The paradox of inclusion and exclusion in membership associations

Abstract

We use interviews and a focus group with leaders of a sample of nonprofit professional and trade membership associations based in the United States to understand what the leaders recognize to be their membership association’s diversity challenges and initiatives. We identify incentives, identity and power challenges as fundamental influences on the diversity of potential and existing members. Our analysis reveals a paradox in which attempts to increase the association’s inclusiveness are met with countervailing desires to maintain the membership association’s exclusiveness. We find that leaders may attempt to manage the paradox through strategies that legitimize diversity initiatives, change the membership association’s identity to reflect the valuing of diversity, and take advantage of organizational structures to embed diversity-related practices and accountability. These strategies have been discussed in the diversity management literature but without our paradox perspective. Additionally, paradox literature emphasizes the importance of ambidextrous (‘both/and’) approaches to paradox management, but these strategies may reflect an ‘either/or’ approach as leaders push their agenda forward, potentially in direct conflict with the desires of some current members.