When Professionals Become Protestors: Antecedents to Mutiny in the Workplace

• In Event: 161 - Section on Organizations, Occupation and Work Roundtable Session (one-hour).
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. The Politics of Work

Abstract

ABSTRACT

Legitimacy is commonly considered a necessary component of leadership. But what happens when a leader loses legitimacy in the eyes of their employees? This paper considers one possible response to the loss of leader legitimacy—that of organizational mutiny, whereby subordinate members of an organization mobilize to remove their own leader. This paper addresses two central questions: (1) what are the underlying motivations for employees to collectively mobilize against their own leader; and (2) what conditions give rise to active efforts to remove the leader. Drawing on participant interviews and archival materials collected from three recent cases of mutiny, I find that even when employees are extremely dissatisfied they are initially quite reluctant to challenge the leader. Over time, however, employees come to believe that they alone are able to effect change, causing a shift from a state of passive discontent to one of actively mobilizing against the leader. I argue that the process occurs in three stages: (1) a threat to employees’ core values and beliefs, (2) a public catalyzing event, and (3) the withdrawal of buffering actors. I discuss these findings in the context of the literature on social movements and organizations.

Author

• Amanda Merryman, Franklin and Marshall College