Research

Employee Voice, Social Movements in Organizations, Relationships at Work, Qualitative Methods

My dissertation research explores how professional employees engage in activism. Specifically, I examine the social, political, and moral issues prompting employee activists to press their firms to change organizational practices and policies. I also consider how employee activists co-opt internal voice mechanisms to organize collective action or engage in noisy exits, how they “hack” their insider status to tailor their contentious activism, how they interpret managerial responses to activism, and how they build lasting capacity across movements and organizations to fund, train, and support future activists. 

Kessinger, Raquel. Speaking Up and Speaking Out: How Employees Raise Social, Political, and Moral Concerns at Work. (Submitted to ADMINISTRATIVE SCIENCE QUARTERLY.)

Kessinger, Raquel, Kellogg, K.C, & Rothbard, Nancy. Orchestrating and Enacting “Coddling Work”: How New Performance Management Technologies May Increase Managerial Workloads. (Preparing to Submit to ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT DISCOVERIES.)

Kessinger, Raquel & McDonnell, Mary Hunter. What Factors Influence an Employee’s Decision to Engage in Activism? A Review and Research Agenda. (Drafting Proposal for ACADEMY OF MANAGEMENT ANNALS.)

Kessinger, Raquel. Making Move(ment)s: How Employee Activists Target Their Firms Using Contentious Activism and Interpret Leader Responses to their Activism. (Manuscript, Revising).

Kessinger, Raquel. The Aftermath of Employee Activism: How Employee Activists Build Lasting Capacity Among Activists Across Movements and Organizations (Drafting).

Kessinger, Raquel & Lee, Matthew*. How Participating in Employee Activist Movements Impacts Employee Careers. (Early-Stage Data Collection).