Prelims

Part I: Individual Dynamics of Emotions

In the opening chapter, Yan Li and Neal M. Ashkanasy focus on the dynamic changes that occur within the emotional system when coping with uncertainty. Drawing upon the self-organization theory and using a computer-based experimental study, the authors explore the intensity of pleasant and unpleasant emotional experiences, following immediate outcomes of risky choices over time under three levels of uncertainty. A total of 175 undergraduate students attending a large university in the Asia-Pacific region were randomly divided into three groups corresponding to three risky choice probability distributions (80%, 50%, 20%) and completed a total of 20 binary investment trials. Next, participants received feedback immediately following their choice. Finally, they were asked to report on their immediate emotional feeling state and to complete a manipulation check instrument. Overall, the results suggested a different temporal pattern (i.e., linear vs wave-like) of pleasant emotions from correct decisions and unpleasant emotions resulting from wrong decisions in the face of uncertainty. The study in this chapter contributes to our understanding of the intraindividual dynamics of emotions by suggesting nonlinear changes in the emotional system when performing risk taking tasks under different types of uncertain conditions and dealing with the consequences of the decision made.

In the next chapter, Mark P. Healey, Gerard P. Hodgkinson, and Sebastiano Massaro contribute to the ongoing neuroscience explanation of organizational behavior by assessing whether brains can manage without bodies and without extracranial resources (i.e., in social isolation), and whether brains are the ultimate controllers of emotional and cognitive aspects of organizational behavior. Drawing upon a socially situated perspective, the authors propose a framework that connects brain, body, and mind to social, cultural, and environmental forces, as significant components of complex emotional and cognitive organizational systems. Their arguments suggest that in order to accomplish work-related tasks in organizations, the brain relies on and closely interfaces with the body, interpersonal and social dynamics and cognitive and emotional processes that are distributed across persons and artifacts. The chapter adds to our knowledge of the conceptualization of the interaction among the brain, cognition, and emotion in organizations. As such, it also contributes to the emerging field of organizational cognitive neuroscience.

In the third chapter, Marianne Roux and Charmine E. J. Härtel introduce readers to the fast-paced and dynamic new world of work and the challenges it presents to leadership. They do so by assessing what does and does not work for leaders in the new world of work as evidenced by the literature. Specifically, they suggest abandoning competence only and personality based models as well as values only approaches. Instead, they argue for the adoption of adult developmental theories and placing a greater emphasis on the specific emotional intelligence and wellbeing qualities required for leaders to effectively and sustainably lead in the new world of work.

The contribution by Phatcharasiri Ratcharak, Dimitrios Spyridonidis, and Bernd Vogel in Chapter 4 is also situated in a healthcare setting. Ratcharak and her coauthors consider how the relational identity of professional managers in health care may affect manager–employee relationships in settings where managers hold hybrid roles. They propose that emotional dynamics play a role in two important ways: First, emotions emerge as the result of identity discrepancies and subject to inward regulation. Second manager’s emotional displays have a direct effect on relationships through processes such as emotional contagion and outward regulation. In particular, Ratcharak and her associates examine the challenges that emerge when employees face role transitions, such as when health care professionals become managers. The authors further elaborate on their proposed framework by developing a series of propositions that predict the form that emotion regulation strategies will take, which depend on the degree of personal latitude and role identity salience experienced by the manager as well as the kinds of effects that emotional displays by managers have in different work environments.

Part II: Relational Dynamics of Emotions

The research outlined in Chapter 5, authored by Shalini Vohra, deals with the way financial traders use interpersonal emotional regulation to improve their financial decision-making. Based on prior research showing that financial decision-making depends upon traders’ ability to regulate their emotions, Vohra argues that, by engaging in interpersonal emotion regulation (i.e., sharing emotions with others and seeking to regulate their emotional states), financial traders can improve the climate of the trading floor, regulate their own emotions, and therefore improve their financial decision-making. The author provides several concrete example of regulation processes and outlines two particular strategies for effective interpersonal regulation: (1) private written expression and reflection and (2) managerial intervention and support. She concludes that managers of financial institutions should try to encourage emotion sharing among traders as a means to improve their decision quality and thereby to boost trading floor effectiveness and productivity.

In Chapter 6, Hieu Nguyen, Neal M. Ashkanasy, Stacey L. Parker, and Yiqiong Li review the theory on abusive supervision and explore how emotion contagion dynamics between leader and followers, and employees’ cognitive prototypes of an ideal leader (i.e. implicit leadership theories or ILTs) influence followers’ perception of abusive supervision. The authors propose a conceptual model wherein leaders’ expressions of negative affect, via emotional contagion, influence followers’ negative affect, perceptions of abusive supervision and two behavioral responses: affect-driven and judgment-driven responses. The authors also maintain that a negative emotional contagion process between leader and followers depends upon followers’ susceptibility to emotional contagion and their differential interpretation of leaders’ emotional expressions (i.e. ILTs). While employees holding a positive implicit leadership theory view their leader as having prototypic features such as compassion, sensitivity, and dedication, those holding a negative implicit leadership theory associate their leader with anti-prototypic characteristics exemplified by abusive supervision and tyranny. On the whole, the dynamic interplay between emotion-related interpersonal processes and cognitive prototypes addressed by the chapter contributes to advance our knowledge on employees’ perceptions of abusive supervision and how to prevent unwanted negative leadership.

In Chapter 7, Loren R. Dyck examines the effect of positive and negative emotional ideation in relation to job performance-related outcomes for medical students. Using patient and supervisor evaluations, Dyck hypothesizes that positive self-thoughts, or positive emotional attractors, should be associated with greater student diagnostic accuracy, and patient and supervisor ratings of student effectiveness. He hypothesizes the converse for negative emotional attractors. Moreover, Dyck predicts that student scores on the Medical College Admission test should moderate these relationships. In an empirical field study of student–patient encounters, and using moderated multiple regression analysis, Dyck did not find effects on diagnostic accuracy. Instead, he found positive ideation to be associated with ratings of student effectiveness. Interestingly, he also found a similar effect for negative ideation, suggesting that emotional engagement – irrespective of valance – has a beneficial effect on student effectiveness.

In Chapter 8, authors Melanie E. Hassett, Riikka Harikkala-Laihinen, Niina Nummela, and Johanna Raitis describe a case study of an organization following a Finnish acquisition of a British firm, focusing in particular on the role of virtual teams. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 32 employees of both firms, Hassett and her colleagues focused on understanding the role emotion played in virtual team interactions following the acquisition. They found that postmerger virtual teams took three forms: (1) virtual teams per se, (2) virtual management, and (3) virtual collaboration. While the intensity of virtual communication was highest in virtual teams and virtual management, emotional exchanges played a central role across all three forms. The authors also report finding that face-to-face communication is most helpful in the initial stages in order to establish trust, especially to deal with negative emotions and to overcome cultural differences. They conclude that formation and maintenance of virtual teams is an essential characteristic of contemporary cross-border mergers and acquisitions, but the effectiveness of these teams depends largely on team members’ ability to communicate and to interpret emotions accurately in this context.

In Chapter 9, Anna Krzeminska, Joel Lim, and Charmine E. J. Härtel discuss how occupational stress can compromise work performance and team climate. These negative effects can be buffered by internal individual differences and contextual factors. This chapter reports on a study that uses the affective events theory (AET; Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) as a framework to investigate the perceived stress derived from negative events in emergency service workplaces. The authors employed the experience sampling methodology (ESM; Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 2014) to record daily cases of self-reported negative events experienced by participants over a three-week period. They also used a structured survey questionnaire independent of the ESM to collect data from the 44 emergency services operation participants. Their findings indicate that servant leadership behavior, affective team climate, and psychological capital are significantly related to reduced perceived occupational stress. The study advances knowledge on both leadership styles and emotions at workplaces, by considering the impact of servant leadership behavior on affective team climate.

Friendships are an essential part of all workplaces and in some are touted as part of a desired and espoused culture. Yet, as Shimul Melwani and Payal Nangia Sharma discuss in Chapter 10, the transient and dynamic nature of modern work means that as employees move between organizations, friendships become peripheral – with personal, interpersonal, and organizational effects. Melwani and Sharma propose that employees who are left behind (stayers) first experience loss-related emotions, then oscillate between positive gain-related and negative loss-related emotions, and finally integrate these opposing feelings into a discrete but differentiated “granular” emotion. For each of these episodes, the authors posit effects on task and interpersonal engagement. Further, they argue that this process is moderated by the remaining relationships of the stayers and the coping strategies they use. Overall, this chapter advances our conceptual understanding of the effects of changing workplace relationships, the role of emotions in the process of recovery from friendship deterioration, and the factors that enable stayers to recover and maintain their workplace engagement.

Part III: Contextual Dynamics of Emotions

In Chapter 11, Elaine Hatfield, Victoria Narine, and Richard L. Rapson review the literature on emotional contagion and address the role of social context in sparking emotional contagion in occupational settings. Specifically, the authors discuss new evidence intended to provide a better understanding of the role of culture in fostering the ability to read others’ thoughts, feelings and emotions. They also provide a global perspective of cultural dynamics shaping the manifestation of emotional contagion in different national contexts. The chapter concludes by proposing future research venues that call for empirical investigation and suggest, among many others, the need to explore cross-cultural differences in terms of individualism vs collectiveness, and people’s reactions to in- and out-group social dynamics.

Next, in Chapter 12, author Sue Langley discusses the critical role that positive emotions play in promotion creativity and emotion. Langley presents the results of an online experiment showing the differential effects of positive versus negative emotion on creative output. In the study, she asked 43 adult participants to complete a creative task after watching a video intended to induce a positive or a negative mood. The dependent measure in the study was the number and quality of the ideas that participants could come up within 5 min. Twelve independent experts judged the quality of the ideas generated. The author hypothesized that the positive condition would lead to more and better creative ideas. Results supported these hypotheses. Langley also measured intuition using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and found that intuition was associated with higher creative quality but not quantity. These findings provide clear support for the “broaden and build” hypothesis among a working population.

In the final chapter, Marilena Antoniadou, Peter John Sandiford, Gill Wright, and Linda P. Alker explore what fear means to human service workers in the airline industry (flight attendants) and higher education industry (lecturers) of Cyprus, specifically how these employees express fear and how they perceive the consequences of fear. Fear can arise from threats to physical safety, social standing, and self-integrity. The research addresses three questions. (1) Why do human service workers experience fear? (2) How is feared expressed in work settings? (3) What are the consequences of workers’ different reactions to fear? Using a phenomenological approach, Antoniadou and her team’s interviews showed that fear is not a purely “negative” emotion. In some contexts, controlled or authentic expression of fear (as opposed to suppression) can bring about beneficial consequences such as safer work practices, helpful management responses, and greater ownership of work tasks. The authors’ findings suggest that such desirable outcomes at both the organizational and the personal level may be blocked by binary evaluations of emotions as positive or negative and norms dictating emotional expression. The implications for organizational practice point to the need for greater management awareness of the sources, nature, and expressions of fear. It appears that those in authority should consider seeking routine input from employees at all levels, and become more knowledgeable of the antecedents of fear as well as more tolerant of its display. This could help workers to overcome the discomfort of experiencing fear and to address the fear constructively.

Overall, the empirical and theoretical chapters in this volume make use of a wide range of different and sophisticated approaches and provide a worldwide perspective from different nations on workplace emotional dynamics within the individual, during social interactions, and at the level of the larger organizational context. These contributions show the complex interplay among emotion, cognitive processes, brain functioning, and contextual factors that contribute to a better understanding of organizational behavior at multiple levels of workplace life and in the contest of a fast paced, uncertain and dynamically changing work environment. Taken together, the chapters in this volume provide a compendium of recent advances on the dynamics of emotions and points to future research venues consistent with the increasing interest in cross-country investigation and the role of neuroscience in organizational psychology.

Laura Petitta

Charmine E. J. Härtel

Neal M. Ashkanasy

Wilfred J. Zerbe

Editors