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The paper depicts an exercise in which a transtheoretical model of planned personal change serves as a metaphor for planned organizational change. Implications from the metaphorical exercise revealed thought provoking findings regarding the limited nature of OD change processes and their ordering in an organizational intervention. Weaknesses and suggestions for future research are provided.

Published studies of the relationships between personality, affect, and organizational change have been overwhelmingly quantitative, while clinical and psychodynamic approaches have seldom dealt with the context of organizational change. We used semistructured interviews to explore the “middle ground”, by researching how participants in change believed aspects of their personalities contributed to their responses, particularly on an affective level. We found that traits such as openness to experience, resilience, pragmatism, change self-efficacy, and locus of control influenced participants' perceptions of how they reacted to organizational change. The findings point to the important role that qualitative research into personality can play in improving understanding of emotional responses to organizational change.

This chapter addresses the confluence of emotions, justice, and organizational change. Drawing on these three literatures, the chapter provides empirical analysis of over 100 separate organizational change events. The findings confirm previous research regarding patterns among emotions and demonstrate these patterns apply in the specific context of change. The findings also suggest that the degree of clarity one has when considering a change event matches the degree of intensity with which one experiences emotion. Finally, the findings suggest that even nominal change events are associated with intense experience of emotions. The chapter links these findings to several suggestions for further research.

The chapters in this volume are drawn from the best contributions to the 2008 International Conference on Emotion and Organizational Life held in Fontainebleau, France. (This bi-annual conference has come to be known as the “Emonet” conference, after the listserv of members). In addition, these referee-selected conference papers were complemented by additional, invited chapters. This volume contains six chapters selected from conference contributions for their quality, interest, and appropriateness to the theme of this volume, as well as seven invited chapters. We again acknowledge in particular the assistance of the conference paper reviewers (see appendix). In the year of publication of this volume, the 2010 Emonet conference will be held in Montreal, Canada, in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, and will be followed by Volumes 7 and 8 of Research on Emotions in Organizations. Readers interested in learning more about the conferences or the Emonet list should check the Emonet website http://www.emotionsnet.org.

David Ahlstrom is a professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He obtained his PhD in management and international business in 1996, after having spent several years in start-up firms in the data communications field. His research interests include management in Asia, entrepreneurship, and management and organizational history. He has published over 60 peer-reviewed articles in journals such as the Strategic Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Journal of International Business Studies, Journal of Business Venturing, and Asia Pacific Journal of Management. He also co-authored the textbook International management: Strategy and Culture in the Emerging World. He has served on the editorial boards of the Journal of International Business Studies and Journal of Small Business Management in addition to APJM. Professor Ahlstrom has guest edited two special issues of Entrepreneurship: Theory & Practice. At APJM, he has also guest edited two special issues (turnaround in Asia in 2004 and Managing in Ethnic Chinese Communities, forthcoming in 2010), and served as a senior editor during 2007–2009. He became editor-in-chief of the Asia Pacific Journal of Management in 2010.

Daniel J. Beal is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Rice University in Houston, Texas. He received his Ph.D. in social psychology from Tulane University. His primary area of research interest examines the affective, cognitive, and motivational processes underlying within-person performance. In addition, he has interests in several methodological topics, including multilevel and longitudinal modeling and meta-analytic techniques. His work has appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Organizational Research Methods, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

To develop an argument for the retention of secondary approaches to stress management (those that focus on the individual within the organization) as first interventions, prior to the employment of primary approaches (those that focus on the organization's processes and structures). This is based on a reconsideration of eustress versus distress and a review of current empirical evidence on the effectiveness of stress management interventions.

Major empirical studies and reviews are critically reviewed and placed within a theoretical framework derived from both early and more recent work in the field.

There is little empirical evidence on which to base recommendations for organization‐based stress management interventions as first or sole approaches and therefore the value of these as first or sole approaches is questioned. Instead secondary, individual‐focused, approaches are recommended as first‐line interventions prior to the adoption of organization‐based interventions.

In practice secondary stress management approaches are currently most common. Broader primary approaches appear to have excellent theoretical support and a growing body of supportive literature and accompanying recommendations for employment. We suggest, however, that secondary approaches be employed prior to the introduction of primary methodologies within a client organization.

This paper provides a review and framework for interpreting/understanding the research on the effectiveness of stress management interventions and makes recommendations relevant to practitioners in the field.