Emotions in Organizational Behavior

Charmine Hartel, Neal M. Ashkanasy, Wilfred Zerbe, Charmine Hartel, Neal M. Ashkanasy, Wilfred Zerbe

• Éditeur: Psychology Press
• Année: 2005
• ISBN:
  9781135609368
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Negocios y empresa
• Sous-sujet: Comportamiento organizacional

This edition was conceived and compiled to meet the need for a comprehensive book for practitioners, academics, and students on the research of emotions in organizational behavior. The book is the first of its kind to incorporate organizational behavior and bounded emotionality. The editors' primary aim is to communicate the research presented at the bi-annual International Conference on Emotions and Organizational Life to a wider audience. This edition looks at the range of research on emotions within an organizational behavior framework; organized in terms of the individual, interpersonal, and organizational levels. Particular emphasis has been placed on obtaining the leading research in the international sphere. This book is intended to be useful to the student of organizational behavior, as well as to the managers of organizations.

1
Organizational Behavior:
An Emotions Perspective

Charmine E.J.Härtel
Wilfred J.Zerbe
Neal M.Ashkanasy

All organizations make at least some decisions that hurt their employees and cause some level of distress or disruption. For instance, jobs may need to be cut or high performance levels may be demanded. Without recognition of emotions, however, organizations cannot deal effectively and humanely with the pain caused (Frost, 2003). Organizations that understand this and attend to keeping their environments emotionally healthy will create less emotional pain and reap more productive work behavior. Moreover, organizations that have this understanding, and also value having a culture that is emotionally constructive, can create organizational behavior that contributes to employees' emotional health.

This opening chapter provides an overview of organizational behavior theory and research and the paradigms that have dominated the field to date. Running through a discussion of rational notions of organizational behavior, to concepts of bounded rationality and most recently the call for bounded emotionality perspectives, we identify for the reader what a bounded emotionality perspective adds to the understanding of organizations. We then provide an overview of the remaining chapters in the book and how they contribute to the book's objectives.

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: AN OVERVIEW

Organizational behavior is an ever-expanding, dynamic field with a variety of theories and models used to describe how and why people interact differently within the workplace. The aim of this book is to provide the reader with a real-time approach to understanding organizational behavior with a particular focus on emotions, to increase understanding and awareness of the role of emotions within the workplace.

For the most part, organizational research tends to rest on the assumptions that human beings are rational creatures and that emotions are irrational and unproductive (Styre, Ingelgard, Beausang, Castenfors, Mulec, & Roth, 2002). Therefore, to act in emotional or unpredictable ways is “unacceptable” (Antonacopoulou & Gabriel, 2001). Subsequently, emotion is excluded from the majority of research. Prior to 1992, the study of emotions was, with a few notable exceptions, essentially next to nonexistent in the management literature. Textbooks in the field, for example, provided no coverage of the role of emotions in work settings, except with respect to job satisfaction—factors that have since been shown to be largely cognitive (e.g., see Meyer & Allen, 1991; Wright & Staw, 1999). This began to change with the publication of Pekrun and Frese's (1992) chapter titled “Emotions in Work and Achievement,” followed in 1993 by publication of Fineman's edited book Emotion in Organizations (1993a).

The momentum rapidly accelerated in the years following 1993, with particular intensity following Ashforth and Humphrey's (1995) call to action. By 2000, this culminated in a veritable explosion of literature. Edited books by Ashkanasy, Härtel, and Zerbe (2000), Ashkanasy, Zerbe, and Härtel (2002), Fineman (2000), Lord, Klimoski, and Kanfer (2002), and Payne and Cooper (2001) emerged, and special issues of journals guest edited by Fisher and Ashkanasy (2000b), Fox (2000), Humphrey (2002), and Weiss (2001, 2002) were requisitioned. This proliferation of literature was recognized in 2002 by the editors of the Annual Review of Psychology, who invited their first review of this literature (Brief & Weiss, 2002). The present volume is the latest addition to this upsurge of interest.

FROM THE COGNITIVE REVOLUTION TO THE EMOTIONAL REVOLUTION

In 1976, Simon founded the concept of bounded rationality, arguing that rational economic theory was flawed because it failed to take proper account of the limitations of human rational thought. A core part of this paradigm was the definition of “irrational” and “arational” decisions, with emotion in the former category. Essentially, Simon's work marked the beginning of the cognitive revolution in economics and management theory. As such, emotional responses were treated as weaker than those based on reason.

In direct opposition, Mumby and Putnam (1993) introduced the term bounded emotionality, intended to be a foil to Simon's (1976) concept of “bounded rationality.” Specifically, Mumby and Putnam reexamined bounded rationality and concluded that it failed to take sufficient account of the power of emotion. They suggested that “emotions constitute a way of knowing that differs from but complements traditional rationality” (p. 480). Thus, in effect, cognitive theory is flawed because it dismisses emotion as “irrational” and therefore beyond the pale of systematic analysis. As such, bounded emotionality formed “an alternative mode of organizing in which nurturance, caring, community, supportiveness, and interrelatedness are fused with individual responsibility to shape organizational experiences” (Mumby & Putnam, 1993, p. 474). It extends the idea of bounded rationality (and cognitive theory) to take in the idea that emotions can be analyzed systematically and should be included in models of organizational behavior and decision making.

Thus, just as bounded rationality signaled the beginning of the cognitive revolution (Ilgen, Major, & Tower, 1994), bounded emotionality marked the launch of the emotional revolution (Barsade, Brief, & Spataro, 2003).

Although emotion has always been a critical factor in organizational management (Mastenbroek, 2000), it was not until the emergence in the 1980s of critical management theory that the topic finally bubbled to the surface of management scholarship. Indeed, the idea of bounded emotionality emerged from the critical feminist perspective that, in turn, was presaged by Van Maanen and Kunda's (1989) seminal description of the organizational process of emotion management as well as Fineman's (1993a) seminal book in the area.

The emotional revolution was also reflected in the increasing interest in the study of emotions in the wider psychological and popular literature. The American Psychological Association launched a new journal, Emotion, in 2001, and books on emotions by Damasio (2003) and Goleman (1995) reached the best-seller lists. Ten years after Fineman's book, Barsade and her colleagues (2003) announced that the revolution was, indeed, a “paradigm shift.”

AN EMOTIONS PERSPECTIVE OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Emotions are linked to organizational behavior in a number of ways. Generally speaking, when employees are unhappy, it shows in organizational behavior, because unhappy people are disconnected from their work (Frost, 2003, p. 33). Failure to understand the emotional aspects of organizational behavior means that an organization is unlikely to realize its toxic actions such as unreasonable company policies, disruptive coworkers or clients, abusive managers, and poorly managed change (Frost, 2003, p. 14). Further, they are unlikely to recognize and support the efforts of those trying to change and deal with the consequences of the toxic behavior, and thus are unlikely to retain those who can support a healthy organizational culture. Taking an emotions perspective of organizational behavior, on the other hand, can help leaders increase the happiness of their workers and assist employees to achieve positive outcomes for themselves even when painful events are encountered. Not only does implementing an emotions perspective of organizational behavior provide bottomline benefits to the organization, it holds the promise of making it more ethical and socially responsible, as heartfelt caring for the needs of others has been linked to moral acts (Josselson, 1992).

Specifically, organizational behavior is a study of individuals and groups in organizations, and the ways in which they display attitude, actions, and behaviors (Weiss, 1996). In order to understand these attitudes, actions, and behaviors, emotion-based theories emerged, such as emotional intelligence, affective events theory, and emotional labor, as discussed in various chapters within this book. Such integration of emotions and organizational behavior assists the development of understanding, implications, and solutions of managing emotions within the workplace.

As can be seen, organizations are complex entities. Many revolutions, theories, and models have eventuated in an attempt to better describe organizational behavior. For the most part, research has tended to be based on assumptions of rationality, excluding notions of emotionality. However, a reliance on one dimension of work experience, such as rationality, overlooks alternative forms of organizational experience. “By shifting rationality to include intersubjective understanding, community, and shared interests, insights into alternative forms of organizing are created” (Mumby & Putnam, 1993, p. 480).

In this volume, we present a broad range of the latest research in emotions in organizational behavior. In particular, the latest research is gathered from Australia, France, China, Sweden, the United States, and Italy. Further, the book introduces new theories, models, and recent advances in emotions, such as Fujimoto and Härtel's model of the types of emotions arising in interactions among culturally diverse workteams and how these are shaped by organizational policies and practices.

FRAMEWORK OF THE BOOK

The book is segmented into five parts and comprises a total of 20 chapters. Part I of Emotions in Organizational Behavior introduces the reader to the concept of emotions. Parts II to IV discuss the concept of emotions on three levels of analysis: individual, interpersonal, and organizational. Finally, as organizational behavior is dynamic and ever-changing, part V discusses the role of emotions in organizational change.

Part I: Organizational Behavior and Emotions

Part I is a theoretical piece that illustrates the important role emotions play for individuals and groups and suggests that organizational behavior is enhanced through the careful management of emotions, knowledge, and learning. This chapter looks at why we are emotional through a discussion of the psychological development of emotions and an integration of this into the role of emotions in the workplace. The discussion is particularly useful for students and practitioners as it provides a sound basis for their knowledge in this field and leads into the subsequent chapters, which build on this knowledge basis.

Part II: The Individual Within the Organization

We then turn to the individual within the organization and how they manage their emotions within the workplace. Chapters 3 to 5 comprise empirical studies and build on part I by incorporating situational factors and the potential conflict arising from work roles. Together, these chapters demonstrate the importance of emotions to individual behavior and work experiences, providing insight on the organizational behavior strategies that can enhance behavior and experience.

In particular, chapter 3 discusses the emotional conflict that service providers experience when performing emotional process work. It details the link between coping with these emotions and the conflicting gender roles that societal rules impose upon us. Chapter 4 addresses the implications of emotion in employee counterproductive work behavior. Specifically, it discusses the effects of situational factors in the role of managing behavior within the workplace. It demonstrates that, if managed inappropriately, counterproductive work behavior results, which can have a detrimental effect on both the employee and the organizational setting.

Chapter 5 demonstrates that perceptual and attitudinal processes occur when diverse individuals interact, based on observable attributes. The individuals within the interaction have attitudes about these perceptions and respond in an affective way. The chapter provides important new insights on interactions between dissimilar persons and forwards a model of the affective response individuals have toward dissimilar team members that will be useful to both practitioners and researchers alike.

The final chapter in this section, written by the editors, integrates the contributions of each chapter with other state-of-the-art research to provide a bounded emotionality perspective on the individual in the organization.

Part III: The Interpersonal Within the Organization

Part III presents a combination of empirical and theoretical research on workgroup dynamics, communication and emotions. This section is particularly pertinent for practitioners who seek further understanding and new strategies for dealing with organizational change.

Chapter 7 presents a theoretical model incorporating group affect into problem-solving activities. Specifically, it reviews the literature surrounding individual and group level affect in workgroups and provides a detailed explanation of each stage within the model: problem identification; brainstorming; solution development; and implementation. It suggests that the feelings of individuals within the group and the collective feelings of the group are influenced by the problem-solving process. Further, as groups mature, their level of affect is shown to become more influential over individual affect. As such, group level affect is influenced by, and will in turn, influence individual members' affect.

In order for organizational behavior to be effective, students, practitioners, and scholars must be aware of the importance of different identities and negotiation skills. Chapter 8 addresses this need, presenting a picture of intergroup dynamics and the barriers to effective negotiation. Drawing on affective events theory (AET) and communication accommodation theory (CAT), the chapter elucidates cross-cultural communication and negotiation and demonstrates application of the model using a Chinese-Australian negotiation scenario.

Chapter 9 discusses the impact of communication on emotion by addressing the role of h...

Table des matières

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• About the Editors and Contributors
• In Memory of Jan Paterson
• 1 Organizational Behavior: An Emotions Perspective
• Part I: organizational behavior and emotions
• Part II: The individual within the organization
• Part III: The interpersonal within the organization
• Part IV: Organizational processes, structure, and design
• Part V: Organizational change and changing organizations
• References
• Author Index
• Subject Index