Nishi Gautam

I am Nishi Gautam, a doctoral candidate at the College of Management, University of Massachusetts, Boston. 

​

My research investigates how employees raise their concerns and mobilize around critical social issues in the workplace and how organizations respond to these employee-led initiatives, including the strategies they use to address or resist activists’ actions and demands. Drawing from organizational theory, social movement studies, political science, and communication research, I investigate the situational factors and structural conditions that shape employee voice, as well as the leadership and organizational strategies that emerge in response. In my current work on employee activism, I examine both macro and micro structures and processes that constrain and enhance activism and its outcomes, using both qualitative and quantitative methods. I aim to highlight how activists, by leveraging various opportunity structures and processes—such as interactions with firms, tactics, and the use of social media framing—drive change within organizations and broader society.

​