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Covert Political Conflict In Organizations: Challenges From Below, Calvin Morrill, Mayer N. Zald, Hayagreeva Rao

Calvin Morrill

This review considers a class of political activity that has largely been ignored by researchers extending social movement theory into organizations: covert political conflict. Although much of the literature we discuss focuses on contemporary corporations where the bulk of research on covert conflict has occurred, we also explore studies of covert conflict in a range of historical and organizational contexts that fall outside the contemporary work world. As we define it, covert political conflict encompasses four interrelated elements: contestation of institutionalized power and authority, perceptions of collective injury, social occlusion, and officially forbidden forms of dissent. Beyond these elements, covert …