Degree Name

MS in Management

First Advisor

Ann Viets

Abstract

Over the last two decades, immigrants’ rights organizations have had to respond to blistering changes in their external environments. Inequalities between citizens and non-citizens have widened in the U.S, as civil liberties and civil rights have been increasingly tied to citizenship status. This study examines how immigrants’ rights social movement organizations (IRSMOs) identify the players in their external environments and how they categorize them, as the first steps in setting strategies to win increased equality for their memberships or constituencies.

The literature review examines tools and processes from strategic management, non-profit strategic planning, social movement theory and community organizing that help to map and categorize external stakeholders. Using phenomenological and ethnographic approaches, I analyzed structured interview and survey data on how four IRSMOs identify and categorize players in their environments and how they collect this information.

The study finds that the sampled IRSMOs mostly use power analysis tools that categorize identified players’ power, support or opposition to immigrants’ rights and level of organization. The power analysis tools are mostly being used to plan or re-strategize community organizing campaigns. The information required to conduct stakeholder analyses is collected in sophisticated and diverse ways including interfacing with the opposition and conducting community surveys. The findings may help IRSMOs better categorize players in their environments to develop appropriate targets or strategies to benefit the immigrants’ rights movement.

Disciplines

Community-Based Research | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies

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