Emotion Essay

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Emotion has various definitions. Some characteristics of emotions  that are generally accepted are that they involve thought,  appraisal,  and judgments,  a physical reaction,  and  an  experience  that  is intentional. These characteristics  indicate that emotions are both physical and cognitive. They help create meaning and action, and they are intrinsic to social order, conflict, politics, influence, etc. Emotions are affected by intellect, language, culture, and experience.

Emotions, with the exception  of stress and satisfaction, were missing from the  organizational  context as they were perceived as incompatible with reason or rationality and were therefore  viewed as a human limitation, something that needed to be controlled or eradicated. Organizations were understood as rational entities that aimed to eliminate irrational behavior of people as it was likely to interfere  with the  accomplishment  of  their  goals, and  emotions were perceived as synonymous with irrationality. Interest  in emotion  in business and emotional  work has increased since the 1970s as the realization that emotion cannot be excluded from human interaction increased and the shift away from the pure rationalist perspective of organizations took place. More recently, emotions are perceived as not only compatible with reason but as something  that can complement reason or even as something necessary for reasoning and decision making.

In organizational  studies, affect is sometimes  used as  the  umbrella  term  that  contains  emotions   and moods. Emotions are of increased interest in organizations because they affect work motivation and job satisfaction. In the organizational literature, an emphasis on positive emotions such as happiness, love, joy, and enthusiasm is identified because they enable individuals to feel good and have positive consequences by creating a harmonious,  strong, fair organization.  In contrast, negative emotions like anxiety, fear, and hate are seen as destructive and disruptive, and therefore, based on the  assumption  that  they can be separated  from positive emotions,  the prescriptions  relating to them focus on  their  elimination.  This view is questioned, however, since positive and negative emotions cannot be separated, as they inform and develop each other.

Mapping the journey of emotions in the organizational arena, first a reluctance  to allow emotions  in organizations  developed, followed by a more recent reluctance  to accept negative emotions. Other  views see selected emotions as inherently part of organizations as long as they relate to aggression, confidence, and  competition,   which  define  organizational   life, while other emotions that relate to weakness, submission, and caring are inherently not organizational.

In the organizational context, the effect of emotion in relation  to  performance,  decision  making,  turnover, prosocial behavior, negotiation,  group dynamics, and leadership has been researched with evidence that suggests that positive emotions  improve performance  at the  individual,  group,  and  organizational levels. Some negative emotions  have been found to have positive consequences  in relation  to concerns about fairness, power, and negotiation.  Further,  current research in emotions  suggests that they are not necessarily only attributed to individuals but they are also attributed to organizations.

The interest in emotions in organizations  increased with the development of emotional intelligence (EI) and emotional labor. EI is the ability to monitor and control one’s own and others’ emotions  and to be able to use them effectively in one’s thinking and action. Emotions are used and controlled  to improve intelligence. EI is perceived as a competency and capability that enables people  in organizations  and  in particular  leaders  to achieve  outstanding   levels of performance.   Debates about EI, despite its popularity, concern its nature and measurement. Some argue that EI is based on abilities that help people understand and use emotional  information while others argue that EI is a set of characteristics that can be applied in interpersonal settings.

Emotional regulation and emotional labor relate to how employees exhibit their emotions at work. Emotional  regulation  provides  the  link between  feeling and consciousness  and it is argued that  all emotion is  regulated,  thus  understanding  emotion   regulation as relative is more appropriate  than regulated or unregulated emotion. When, however, this regulation is imposed  by the organization  this difficulty disappears, as the employee has to comply with emotion display rules that result in emotional labor. Emotional labor is the commercialization of emotions  for organizational ends. It includes the management  of emotions at work, as well as the organizational  controls on  emotional  displays  through   roles,  tasks,  social interaction,  and culture. It is labor because employees have to regulate their emotions  so that they can produce appropriate  emotional states in others.

Bibliography:    

  1. Neal M. Ashkanasy and Cary L. Cooper, Research Companion to Emotion in Organizations (Edward Elgar, 2008);
  2. G. Barsade and D. E. Gibson, “Why Does Affect Matter   in  Organizations?”  Academy  of  Management Perspectives (2007);
  3. Alan D. Boss and Henry P. Sims, Jr., “Everyone Fails! Using Emotion  Regulation  and  SelfLeadership for Recovery,” Journal of Managerial Psychology (v.32/2, 2008);
  4. B. Briner, “The Neglect and Importance of Emotion at Work,” European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology (1999);
  5. “Failing Happily: How Emotions and Self-Leadership Can Lead You Back To Success,” Development and Learning in Organizations (v.22/6, 2008);
  6. Fineman, ed., Emotion in Organizations (Sage, 2000);
  7. Fineman, “Getting the Measure of Emotion—and the Cautionary  Tale of Emotional  Intelligence,” Human  Relations (2004);
  8. Goleman, Emotional Intelligence (Bantam Books, 2006);
  9. J. Gross, “Emotion Regulation: Past, Present, Future,” Cognition and Emotion (1999);
  10. Harre and W. G. Parrott, eds., The Emotions: Social, Cultural and Biological Dimensions (Sage, 1996);
  11. Rafaeli and M. Worline, “Individual Emotion  in Work  Organizations,” Social Science Information (2001);
  12. Eugénie Angèle Samier, and Michèle Schmidt, Emotional  Dimensions of Educational  and  Administrative Leadership (Routledge, 2009);
  13. Amy Carson Sauers, Effective Customer Relationship Management: How Emotion Drives Sustainable Success (Cambria Press, 2008).

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