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Worker perceptions of their emotional response to a supervisor, during an incident identified as of critical significance, are described and analyzed in this study. We invited 14 participants, aged from 39 to 56 years to share their stories with us in semi-structured interviews. The organizations represented by the workers’ stories included private business government and educational institutions. A grounded-theory approach was adopted to allow key themes to emerge (Locke, 1996). We encouraged participants to allow “buried perspectives” (Hochschild, 1983) to surface: as they interpreted the relational effects of “what happened” in retrospective sense making. As they explored their perceptions of these interactions, participants revealed the complex and disturbing array of emotions and frustrations that lay beneath the veneer of rationality and control they chose to present during the incident. Felt emotions, whether expressed, repressed or edited, were overwhelmingly negative; and awareness of power issues emerged as a key driver in the “feeling rules” (Hochschild, 1983) workers perceived as needing to be observed. Worker tension was seen to be exacerbated by adherence to these rules because “the rules” conflicted with their own personal values and beliefs. Emotional dissonance resulted from this. The role of the organizational community within which workers coped with their experience, and subsequent emotional response, was also explored.

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/.

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.