Beyond “Do Better, Try Harder”: A Grounded Exploration of How Employees Evaluate, Experience, and Respond to Allyship Failure

Abstract

This dissertation builds grounded theory on how dominant group members evaluate, experience, and respond to their own allyship failure. I conducted an inductive, qualitative exploration of allyship failure in 46 interviews with employees who had won or been recognized for engagement in allyship, which yielded an emergent theoretical model of the allyship shortcoming cycle. This model suggests that dominant group members evaluate their allyship by prioritizing primary cues that consist of explicit feedback from nondominant group members and using secondary cues that consist of less explicit information from a variety of sources. When these cues suggested that informants’ allyship had not been effective, they conceptualized it not as failure, but as a shortcoming. Although all informants experienced a negative immediate aftershock when they perceived an allyship shortcoming, their experiences varied based on how they conceptualized the ally identity—as static versus as a journey. For dominant group members who conceptualized the ally identity as static, shortcomings challenged their self-concept as an ally, prompting them to withdraw from allyship. Informants who conceptualized the ally identity as a journey experienced allyship shortcomings as consistent with their self-concept as an ally, which enabled them to deconstruct the allyship shortcoming in a way that improved their allyship skills and helped them develop in their journey as allies. I discuss theoretical implications for the allyship, identity, and mega-threats literature, as well as practical implications, limitations, and future research directions.