational diversity that exists in the firm leads to misunderstandings,
lack of common goals and trust based issues. Some of the respondents saw trust as a person to
person level, rather than organization to organization with factors influencing the improvement
in trust being more inclusion in the leadership ranks from non-accounting leaders and improved
communications between those in power at the firm level. The interview data from the question
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on trust between the companies of MSF was mixed. There was certainly no sign of a strong trust-
based culture, and the cultural model did not seem to have the correct concepts in place to build
trust. The interview data did seem to demonstrate hope in the organization’s ability to increase
the level of trust between the people of the various organizations. Opening up one’s networks to
each other is a way to expand the firms’ services for a particular network contact. This requires
trust that the new parties to the network relationship will not damage but rather enhance that
contact opinion of the firm. Fostering a trust-based culture is essential, as trust-based
organizations produce organizational climates that are right for innovation and transformational
leadership (Sarros et al., 2008), which is required to build a diverse workforce. Table 11, below,
shows responses to the question “How would you describe the relationship between the different
firms? What would you say about the level of trust between firms?”

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Table 11
Need for Trust Between the Different Firms of MSF
Leader Remark
1 “I would describe the relationship as more distrust than there needs to be. I think there
is in . . . I think there's unfounded reasons for it. Perhaps more based on territorial or
ego reasons than real reasons that exist. There's not a lot of reason that we need to have
that distrust or... if we start putting our cards on the table as far as, this is what we want
to accomplish as an organization? There's no reason from a personnel standpoint why
there would be any distrust. There really should be more, there should be more trust
between us.”
2 “You know, its ebb and flow. And when by say trust, trust is a human thing. You can't
generally say trust between the companies, it is the person that the person trusts. And
it’s gone up and down, you and I both know that its primarily over what peoples
perceived intentions are. In some cases, I see that there are not good intentions, other
cases I just think they're not well thought. Things happen, they do things that are not
well thought and someone else perceives it as something that was meant to be
malicious or something else, and it causes mistrust. So right now, I would put as we're
teetering on trust right now, as an organization.”
3 I think that there is a desire and there's the awareness that it would be good for us to all
trust each other and so there is a general pursuit of that as a goal where people start
with assuming that whatever someone in one company is saying or doing, they're
doing it with good intention and reacting accordingly.
4 “Okay. I think, okay, the relationship between the firms, I think with a group of people
retiring and younger shareholders with maybe a more open mind and less of "This is
how it was done, this is how we do things." And more of like, "Let's maybe do some
things different, I think maybe the relationship between the firm, when we're together
is that it's becoming more cohesive where I think people will truly want to know each
other better, I think actually become friends.”
5 “I am newer in this ownership game and so I have, I think a general equal trust for my
peer shareholders and believe that building relationships will help just improve that
trust both on a personal level but then hopefully lead to the three or four separate
entities themselves having created trust at the leadership on organizational level.”
6 “I think trust between the three entities, it probably depends a little bit on which level
of employees and who we're talking to. I think it probably depends on the day of the
week and the direction of the wind.”
7 “The trust has increased dramatically over the last year. Which really, I think is, I think
it's a mind shift change on who we are, where we want to go and how we're gonna get
there, but more importantly, how we can help each other be successful. Before we just
kind of acted, and you know different divisions, as different companies, but now I feel
like we're really trying to help each other succeed with each other’s goals, which is
really exciting.”
8 “I think everybody at the end of the day works for MSF. So I think there's a certain
level of trust there automatically. I don't know, I've been told sometimes I see the
world through rose colored glasses. But I don't see any issues with trust between the
companies.”
9 “I think I will start with the level of trust is improving, and I think it's improving
because there are a number of people who are trying to get more dialogue to happen.
And because we've had some more representation from non-accountants in some of
our leadership roles.”

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Solutions and Recommendations
Research Question 3: What are the recommended knowledge, motivation, and
organizational solutions?
The recommendations for knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions focus
largely on the unification of the stakeholder group around how to be successful together in
creating firm differentiation through diversification of its professionals. Specifically, there
appears to be strong individual understanding of the value of diversity and individual
understanding the need for reflection. These individual understandings have created a potential
climate for change to include more diversity. However, despite the accounting leaders’
individual strengths, a common understanding of the value of diversity—and specifically how to
procedurally impact hiring for diversity—was lacking, which evidence suggests can create a gap
in the organization’s ability to align all critical business functions and leaders toward a common
goal.
Knowledge Recommendations
Metacognitive and procedural knowledge are of particular importance for the stakeholder
performance goal of recruiting and developing a diverse and multicultural population of
professionals. The researcher qualitative data analysis found two knowledge influences that were
creating barriers for goal obtainment. The research method utilized in this study was based on
KMO gap analysis from Clark and Estes (2008). The table below contains the knowledge
barriers for both metacognitive and procedural recommendations.

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Table 12
Summary of Knowledge Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Knowledge
Influence: Need
Principle and Citation Context-Specific Recommendation
Accounting leaders
need to know how to
address diversity in
the hiring process (P).
How individuals organize
knowledge influences how they
learn and apply what they know
(Schraw & McCrudden, 2006).
Provide training and worksheets
with steps required to consider
diversity in hiring.
Accounting leaders
need to reflect upon
the significance of
diversity to capture
new business (M)
To develop mastery,
individuals must acquire
component skills, practice
integrating them, and know
when to apply what they have
learned (Schraw &
McCrudden, 2006).
Provide accounting leaders
opportunities for training in self-
reflection and bias mitigation with a
view to developing shared
significance of diversity for new
business development..

Increasing procedural knowledge of how to address diversity in the hiring process.
This study found that nine out of nine accounting leaders needed more procedural knowledge
about how to address diversity in the hiring process. A recommendation rooted in information-
processing theory has been selected to close this procedural knowledge gap. Schraw and
McCrudden (2006) found that how individuals organize knowledge influences how they learn
and apply what they know. This suggests that providing the accounting leaders with a visual
learning aid detailing out the steps to follow during their involvement in the hiring process could
impact their procedural knowledge for considering diversity. Additionally, training on how to
consider diversity in the hiring practice would support the confidence necessary for accounting
leaders to be effective in hiring a highly skilled and qualified diverse population of professionals
with a proven track record of success to increase business growth. The recommendation, then, is
to provide the accounting leaders with training to build confidence and a set of worksheets to
promote understanding of the steps required to consider for diversity in hiring.
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The goal of procedurally knowing how to add diversity to the hiring practices requires
knowledge of steps to take to be successful in goal achievement. Denler, Wolters, and
Benzon (2009) found that self-efficacy of learners is enhanced by using modeling-to-be learned
strategies. Research has also indicated that providing worked examples can serve the learning
process (Kirshner et al., 2006; Mayer, 2011; Van Gerven et al., 2002). Schraw and McCrudden
(2006) found that the way in which individuals organize their knowledge influences how they
acquire knowledge and, as a result, what they know. Mayer also found that integrating auditory
and visual information maximizes working memory capacity. Therefore, the recommendation is
that to develop mastery of the skills required to consider diversity in the hiring practice, the
accounting leaders of MSF will need to have a visual aid in the form of a worksheet, which will
help them organize their learning to maximize working memory capacity. (See Appendix E)
Increasing metacognition of considering the significance of diversity to capture new
business is important for the accounting leaders of MSF. The data showed that six out of nine
of the accounting leaders of MSF had knowledge of how to reflect on the significance of
diversity toward the goal of capturing new business. Information processing system theory can
provide direction for this recommendation. Baker (2006) found that the use of metacognitive
strategies facilitated learning. Schraw and McCrudden (2006) found that to develop mastery,
individuals must acquire component skills, practice integrating them, and know when to apply
what they have learned. This suggests that accounting leaders need to practice reflection and
challenge their own biases.
The goal of a diversity program should be to cultivate new people’s thoughts, better
culture, and networks able to capture new business. Diversity can have a positive impact on
creativity, fostering deeper interactions, encouraging more effective communication, and
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allowing for greater team understanding (Stahl et al., 2010). To gain the advantage, the
organization’s members who perform functions in the hiring process must beware of their own
biases and understand how to reflect and self-regulate. Metacognition happens with frequent
practicing of reflection (Mayer, 2011; Schraw & McCrudden, 2006). Therefore, the accounting
leaders of MSF will have to engage in guided self-monitoring and self-assessment (Baker, 2006).
Gonzalez (2010) found that increasing multicultural diversity led to positive outcomes that
fueled the transformation process because it allowed people to learn more about each other. To
achieve this desired state for the organization, the accounting leaders should model their own
metacognitive process by talking out loud and debrief the thinking process upon completion of a
task.
Motivation Recommendations
This study found that self-efficacy and expectancy value are two motivational drivers that
impact the stakeholder performance goal of recruiting and developing a diverse and multicultural
population of professionals. Self-efficacy is a person’s belief in what they can and cannot do
(Bandura, 2005). Expectancy value is a person’s belief that a positive outcome will come from a
task being completed (Wigfield, 1994). This study found that the stakeholder had motivational
needs. While they generally believed that recruiting a highly skilled and qualified diverse group
of professionals would yield positive outcome, their beliefs were not consistent, and therefore
the stakeholders may not have been aligned on the value for the organization as a whole. This
lack of alignment makes it difficult for the individual accounting leaders to commit to hiring a
diverse population of professionals.

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Table 13
Summary of Motivation Influences and Recommendations
Assumed Motivation
Influence

Principle and
Citation
Context-Specific Recommendation
Expectancy Value –
Accounting leaders need
to see the utility value of
the increasing employee
diversity.
Activating personal
interest through
opportunities for
choice and control can
increase motivation
(Eccles, 2006).

Learning and
motivation are
enhanced if the learner
values the task (Eccles,
2006).

Provide accounting leaders materials
and activities that are useful and
relevant to them to see the utility value
of hiring diversity.
Self-Efficacy –
Accounting leaders need
confidence that they can
grow the business through
the development of a
diverse and multicultural
network.
High self-efficacy can
positively influence
motivation (Pajares,
2006).

Accounting leadership needs to use a
structured and through method to gain
the confidence to hire a diverse
workforce. This method includes
instruction, modeling, guided practice,
and immediate targeted feedback

Value. The results and findings of this study indicated that seven out of 10 of the
accounting leaders saw the utility value of increasing employee diversity but seldom shared the
basis for value. A recommendation rooted in expectancy theory has been selected to close this
utility value gap. Eccles (2006) maintained that activating personal interest through opportunities
for choice and control can increase motivation. Eccles also stated that learning and motivation
are enhanced if the learner values the task. This would suggest that accounting leaders learn the
value of utility in employee diversity so that they can choose to make a decision to invest in
diversity. The recommendation is to then to build confidence through understanding the value of
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employee diversity for the accounting leaders. This should be done by providing accounting
leaders materials and activities that are useful and relevant to them.
Eccles and Wigfield (2000) found that activating personal interest through opportunities
for choice and control can increase motivation. Ely and Thomas (2001) found that when people
maximize the impact of a diverse workforce and deal with identity, tensions, and the notion of
value within the organizations and between colleagues, success follows. This suggests that
organizations grow from the development of a mature and diverse workforce. Maloney and
Zellmer-Bruhn (2006) found that when “both social integration (a sense of cohesion and trust
among team members) and self-verification (a process by which team members express their
unique perspectives and receive acknowledgement about them from their teammates)” (p. 698)
exist in an organization, teams reap the benefits of a diverse environment. From a theoretical
perspective, then, increasing the utility value of diversity in the workplace could help the
accounting leaders understand the importance of growing the business by providing them with
materials to promote understanding of the need for diversity for the firm to grow its networks.
These materials would be developed by the firm’s senior leaders and would clearly articulate the
firm’s goals and desired outcomes with the aim of hiring a diverse workforce. These materials
would help accounting leaders align on the goal and understand how their actions are aiding in
goal achievement. Activities such as attending structured networking events sponsored by
organizations that serve diverse populations would allow the accounting leaders to experience
firsthand the new relationships made possible by developing networks and help them learn
firsthand the utility value of diversity.
Self-Efficacy. The results and findings of this study indicated that six out of nine of the
accounting leaders believed that they impacted efforts to grow their business by developing a
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diverse workforce and the benefits it brings. A recommendation rooted in self-efficacy theory
has been selected to close this self-efficacy gap. Pajares (2006) asserted that high self-efficacy
can positively influence motivation. The accounting leaders will have to gain the self-confidence
needed to successfully engage in building multicultural networks with the purpose of growing
the business through the development of a highly qualified and diverse population of
professionals with a proven track record of success. The recommendation is then to use a
structured and thorough method to begin hiring a diverse workforce for the purpose of building
networks, an effort that can be done using a combination of instruction, modeling, guided
practice, and immediate targeted feedback.
Clark and Estes (2008) stated that people have a fundamental “desire to be effective” (p.
83), which suggests that people are motivated to try and achieve what will make others see them
as effective or successful; oftentimes, through a business lens, this is determined by one’s
confident mindset toward developing new business opportunities. Seshadri and Tripathy (2006)
found that this mindset was connected to leadership activities such as mobilizing teams, fighting
against the status quo, and taking ownership for outcomes. Thompson et al. (2014) described
this mindset as one of intrapreneurialship—which is about making things happen. From a
theoretical perspective, then, the following steps should be taken: build self-efficacy among
accounting leaders by providing instruction from senior firm leaders on how to develop new and
diverse networks; model out how with direct supervisors new and diverse networks to develop;
have senior leaders provide feedback on their progress toward developing new and diverse
networks; and practice with peers how to network for the purpose of business growth. These
efforts would increase business through the successful development of new and diverse
multicultural networks.
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Organization Recommendations
This study found that cultural models were significant to the stakeholders’ achieving their
performance goal of recruiting and developing a diverse and multicultural population of
professionals. Two organizational barriers were reviewed inside MSF’s cultural model. This
study found that MSF needed to have a greater belief in the value of employee diversity. The
study also reviewed the trust between the multiple companies at MSF, and found that although
there was some belief that the level of trust had improved recently, trust was not a center of
strength for the accounting leaders. Trust is critical to building and maintaining a supportive,
fearless, and transparent environment, and therefore should be considered a priority for this
study. The table below contains information on the cultural model impacts analyzed.

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Table 14
Summary of Organization Influences and Recommendations
Assumed
Organization
Influence

Principle and Citation

Context-Specific Recommendation
MSF needs to believe
in the value of
employee
diversity. (CM)
Effective leaders
demonstrate a commitment
to valuing diversity through
inclusive action.
They foster an
organizational culture that
promotes equity and
inclusion and cultivate
an atmosphere in which
diversity is viewed as
an asset to the organization
and its
stakeholders (Angeline,
2011;
Prieto, Phipps, & Osiri,
2009).

The accounting leaders of MSF need to
create a culture of inclusion in decision
making.
There needs to be a
culture of trust within
accounting, between
the different firms,
and within MSF.
(CM)
Organizational
effectiveness increases
when leaders are
trustworthy and, in turn,
trust their team. The most
visible demonstration of
trust by a leader is
accountable autonomy
(Rath & Conchie, 2009).
The leaders organization-wide at MSF
will have to trust one another with their
network to introduce new leaders into
existing relationships in order to build
networks to increase business growth. In
doing so, the leaders of MSF must trust
each other enough to allow autonomous
engagement with relationships.

The leaders organizationally at MSF
need to trust one another to ensure that
the sharing of best practices on how to
consider diversity in the hiring process
helps the firm with business growth.

Cultural models, including diversity in decision making. The results and findings of
this study indicate that only five out of nine accounting leaders believed that MSF as an
organization valued diversity. A principle rooted in the literature on diversity is that leaders who
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are effective in leading diversity demonstrate a commitment to diversity through inclusive
action. Their organizational culture promotes equity and inclusion and cultivates a culture that
sees diversity as an organizational asset (Angeline 2011; Prieto et al., 2009). This would suggest
that including diversity in the decision making process would strengthen the firm. The
recommendation then is that the accounting leaders create a culture of inclusion in decision
making; as an example, establish a committee of diverse individuals who represent diversity in
the workforce and give them issues to consider and recommend to the board of directors with the
goal of creating a common understanding of the value of diversity to the organization, building
practices that develop an all-inclusive environment that promotes diversity and aids in the
expansion of networks to grow business for the firm.
Maloney and Zellmer-Bruhn (2006) stated that when “both social integration (a sense of
cohesion and trust among team members) and self-verification (a process by which team
members express their unique perspectives and receive acknowledgement about them from their
teammates)” (p. 698) exist in an organization, teams reap the benefits of a multiculturally diverse
environment. In the case of professional services organizations, this can lead to the development
of an open mindset. An open mindset prepared to embrace growth can contribute to innovation,
enhanced by the inclusion of diverse people, as multicultural teams have the ability to generate a
large number of ideas and decrease group think (Raguz et al., 2014). Diversity can aid in the
development of an intrapreneurial culture for a firm by having a positive impact on creativity,
fostering deeper interactions, encouraging more effective communication, and allowing for
greater team understanding (Stahl et al., 2010). As such, the literature supports the need to add
diversity to the decision-making process thereby strengthening the firm.
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Increasing trust in and between companies at MSF. The results and findings of this
study indicate that five out of nine of accounting leaders believed trust needed to increase within
and between companies of MSF. A principal rooted in leadership theory has been selected to
close this resource gap. Organizational effectiveness increases when leaders are trustworthy and,
in turn, trust their team. The most visible demonstration of trust by a leader is accountable
autonomy (Rath & Conchie, 2009). Building trust within and between companies at MSF would
help grow the organization’s business networks and aid in achieving its necessary business
growth. Increased trust would enable the sharing of relationships between leaders of the different
companies of MSF. Allowing new leaders to autonomously develop new relationships from
other MSF leader’s networks creates opportunities to help existing clients with new services.
Furthermore, trust between the accounting leaders and the leaders of the other companies of
MSF will allow for the sharing of best practices of how to hire a diverse workforce and thus
expand firm-wide diversity and create a shared set of practices for all of the companies of MSF
to follow. The recommendation is that the accounting leaders of MSF not micromanage their
network relationships unless someone has demonstrated that they are not dependable. The
recommendation is that the accounting leaders work collaboratively with their peer leaders at the
other MSF companies to understand best practices in hiring a diverse population of people for
the purpose of growing the business. This will build trust.
Dovey (2009) stated one of the core elements of enabling a growth-based mindset is to
develop firm trust between management and team members. Lakos and Phipps (2004) found that
“nothing inhibits innovation, creativity, team building, and a sense of purpose more than the lack
of trust” (p. 358). Procedural justice and fairness are critical to building a culture of trust in
which people give their best. Brooke and Tyler (2010) found that procedural justice in the
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workplace means that when employees feel they are being treated with fairness, they work
harder. As such, it appears that the literature would support necessity for building trust within
and between companies to deliver business outcomes.
Limitations and Delimitations
This study set out to address the KMO influences of nine accounting leaders of MSF as
they related to hiring a highly skilled and qualified diverse population of professionals with a
proven track record of success for the Mature Professional Services firm. Throughout this study,
there has been reference to a population that is highly skilled, qualified, and diverse. While the
notion of what it is to be qualified changes from organization to organization, for the MSF
organization, qualified means individuals who possess a personality that is open to risk taking, an
ability to learn fast, a history of aiding business growth with an emphasis on network expansion
in non-traditional firm markets as well as a drive to build a lasting organization. The fact that I
am a leader of the consulting company of MSF and a member of the board of directors for the
MSF companies means that I may have influence over some accounting leaders. Since my data
collection has ended, I have been appointed the chairman of the board of directors. This change
may have impacted my findings, as I now have to care for the accounting leaders in the business
as I am responsible for their well-being. In the constructivist paradigm (Creswell, 2014) and
working with an objective lens, I believe that some accounting leaders’ responses could have
been guarded and not fully reflective of their opinions on any given topic. Additionally, my
position of leadership in the organization may include biases based on my understanding of
issues not related to this study but that are part of my knowledge and may have affected which
documents to consult in this study.

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Recommendations for Future Research

Further research on the utility value of diversity in developing new and ranging networks
for the purpose of business growth should be considered. Subsequent studies that measure the
positive business impact from these new and diverse networks for a firm should consider revenue
growth as well as employee satisfaction as important measurable elements. With positive and
measurable results, business leaders will learn the utility value of a diversity program in aiding
their business goal achievements.
Conclusion
The purpose of this study was to examine how mature knowledge-centric firms can
achieve business growth through a knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences model
focused on hiring a highly skilled and qualified diverse population of professionals with a proven
track record of success. The literature review of this study communicated the importance of the
intersection of diversity and innovation. By building a diverse workforce, an organization adds
new perspectives and networks and avoids group think while at the same time strengthening
culture. To this extent, it was important to study knowledge, motivational, and organizational
theories to determine the strengths and gaps in the organization’s ability to grow the business
through the development of a diverse workforce. This study revealed strong individual beliefs
around the value of diversity in growing the business, but also revealed a lack of common
understanding of the issue.
Knowledge-centric organizations attempt to find ways to innovate, grow, and survive
along with rapidly changing market dynamics. This challenge lies at the heart of business
survival. Delivering value to clients with specialized needs requires creativity, novel thought,
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and a passion for helping others. To this end, it is essential that new manners of addressing
problems be created and that group think be challenged, checked, and eliminated from the
organization’s cultural makeup. The knowledge-centric firm also requires new channels for
business opportunity to flow to the firm from areas that are traditionally underserved by the
knowledge-centric professional services industry.
These business needs require people who think differently and who have diversified
networks through which the business can access networks of people to grow with.
Diversification of the organization to include people of different races, religions, ethnicities,
gender, and ages will allow both the required changes to reduce the perils of group think and the
expansion of networks available to the business. Ultimately, this diversification and multicultural
shift in make up for the organization will allow it to compete better, serve clients better, and
remain autonomous far into the future.

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Appendix A: Participating Stakeholders with Sampling Criteria for Interviews
Participating Stakeholders
The stakeholder population of focus for this sampling and recruitment exercise was the
accounting leaders of MSF. The accounting leaders group is the executive team of the
accounting group and has ownership of the accounting company growth goals. The rationale for
selecting the accounting leaders for this study was to gain insight into their experience working
with the problem of growing the firm. The accounting leaders have the highest level of
experience at the firm, understand its employee and client population, and provide information
with expertise to the questions. In support of the qualitative methods approach for the purpose of
this dissertation, the qualitative sampling is offered below.

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Appendix B: Protocols
Sampling Strategy and Timeline
Sampling and a strategy timeline are critical to the researcher’s organization in going into
the field. Below is the organizational table that represents the timeline for this study.
Table B-1
Sampling Strategy and Timeline
Stage Sampling
Strategy
Number in
Stakeholder
population
Number of
participants
from
stakeholder
population
Start and
end date
for data
collection
Interviews: Purposeful 29 9 1/1/2019 –
5-30-2019
Observations: N/A N/A N/A N/A
Documents: Purposeful N/A N/A 1/1/2019 –
5-30-2019
Surveys: N/A N/A N/A N/A

Narrative for Interview Introduction
Hello, welcome. Thank you very much for your time, I know you are very busy, and I
appreciate your attention. I am going to work through a set of questions and, if it is okay with
you, I will be recording the session. The reason for recording is to ensure that your responses are
properly captured for accuracy. Please know that these data are confidential and will be treated
as such. Your identity will remain anonymous and the recordings and digital notes will remain
secured in a password and encrypted location. Any questions before we begin?
Interview Questions
Interview protocol. For my interviewing protocol, I used a semistructured protocol with
purposeful selection and the standardized open-ended interview method. Patton (2002) described
this protocol as a set of questions that is carefully constructed and allows each participant to
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answer the same questions in the same sequence. Furthermore, the standardized open-ended
interview has four strengths. Patton listed efficient use of the interviewee’s time as one. This
priority is critical to my participants as they are executives with very limited time. Exploration of
my topic—how to obtain growth in knowledge-centric firms—involves a conceptual framework
and a network growth plan that will develop a diverse and multicultural organization. To obtain
the required rich data set needed to gain true insight for organization and motivation research
questions, I crafted interview questions that analyze how the participants might aid in hiring a
diverse and multicultural workforce for their organization. I asked questions that solicited
participants’ opinions and values, and experiences, behaviors, and feelings (Patton, 2002). The
combination of the results from these types of questions provided a rich set of data to review the
climate of this organization.
Global goal. By May 2021, grow the organization’s networks by 25% to achieve its
necessary business growth.
Stakeholder goal. By May 2021, the accounting leaders of MSF will need to recruit and
develop a diverse and multicultural population of professionals at MSF, with the goal of
obtaining a 35% non-White male ratio of people in the firm.
Research questions.
1. What are the stakeholder knowledge and motivation needs related to increasing
employee diversity?
2. What is the impact of organizational culture and context on stakeholder
knowledge and motivation?
3. What are the recommended knowledge, motivation, and organizational solutions?

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Table B-2
KMO Influences, Interview Prompts and Questions and Document Analysis

KMO Influence Interview Prompts & Questions Document Analysis
N/A Tell me a little bit about yourself. N/A
N/A Tell me about your history with the
organization.
N/A
Organization: Cultural Model:
MSF needs to believe in the value
of employee diversity.
How do you value diversity in the
hiring process?
Employee Handbook for
definition
Public Website for
acknowledgement of focus on
diversity
Knowledge: Procedural Knowing
how to address diversity in the
hiring process
What steps do you consider regarding
diversity when hiring?

Knowledge: Metacognitive
Reflect upon the significance of
diversity to capture new business
When hiring, how do you reflect
upon the need for diversity in order to
increase business?

Motivation: Value – Accounting
leaders need to see the value of the
increasing employee diversity.

How valuable do you think diversity
is to the firm?
In what ways is it important?

Motivation: Self-Efficacy –
Accounting leaders need to believe
they are capable of growing the
business through the development
of a diverse and multicultural
network.
How confident are you personally in
your ability to impact diversity within
the organization?
What influences this confidence (or
lack of confidence)?

Organizational: Cultural Model:
MSF needs to believe in the value
of employee diversity.
How important do you think diversity
is to MSF? In what ways do you
think they show that belief?
Employee Handbook: looking
for value statements for a
diversity focus.

Job Postings: (job sites and
public website) looking for
evidence that reflects the
accounting firms openness to all
people.
Organization: Cultural Model:
There needs to be a culture of trust
within Accounting, between the
different firms, and within MSF.

How would you describe the
relationship between the different
firms?
What would you say about the level
of trust between firms?

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Document and Artifact Review
Criterion 1. Artifacts from the accounting firm in a review of openness to all people.
Document sampling strategy. The strategy for the review of documents from the
accounting firm at MSF was purposeful and nonrandom. Documents reviewed came from public
sources such as the MSF website and online job postings as well as an employee-only resource,
the employee handbook, which demonstrates a supportive culture of openness to all people.
Merriam and Tisdell (2016) stated that a researcher must keep an open mind when looking at
documents and artifacts because insight can come from unexpected places. To this end,
whenever possible, I reviewed first-level links from web pages of primary focus. This exercise
helped me glean what a prospective candidate might see when looking at MSF as a prospective
employer. In this way, I hoped to expand my search for insight beyond the obvious.
Table B-3
Documents Sources, Data Gathered, and KMO Influence
Document Source Data Gathered KMO
Online job postings Looking for signs of
openness to all people.
Organization
Web site posting of job
opportunities

Looking for signs of
openness to all people.
Pictures of diverse teams,
equal employment references.
Organization
Employee handbook Looking for signs of
openness to all people.
Organization

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Appendix C: Credibility and Trustworthiness
A study’s credibility and trustworthiness relates to how the study reflects reality
(Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). Credibility and trustworthiness focus specifically on the researcher
as the instrument of the study; as Merriam and Tisdell (2016) posed: “Are investigators
observing or measuring what they think they are measuring?” (p. 242). Essential to credibility
and trustworthiness, then, is understanding the researcher’s biases and how the researcher might
influence the study’s setting. This is known as reflectivity, or understanding the researcher’s
position; and reactivity, or the researcher’s influence on the study setting (Maxwell, 2013;
Merriam & Tisdell, 2016). As the researcher, my position and potential influences on the study
are as follows. The nature of my position with the firm is that I am a shareholder with equal
ownership in all four companies the firm owns. As such, my stakeholder group, the accounting
leaders of MSF, are all peers, as they, too, are shareholders with equal ownership in all four
companies. A second bias is that firms have to develop a trusting culture to give people in the
organization the freedom to think free of fear. Therefore, my influence on the study setting could
damage the validity of the study if I encounter someone whom I believe is a narcissistic leader
and uses fear to control the people in their organization. If I encounter a leader who uses fear as a
tool, I must stay open to understanding why and be very nonjudgmental in tone so as to not close
that person down. Then, I must explore the interview questions and research purpose with
curiosity to ensure that the participants’ perspectives are well represented in the study. A third
bias I have is that closed minds lead to limited or truncated ideas and that leadership is required
to ensure organizational openness to all people. Hence, leadership must avoid group think and
encourage juxtaposed viewpoints from their teams. To avoid this dynamic, I must stay even in
my emotional state and be mindful of any personal, nonverbal communication with study
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participants. A fourth bias I have is that the world is evolving rapidly through the
democratization of information that access to technology affords. I believe that this
democratization of information will lead to a world whose advancement many can participate in.
I believe that a firm that sees this as the future, and acts to align itself with it, will be rewarded
with a long-term competitive advantage that few firms enjoy. Therefore, my influence on the
study setting could damage the validity of the study if I encounter someone who believes that
privilege and power will continue to drive firm-based growth. In interview sessions, I must not
argue the merits of information democratization, and instead explore why they believe that the
current system of power and privilege is insulated from leveling knowledge at a global level.

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Appendix D: Ethics

According to Rubin and Rubin (2012), researchers are obligated to do no harm when
gathering information from human subjects for their study. To this end, I used the practice of
gaining informed consent verbally from my participants at the beginning of the data collection
exercises. I also ensured that all data I collect was stored securely and kept confidentially to
ensure the well-being of each participant. Participants were informed that their voices were to be
recorded; that they had the right to withdraw at any time without penalty; and that their
participation was voluntary.
The stakeholder group of focus for my study was the accounting leaders of MSF. In the
accounting firm of MSF, I was not an employee. I was a member of MSF’s board of directors.
My interests in this project were to better understand the ways that accounting leaders might aid
in the achievement of MSF’s stated growth goal. The hope was that the data gathered and
analyzed in this study will lead to implementable solutions for the accounting firm of MSF’s
pursuit to hire people of diverse backgrounds for the purpose of developing new networks for
firm growth. I disclosed the goal of this study to my participants so that they understood the
nature of my intent and could appreciate the duality of my role in the organization. It was
important for me to develop a spirit of partnering and collegiality with the program participants,
in addition to gaining informed consent, to achieving proper results. Glesne (2011) indicated that
cooperation and partnership may be an even higher level of ethical basis than informed consent.
As I entered the field on this study, I had to be mindful of my biases on the most effective
ways for growth at MSF. At the time of the study, I was a leader in the firm’s highest growth
division and thus had certain beliefs about what it takes to grow a business; therefore, I likewise
have certain biases about how the best results might be obtained. To support collegiality and
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partnership with the study participants, I adopted the intervener/reformer role when engaging
with my stakeholder community. The intervener/reformer role allows the researcher to make a
choice to write what they observe to be an issue when working in the study (Glesne, 2011). My
intent in adopting the intervener/reformer role was to leverage my knowledge and expertise to
provide helpful feedback in a partnering manner to the study participants. My goal in this
approach was to provide value to the participants by channeling my feedback in a supportive
manner rather than as a critic.

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Appendix E: Integrated Implementation and Evaluation Plan

Implementation and Evaluation Framework
The model that informed this implementation and evaluation plan was the New World
Kirkpatrick Model (Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). This model uses four levels to consider
how to evaluate organizational change. This model is goal-focused and uses goals as a starting
point for developing an evaluation and implementation plan. Goals are reviewed in a results lens.
In this manner the organization can track its progress towards a goal by measuring the results
from the process. This is advantageous as results can take many months or years to determine
(Kirkpatrick & Kirkpatrick, 2016). Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick continued that measuring
progress by monitoring leading indicators allows for the tracking of critical behaviors that, if
trending positively, demonstrate progress toward achieving the desired result.
Organizational Purpose, Need, and Expectations
The goal of MSF is to remain an independent professional services firm. This goal is
critical to the stakeholders of this study as it enables them to retain autonomy of decision making
in how they care for their clients and employees. How well the organization adapts to the market,
innovates, and grows its business is essential to this mission. This project examined how
knowledge and skills, motivation and organizational barriers impacted the accounting leaders’
ability to hire a diverse workforce to aid in the innovation and growth in business. The proposed
solution is a comprehensive training program; incentive structures and important job aids should
provide the desired outcome of hiring a more diverse population of professionals to grow the
business.

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Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators
Table E-1 shows the proposed “Level 4: Results and Leading Indicators” in the form of
outcomes, metrics, and methods for both internal and external measures for MSF. Focusing on
the internal outcomes for MSF should create a business climate for the organization in which
external measures are realized.
Table E-1
Outcomes, Metrics, and Methods for External and Internal Outcomes
Outcome Metric(s) Method(s)
External Outcomes
1. Increased number of
multicultural networks
aware of MSF.
The number of multicultural
clients that utilize MSF
professional services
Add race, gender, and ethnicity
questions to customer
satisfaction surveys.
2. New clients come to
the firm
The number of net new clients
that come to MSF each year
Review net new client reports
monthly
3. Improved
participation and
recognition in
community events in a
social-responsibility
program.
The number of corporate
sponsorships and team member
hours that tie directly to social
responsibility–based
organizations.
Review hours of community
service provided through the
social-responsibility program.
Internal Outcomes
4. Increased
consideration of the
need for diversity in the
hiring process
The number of candidates
interviewed from diverse
backgrounds
Solicit quarterly data on
interview candidates to ensure a
purposeful focus on
interviewing diverse candidates.
5. Increased
understanding of value
in the development of
diverse networks for
business growth
The number of sales calls made
to net new clients
Solicit quarterly data to review
the lists sales activity for net new
clients.

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Level 3: Behavior
Critical behaviors. The accounting leaders are responsible for new business growth for
their entity at MSF. The first critical behavior is that accounting leaders must know how to
consider diversity in the hiring process. The second critical behavior accounting leaders must
know is how to reflect upon the significance of diversity to capture new business.
Table E-2
Critical Behaviors, Metrics, Methods, and Timing for Evaluation
Critical
Behavior
Metric(s)

Method(s)

Timing
Consider
diversity in the
hiring process
The number of
diverse candidates
interviewed for
open job postings.
1a. The team shall track the
number of diverse
candidates they hire via the
HR applicant tracking
systems
1a. Monthly,
throughout the year.

1b. The team will assign a
mentor to assist with
consideration of diversity in
the hiring process.
1b. Mentor will report
to team lead
monthly.
Reflect upon the
significance of
diversity to
capture new
business.
The number of
interview synopsis
that are completed
by the
interviewing
teams
2a. Interviewers shall
complete a post interview
synopsis where they describe
the process of consideration
for the need for diversity to
capture new business while
in the interview.
2a. Team lead to
review reports
monthly to ensure
proper consideration
is being given in the
hiring process.

2b. The team leads shall
assign a mentor to assist
with howl to reflect on the
significance of diversity to
capture new business.
2b. Mentor to report
to the team lead
monthly.

Required drivers. The accounting leaders require support from the organization to
reinforce what they learn in the training and to motivate them to act on what they have learned to
recruit and develop a diverse and multicultural population for the firm. Rewards should be
established for the achievement of performance goals of business growth.
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Table E-3
Required Drivers to Support Critical Behaviors
Method(s) Timing
Critical
Behaviors
Supported
1, 2, 3, etc.
Reinforcing

Job Aid: Including checklist for steps necessary to consider
diversity in the hiring process
Ongoing 1, 2, 3
One on one meetings: between interviewer and mentor to reflect
on the need for a diverse workforce to grow the business.
Monthly 1, 2, 3
Website and Social media: focused on inclusion and diversity
messages to demonstrate the organization's commitment to
having a diverse workforce.
Ongoing 1, 2, 3
Encouraging

Collaboration and peer modeling during team meetings. Weekly 1, 2, 3
Feedback and coaching from Team Lead. Ongoing 1, 2, 3
Rewarding

Public acknowledgement of the success of accounting leaders in
recruiting and hiring diverse populations of people
Monthly 1, 2, 3
Focus on the success of new team members in weekly new
business report highlighting specific new business from diverse
networks
Weekly 1, 2, 3
Monitoring

Schedule consistent time for individual and team meetings for
reviewer training and oversight.
Quarterly 1, 2, 3
Conduct whole organization meetings to communicate the
vision, mission and goals, and individual and team
accomplishments.
Quarterly 1, 2, 3

Organizational support. To support the accounting leaders’ goal of recruiting and
developing a diverse and multicultural population of professionals, MSF will need to implement
the required drivers to develop the critical behaviors listed in Table E-3. The implementation
progress will need to be tracked by the executive team to understand where and when the
program needs their support and intervention. It is recommended that the program team utilize
MSF’s standard executive progress reporting tool, the 4 block. This 4 block will include sections
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on accomplishments, next steps, risks, and missed milestones. In standard practice, this 4 block
is created and delivered to the executive team weekly, on Friday afternoons.
Level 2: Learning
Learning goals. Following the completion of this recommended solutions the
stakeholders will be able to:
1. Apply the steps necessary to implement diversity as a focus in the hiring process. (P)
2. Reflect on the significance of diversity to capture new business. (M)
3. Articulate the value increasing employee diversity in the organization. (Value)
4. Articulate confidence that they can grow the business through the development of a
diverse and multicultural workforce. (Confidence)
Program. The learning goals listed in the previous section will be achieved with a
mentoring program that seeks to build a supportive culture that is right for the inclusion of
diversity in the workforce. The mentors and mentees in the stakeholders group will study topics
that teach the utility and expectancy value of considering diversity in the hiring process. The
program is blended, consisting of a one-on-one mentoring session, group meetings, and other job
aids that will support the learning process. The program is anticipated to run multiple years, but
will be measured and monitored on weekly, monthly, and quarterly intervals based on goal
review requirements.
During the mentoring sessions and team meetings, the learners will be provided one-on-
one mentoring sessions to help with the process of reflecting on the need for a diverse workforce
to grow the business and job aids in the form of a checklist to help with the steps to consider in
the hiring process.
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During the team meetings and group sessions, program participants will share successes
in the effort to recruit new hires of diverse backgrounds to build the confidence and utility value
of the program. Data will also be shared at these meetings and group sessions that acknowledge
and reward stakeholders who are activity and successfully recruiting diverse professionals to the
firm.
Evaluation of the components of learning. For people to be successful in
accomplishing their tasks, they must possess or acquire the correct knowledge to succeed. Two
critical types of knowledge that allow stakeholders to accomplish tasks are declarative and
procedural knowledge. The transfer of this knowledge must equip the learners with the
confidence to accomplish the task to be considered a successful learning program. As such,
Table 22 lists the evaluation methods and timing for these components of learning.

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Table E-4
Evaluation of the Components of Learning for the Program

Method(s) or Activity(ies) Timing
Declarative Knowledge “I know it.”
Knowledge checks through discussions at meetings in a “pair, think,
share” group activity.
During the team meetings
Knowledge checks using multiple choice As a preparatory step before
mentoring sessions.
Procedural Skills “I can do it right now.”
Demonstration in mentoring sessions of using the job aids to
successfully perform the skills.
During Mentoring Sessions
Quality of feedback from peers during group sharing During the meetings
Attitude “I believe this is worthwhile.”
Discussions of the value of what they are being asked to do on the job. During mentoring sessions
Mentors observation of mentee statements and actions demonstrating
that they see the benefit of what they are being asked to do on the job.
During mentoring sessions
Confidence “I think I can do it on the job.”
Discussions following practice and feedback. During mentoring sessions
Retrospective post-interview assessment item After interviews with
candidates
Commitment “I will do it on the job.”
Individual action plan for mentee During mentoring session
Discussions following practice and feedback. During mentoring sessions
Retrospective post-interview assessment item After interviews with
candidates
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Level 1: Reaction
To conclude the training measurement components, we look to capture program
participant reactions. Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) stated that customer satisfaction needed
to be measured as part of the program. To this end, the program must accommodate for this
review in a lens that is relevant to the learner. This process occurs throughout the program and is
timed at the end of each learning session. Table E-5 shows the details for measuring “Level 1:
Reactions.”
Table E-5

Components to Measure Reactions to the Program

Method(s) or Tool(s) Timing
Engagement
Observation by mentor During mentoring sessions
Attendance at mentoring sessions During mentoring sessions
Relevance
Brief pulse-check with participants via survey (online) and
discussion (ongoing)
After every quarterly
meeting

Mentoring sessions evaluation Quarterly throughout the
program
Customer Satisfaction
Brief pulse-check with participants via survey (online) and
discussion (ongoing)
After every quarterly
meeting
Mentoring sessions evaluation Quarterly throughout the
program

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Evaluation Tools
Immediately Following the Program Implementation
During the mentoring and group sessions, the mentor team will gather feedback about
participants’ development of knowledge and reactions to the program. This information will be
collected and utilized to understand overall program performance.
For Level 1, during the group working sessions, a pulse check will be conducted
periodically so the working session facilitator can ensure that the content is relevant to their work
and that the learning environment is appropriate for their needs. For “Level 2: Assessment,”
groups will compete to answer knowledge-related questions that check for understanding and
knowledge transfer.
Data Analysis and Reporting
In the world of business, metrics are usually targeted at financial performance as
profitability is typically the top-level stakeholder goal. However, some firm and progressive
leaders believe in nonfinancial metrics as a leading indicator of what behavior will produce
favorable outcomes and profitability. In this regard, a mentor and CEO of a firm I worked in
taught me to “inspect what you expect.” His point was that the best way to demonstrate what is
important to the team is to regularly review with them their progress toward stated objectives.
Over the years, the types of evaluation tools have changed—from simple reports to management
dashboards. A format that is popular in business circles today is known as a “four block.” Four
blocks are a single page, distributed on regular intervals, and contain the proper information for
teams to be updated on progress from multiple program teams and their activities. For the
evaluation tool of this program, I will be utilizing a four block to track stakeholder reactions,
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results achieved, challenges to the program, and changes in behavior toward the stakeholder goal
of diversifying the workforce as a means for business growth.
Kirkpatrick and Kirkpatrick (2016) cited the importance of reviewing program data, as it
supports organizational expectations. In the program to diversify the workforce at MSF, we will
be reporting on and measuring through data-learning goals that should build the right behavior to
accomplish stakeholder goals. Post-analysis, data will be shared with the stakeholders in the four
block shown below.

Figure E-A. Mock-up of four block four program reporting.
The data collection plan will have data gathered after program events and quarterly, for
long-term impact analysis. This process will run the length of the program and will serve as the
consistent measure of the program’s success. If conditions change during the program and the
data show that certain program components are losing their functional impact, the program will
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be adjusted to accommodate the participants’ new needs. This measure-and-adjust process will
continue throughout the duration of the program.
Summary
The purpose of this study was to examine how mature knowledge-centric firms can
achieve business growth through a knowledge, motivation, and organizational influences model
focused on hiring a diverse population of professionals. The literature review of this study
disclosed the importance of the intersection between diversity and innovation. By building a
diverse workforce, an organization can add new perspectives, build networks, and avoid group
think. To this extent, it was important to study knowledge, motivational, and organizational
theories to determine the strengths and gaps in the organization’s ability to grow the business
through the development of a diverse workforce. This study revealed strong individual beliefs
about the value of diversity in growing the business, but also exposed a lack of common
understanding of the organizational value of building diversity.

Abstract (if available)

Abstract Mature knowledge-centric firms are under increasing pressure to innovate and grow their business as the democratization of information continues. At the core of value for a client from a mature knowledge-centric firm are the relationships with people, the professionals of the firm, and the trust and insight that accompanies the knowledge they provide. To grow mature knowledge-centric firms, these organizations need to expand and develop new networks for their business to serve. The expansion of networks is a people-based process, and takes different minds and perspectives to do so successfully. Therefore, to grow, mature knowledge-centric firms must recruit and develop talent. The talent must be skilled and qualified to represent the firm credibly in network expansion. Ideally, this talent would be a group diverse people that can provide access to new networks, not previously accessed by the organization. This study is focused on how to prepare an organization to develop a diverse workforce of highly skilled and qualified people to lead the firm into net new markets.

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Asset Metadata

Creator Bechtoldt, Bryan Blaine (author)

Core Title Growth of intrapreneurialship in mature knowledge-centric firms

School Rossier School of Education

Degree Doctor of Education

Degree Program Organizational Change and Leadership (On Line)

Publication Date 02/03/2020

Defense Date 11/24/2019

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag diversity,innovation,intrapreneurialism,intrapreneurialship,knowledge-centric,OAI-PMH Harvest

Language English

Contributor Electronically uploaded by the author (provenance)

Advisor Hirabayashi , Kimberly (committee chair), Combs, Wayne (committee member), Malloy, Courtney (committee member)

Creator Email bechtoldtb@sva.com,bryanbechtoldt@gmail.com

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c89-264089

Unique identifier UC11673714

Identifier etd-BechtoldtB-8137.pdf (filename),usctheses-c89-264089 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier etd-BechtoldtB-8137.pdf

Dmrecord 264089

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Bechtoldt, Bryan Blaine

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the a...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus MC 2810, 3434 South Grand Avenue, 2nd Floor, Los Angeles, California 90089-2810, USA