Understanding Employee Activism

This symposium showcases recent research projects on when and how employees engage in activism. Employees are engaging in social movements in and around their organizations using both persuasive and disruptive tactics to oppose their companies’ practices and policies and to create change. We present new insights into how employees use internal and external digital communication tools to engage in activism. We also examine factors that promote or discourage employee activism, including gender, race, past performance, organizational culture, and occupational norms. Finally, we examine the career paths of occupational activists, including how their backgrounds may change as positions are institutionalized. We contribute to social movement theories including resource dependence, opportunity structures, perceptions of risk, and organizational change as well as the literatures on occupations and employee voice.