Ecosystem disclaimers for successful influence of higher power occupational groups inside organizations

Abstract

We use data from a two-year comparative ethnographic field study of public defenders in two offices to examine how lower power occupation members are able to influence higher power occupation members, which the literature on work and occupations has shown to be difficult. Lower power public defenders in both offices faced the same barriers to influence of higher power prosecutors and had access to the same contextual facilitators of influence. Yet, public defenders from one office influenced prosecutors at a higher rate than they did in the other. Our paper demonstrates how "ecosystem disclaimers"-activities that allow lower power occupational group members to demonstrate their commitment to third party audiences before engaging in influence tactics with a more powerful occupational group that could be negatively misinterpreted by these audiences-can facilitate lower power occupational group influence. This paper contributes to the literature on work and occupations by incorporating the importance of a general community of others' whose impression of upward influence must also be managed.