Changemakers or Troublemakers?: How Organizations Evaluate Individuals with Activist Backgrounds

Abstract

As civic and political engagement becomes increasingly visible in the professional sphere, whether through résumés, professional networking platforms, social media, or other digital traces, organizations are more likely to encounter individuals with observable histories of social activism. Yet research has devoted far more attention to understanding how activism influences organizations than to how organizations evaluate individuals who engage in it. This dissertation addresses that gap through two empirical studies and one theoretical chapter. First, a résumé audit study across six U.S. labor markets shows that job seekers with activist backgrounds face a labor-market penalty relative to otherwise identical non-activists. This activism penalty is concentrated in states with political environments hostile to activism. Second, a survey experiment with individuals with hiring experience identifies the mechanisms underlying this penalty: activist applicants are evaluated less favorably primarily because they are expected to create workplace disruption rather than because they are perceived as less competent. The survey experiment further demonstrates that individual political ideology shapes employer evaluations. Building on these findings, this dissertation develops an integrative theoretical framework explaining how organizations construct meaning from activist backgrounds. I argue that activist backgrounds function as expressive, value-laden signals that generate competing trait inferences, which organizational evaluators interpret through perceived value congruence. Ultimately, this dissertation establishes activist backgrounds as a previously understudied object of organizational evaluation and shows why the same activist can be seen as either a changemaker or a troublemaker.