Search results

Recent research on service interactions indicates that negative displays of emotion by service providers play an important role in customer perceptions of the quality of the service. In this study, we examined the relations between attributions of responsibility for problems and the displays of negative emotions by service providers in service interactions. We hypothesized that attributions of responsibility for problems moderate the relation between the negativity of service providers’ prior and subsequent emotion displays and the relation between the negativity of emotion display by customers and service providers. To test our hypotheses, we collected data from telephone service interactions in a large retail bank in the northeastern United States and measured the negativity of emotion displays by using the Dictionary of Affect in Language. Our results showed that (1) the negativity of service providers’ prior emotion displays predicts the negativity of their subsequent displays, and (2) this relation is moderated by the attribution of responsibility for problems.

Céleste M. Brotheridge is a professor of organizational behaviour with the Départment d'organisation et ressources humaines in the École des sciences de la gestion at the Université du Québec à Montréal. She completed her PhD in organizational behavior and research methods at the University of Manitoba. Dr. Brotheridge publishes and conducts research primarily in the areas of burnout, emotions, and bullying in the workplace. She is the chair of the Organizational Behaviour Division of the Administrative Sciences Association of Canada and a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Stress Management and the Journal of Managerial Psychology.

Although social influence plays an important role in organizational groups, past findings regarding culture's impact on social influence have been scarce and inconsistent. Past research has found that people from collectivist cultures are more susceptible to social influence, while other studies have found the opposite or no effect. One major weakness of prior research on social influence is the predominantly cognitive orientation that has underemphasized the role of affect in culture's impact on social influence. We address this weakness by outlining an affective model of social influence, thereby expanding our understanding of social influence in multicultural decision-making groups.

Research on teams in organizations inadequately reflects the importance of individual-level identity processes. This study seeks to redress this situation by answering three questions: what is the content of the individuals’ identities in the workplace; why do individuals communicate their identities in the workplace; and how do individuals communicate identities in the workplace. The results of an interview-based study of 36 IT professionals suggest that the subjective identities that are important to individuals in the workplace are rarely those that are derived from objective demographic characteristics. We have also developed two taxonomies of identity communication processes revolving around the reasons for identity communication and the methods of identity communication.

Joanne Abbey

As reported in Volume 1 of Research on Emotions in Organizations (Ashkanasy, Zerbe, & Härtel, 2005), the chapters in this volume are drawn from the best contributions to the 2004 International Conference on Emotion and Organizational Life held at Birkbeck College, London, complemented by additional, invited chapters. (This biannual conference has come to be known as the “Emonet” conference, after the listserv of members.) Previous edited volumes (Ashkanasy, Härtel, & Zerbe, 2000; Ashkanasy, Zerbe, & Härtel, 2002; Härtel, Zerbe, & Ashkanasy, 2004) were published every two years following the Emonet conference. With the birth of this annual Elsevier series came the opportunity for greater focus in the theme of each volume, and for greater scope for invited contributions. This volume contains eight chapters selected from conference contributions for their quality, interest, and appropriateness to the theme of this volume, as well as four invited chapters. We again acknowledge in particular the assistance of the conference paper reviewers (see the appendix). In the year of publication of this volume the 2006 Emonet conference will be held in Atlanta, USA and will be followed by Volumes 3 and 4 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.uq.edu.au/emonet/.

Emotional appraisal is an act of sense making: What does a particular event mean for me? It is not the event itself – but rather an individual's subjective evaluation of the event – that elicits and shapes emotions (Scherer, 1997b). Thus, appraisal is the crucial first step in the emotion process, and describes how we attend, interpret and ascribe meaning to a given event or stimulus. First, emotional appraisal requires attention; given cognitive limits, we must prioritize which events are even worthy of our notice. Second, we must code the event, interpreting its meaning, and in particular its implications for the self (Mesquita & Frijda, 1992). If another person in a team environment is being rude, how one interprets the personal significance of this behavior may change significantly the emotional response – for example, whether the rude individual is a teammate, a customer, a supplier, or a competitor, and whether the rude behavior is directed at an innocent bystander or an instigator. Likewise, a bear approaching a campsite may elicit fear, but the same bear in a zoo could result in delight. Often the cognitive evaluation of stimuli associated with emotional appraisal occurs so quickly and automatically, before our conscious awareness, that we may be unaware of this individual component of the unfolding process. However, even in such cases, we can see the role of appraisal processes by examining, for example, how emotional reactions change over time and vary from person to person. An event that may have caused great embarrassment during youth might in adulthood leave one unfazed, and an event that makes one person angry might make another person sad. Indeed, it can be the lack of conscious awareness of the appraisal process – and the sense that appraisal is clear and lacking a subjective interpretive lens – that prevents individuals from questioning and evaluating it. This results in a particular challenge to reconciling colleagues’ often vastly differing emotional appraisals.