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  • Organization Science

Triadic Advocacy Work

By: Summer R. Jackson and Katherine C. Kellogg
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Abstract

Scholars of street-level bureaucracy and institutional research focus primarily on the relationships between advocates and their larger bureaucratic and social systems, assuming that advocates have little need to satisfy their beneficiaries. We find otherwise in our two-year ethnographic study of public defenders advocating for disadvantaged clients in interactions with district attorneys. In our analysis of 82 advocacy opportunities, we demonstrate that, when existing bureaucratic and social systems put beneficiaries at a disadvantage, advocates may be concerned about managing fraught relationships with their beneficiaries in addition to navigating barriers within the bureaucratic and social systems. We further show a tension between the two; ironically, engaging in advocacy work on behalf of beneficiaries can lead to beneficiary mistrust. As a result, advocates engage in triadic advocacy work—managing impressions with their beneficiaries while also influencing powerful actors within the system on behalf of these same beneficiaries. Understanding the process by which advocates navigate this tension is critical to understanding beneficiary outcomes. By reconceptualizing advocacy work as a triadic process among advocate, bureaucratic system, and beneficiary rather than as a dyadic process between advocate and bureaucratic system, this paper develops new theory about how advocates can attempt to garner benefits that advance the rights and opportunities of the disadvantaged.

Keywords

Occupations And Professions; Ethnography; Power And Politics; Work And Organizations; Advocacy; Public Management; Justice

Citation

Jackson, Summer R., and Katherine C. Kellogg. "Triadic Advocacy Work." Organization Science (April 1, 2022).
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About The Author

Summer R. Jackson

Organizational Behavior
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    (Not) Paying for Diversity: Repugnance and Failure to Choose Labor Market Platforms that Facilitate Hiring Racial Minorities into Technical Positions

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    • Administrative Science Quarterly

    The Radical Flank Effect and Cross-occupational Collaboration for Technology Development during a Power Shift

    By: Emily Truelove and Katherine C. Kellogg
More from the Authors
  • (Not) Paying for Diversity: Repugnance and Failure to Choose Labor Market Platforms that Facilitate Hiring Racial Minorities into Technical Positions By: Summer R. Jackson
  • The Radical Flank Effect and Cross-occupational Collaboration for Technology Development during a Power Shift By: Emily Truelove and Katherine C. Kellogg
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