Chapter 13 Cross-national cross-cultural research of emotions at work: a review and some recommendations

Abstract

Within the last two decades there has been an increased interest in the issue of work and emotion within work and organizational psychology and related fields. Although the cross-cultural perspective has a long tradition in research on emotions, organizational behavior researches on the dynamic of emotions at work have devoted surprisingly little attention to cross-cultural issues. In this paper, an attempt is made to show how important and useful a cross-cultural perspective is for understanding the role of emotion in the workplace. First, a review of recent publications of cross-national cross-cultural research of emotion at work is presented. In this, the focus is exclusively on cross-national organizational behavior studies of specific emotions with national culture as an explanatory variable. The aim of this is to identify core findings of cross-cultural research on emotion in organizational behavior and some gaps in this burgeoning literature. Second, a review is presented of findings on cross-cultural similarities and differences in emotion, culture-specific norms, and values and their effect on emotion. The aim of this is to identify the implications of these findings for future research on emotion at work. Third, a review of methodological issues in cross-cultural research is presented followed by some recommendations to further advance this area of research.

Citation

Fischbach, A. (2009), "Chapter 13 Cross-national cross-cultural research of emotions at work: a review and some recommendations", Härtel, C.E.J., Ashkanasy, N.M. and Zerbe, W.J. (Ed.) Emotions in Groups, Organizations and Cultures (Research on Emotion in Organizations, Vol. 5), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 299-325. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1746-9791(2009)0000005015