Research

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

My dissertation research explores how professional employees discuss polarizing social issues at work. Specifically, I examine the societal, political, and moral concerns prompting employees to press their firms to change organizational practices and policies. I also consider how employees may repurpose internal voice mechanisms to organize collective action or engage in noisy exits, how they “hack” their insider status to tailor 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 activist movements. 

Kessinger, Raquel. Speak Up, But Not on That: Employee Activism as an Unintended Consequence of Bounding Psychological Safety by Topic (Submitted to ORGANIZATION SCIENCE.)

Kessinger, Raquel, Kellogg, Katherine, & Rothbard, Nancy. Orchestrating and Enacting “Coddling Work”: How New Performance Management Technologies May Increase Managerial Workloads. (Preparing to Submit to JOURNAL OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGY.)

Kessinger, Raquel. Making Movements and Engaging in Noisy Exits: How Employees Repurpose Internal Communications Tools for Activism. (Manuscript, Revising).

Kessinger, Raquel. Employee Activism and Its Aftermath: How Employee Activists Frame Leadership Responses and Build Future Capacity (Manuscript, Revising).

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

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

Kessinger, Raquel, Cameron, Lindsey, & Smith, Leticia. How Elite Veterans Experience Career Transitions. (Early-Stage Data Collection).