Black Greek-letter Organizations in the Twenty-First Century: Our Fight Has Just Begun

14 Exploring Black Greek-Letter Organizations through a Positive Organizing Lens

273 14 exploring black Greek-letter organizations through a Positive organizing lens Laura Morgan Roberts and Lynn Perry Wooten From their inception, black Greek-letter organizations (BGLOs) have provided a forum for African Americans to fulfill their personal need for affiliation and belongingness, to develop leadership abilities, and to collectively engage in social action for the betterment of the black community. This chapter draws on theory from positive organizational scholarship to analyze the enabling properties of BGLOs throughout their history. Through this lens, we view BGLOs as social movement organizations and explore how they are organized to achieve their goals. By taking this approach, we seek to understand how these organizations enable human excellence and mobilize the collective action of extraordinary individuals for the purposes of social support, scholarship, political activism, economic development, and community service—organizational aspects of BGLOs that are often overlooked. Positive organizational Scholarship Positive organizational scholarship (POS) is an umbrella term that provides a frame for current and future research on positive states, outcomes, and generative mechanisms in individuals, dyads, groups, organizations, and societies.1 POS is an alternative lens that places positive dynamics at the center of organizational research, in contrast to the dominant approach toward understanding and improving organizational behavior. The traditional concept of enhancing the quality of organizational life focuses on identifying what is not working in organizations and assessing the relative impact of such problems on individual and organizational outcomes. This deficit-based approach is oriented toward identifying the mechanisms that prevent organizations from reaching optimal functioning, rather than highlighting those that push beyond such barriers. Positive organizational scholars contend that the deficit orientation falls short 274 Roberts and Wooten of generating the entire range of solutions to enable flourishing.2 The POS lens prompts researchers to expand the focus; rather than asking only what is wrong in organizations, positive scholars pose the complementary question: what is right in organizations, and what can we learn from these positive examples? It is essential to incorporate POS principles into the interpretation of BGLO history. The POS lens informs our understanding of how collective action can enable flourishing in a variety of work and community service contexts. The vast majority of research on diversity, and on race in particular, in organizational studies has emphasized the problems that emerge when people of different cultural backgrounds attempt to form working relationships with one another and advance in their careers.3 This body of work on racial conflict and inequity in organizations overshadows the discussion of individual and collective strengths that people of color bring to organizations as a function of their sociocultural experiences. A recent report by the Center for Work-Life Policy suggests that employers underutilize the organizing and leadership skills that people of color develop through their civic, community, and religious involvement.4 This chapter’s POS analysis illustrates how African Americans’ strengths have been put to use in BGLOs to provide social support, foster education and leadership development, and initiate social change. We employ a traditional organizational life-cycle model to capture the positive organizing routines that shaped the evolution of BGLOs. We then explore the future of BGLOs and discuss how these organizations might maintain relevance for members and society at large. organizational life Cycles The organizational life-cycle model provides an excellent framework to examine the positive organizing routines of BGLOs. This model proposes that, over time, organizations move through a series of developmental stages. It is based on a biologicalmetaphor—thatorganizationsmimiclivingorganismsbydemonstrating cyclical patterns of development. The model’s stages are sequential and occur as a hierarchical progression.5 Each stage involves leadership committing to a rangeofactivitiesandstructuresdesignedtohelptheorganizationaccomplishits goals. Furthermore, at each stage of an organization’s life cycle, its behavior is a responsetoopportunitiesandthreats,bothinternalandexternal.Thisisreflected in the cognitive orientation of the organization’s members, the organization’s structure, and the organization’s relations with external stakeholders. Exploring Black Greek-Letter Organizations 275 Organizational theorists propose three major developmental phases associated with the life cycle of an organization. The birth phase encompasses the founding years of an organization and is characterized by organizing members, marshaling resources, attaining goals, and forming an ideology.6 Also, during the founding years, the organization works innovatively to establish a niche among its peer group and adapt to its external environment.7 During the second phase of the organizational life cycle, known as the growth years, organizations concentrate on expansion, efficiency, and goal attainment. This emphasis...