Search results

In this introductory chapter, we establish the basis for the theme of this volume, “Emotions and Disruption.” We discuss how the initial idea for the theme arose during the height of COVID-19. At this time, and as widely reported in the press (e.g., see Grensing-Pophal, 2020), a myriad of workplace disruptions occurred impacting employees' moods and emotions and their subsequent well-being and performance. We open by discussing some key work on emotions research during change and disturbance, followed by a synopsis of each of the chapters in this volume, including discussion of their key contributions. This includes an overview of how some of these chapters were first presented as conference papers at the Twelfth International Conference on Emotions and Worklife (EMONET XII), an event that took place for the first time online in response to the turbulence and travel disruptions created by the pandemic.

In this chapter we give an outline of the organization of this book and discuss its four major parts. We then relate each chapter to the relevant part and consider its key contributions in terms of what we have learnt about emotions when applying the lens of disruption.

We conclude that the chapters provide a range of insights and practical solutions for dealing with emotions during different types of disruption that should be helpful to practitioners and academics.

The chapters investigate underresearched topics and thus make new and important contributions. While many topics addressed in the chapters are still in their initial stages, they clearly have the potential to make a significant impact on people's work lives.

Neal M. Ashkanasy has a Ph.D. in Social and Organizational Psychology from the University of Queensland, and has research interests in leadership, organizational culture, and business ethics. In recent years, his research has focused on the role of emotions in organizational life. He has published his work in journals such as the Academy of Management Review, the Academy of Management Executive, and the Journal of Management, and is co-editor of three books: The Handbook of Organizational Culture and Climate (Sage) and Emotions in the Workplace; Theory, Research, and Practice (Quorum); Managing Emotions in the Workplace (ME Sharpe). He is a past Chair of the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division of the Academy of Management.Claire E. Ashton-James is completing an Honors degree in Business Management through the University of Queensland Business School. Her undergraduate degree majors were in philosophy, music, and psychology. Her present research interest is in the role of the impact of cognitive information processing capacity on emotion regulation and social functioning.Cary L. Cooper is Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health, Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University. He is the author of over 80 books and over 300 academic journal articles. He is Founding Editor, Journal of Organizational Behavior; Co-Editor, medical journal Stress & Health; and former Co-Editor, International Journal of Management Review. He is a Fellow of the British Psychological Society, The Royal Society of Arts, The Royal Society of Medicine, The Royal Society of Health, and an Academician of the Academy for the Social Sciences. He is President of the British Academy of Management and a Companion of the (British) Institute of Management. He is a Fellow of the (American) Academy of Management and recipient of its 1998 Distinguished Service Award. Professor Cooper was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Excellent Order of the British Empire) in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for his contribution to health.Russell Cropanzano is Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Department of Management and Policy of the University of Arizona. Dr. Cropanzano is a member of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Society, and the Society of Organizational Behavior. He is a fellow in the Society of Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Dr. Cropanzano is also active internationally, having given talks in Australia, France, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. His research interests include workplace emotions and organizational justice.Achim Elfering is research fellow for the psychology of work and organizations at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He graduated with a Masters degree in psychology from the University of Wuerzburg, Germany. He received his Ph.D. in general psychology at the University of Frankfurt, Germany. His research interests include job stress, physiological stress responses, and in particular associations between psychosocial work factors and low back pain. His other research interests include personality, social support, job satisfaction, socialization and selection. In 2001, he received the 3rd Annual SPINE Journal Young Investigator Research Award.Steven M. Elias is an Assistant Professor of Social Psychology at Western Carolina University. Dr. Elias is a member of both the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society. Currently, Dr. Elias publishes empirical research in several areas related to perceived self-efficacy and social power.Joanne H. Gavin is Assistant Professor in the School of Management, Marist College, Poughkeepsie, New York. She was the recipient of the Otto Alois Faust Doctoral Fellowship in Character and Health (2000–2002) and earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at the University of Texas at Arlington. Ms. Gavin earned her M.B.A. and B.S. in Business Administration at the University of New Orleans. Her research interest is in the area of personal character, decision making and executive health. She is co-author of articles appearing in the Academy of Management Executive, Applied Psychology: International Review and the Academy of Management Journal. Dr. Gavin is also co-author of several chapters in books such as International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Psychology Builds a Healthy World. In 2001, she presented a paper entitled “Transcendent decision-making: Defining the role of virtue-based character in the decision-making process” at the Society for Business Ethics.Simone Grebner is senior research fellow for the psychology of work and organizations at the University of Berne, Switzerland. She graduated with a Master’s degree in psychology from the University of Wuerzburg, Germany. She earned her Ph.D. in work psychology from the University of Berne. Her primary research interests include job stress, job analysis, emotion work, and well-being, with a particual emphasis on psychoneuroendocrine and cardiovascular stress responses.Wayne A. Hochwarter is Associate Professor of Management at Florida State University. Prior to this appointment, Dr. Hochwarter was on the faculty at Mississippi State University and the University of Alabama. He has published over 70 articles and book chapters in the areas that include organizational politics, social influence, job stress, and dispositional factors. His work has appeared in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management. Dr. Hochwarter’s current research interests include social influence in organizations, accountability, and the attitudinal consequences of job insecurity of layoff survivors.Peter J. Jordan is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Management at Griffith University, Australia. He gained his Ph.D. in management at the University of Queensland. Peter’s current research interests include emotional intelligence, emotions in organizations, team performance and conflict. He has published in a range of international journals including the Academy of Management Review, Human Resource Management Review, and Advances in Developing Human Resources. He has also been invited to deliver presentations to a number of business groups across South East Asia. Prior to entering academia he worked in strategic and operational planning for the Australian Government.Michael P. Leiter is Professor of Psychology and Vice President (Academic) of Acadia University in Canada. He is Director of the Center for Organizational Research & Development that applies high quality research methods to human resource issues confronting organizations. He received degrees in Psychology from Duke University (BA), Vanderbilt University (MA), and the University of Oregon (Ph.D.). He teaches courses on organizational psychology and on stress at Acadia University. The research center provides a lively bridge between university studies and organizational consultation for himself and his students. Dr. Leiter has received ongoing research funding for 20 years from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada as well as from international foundations. He is actively involved as a consultant on occupational issues in Canada, the USA, and Europe. The primary focus of his research and consulting work is the relationships that people develop with their work. This work addresses strategies for preventing dysfunctional relationships, such as burnout, as well as for building productive engagement with work.David A. Mack is Assistant Dean for Program Development at the University of Texas at Arlington’s College of Business Administration. He received his Ph.D. from UT Arlington in May 2000. Dr. Mack earned an MBA in Entrepreneurship from DePaul University in 1993. Dr. Mack has published a number of articles and book chapters on job stress, workplace violence, and small business. His Organizational Dynamics article “EDS: An Inside View of a Corporate Life Cycle Transition” examined the spin-off of EDS from General Motors Corporation. He has had extensive management experience in the insurance industry and is co-owner, with his wife, of a financial services marketing/management business in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Dr. Mack teaches undergraduate and graduate courses at UT Arlington and has taught graduate business courses at both DePaul University and Texas Wesleyan University.Christina Maslach is Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley. She received her A.B. in Social Relations from Harvard-Radcliffe College, and her Ph.D. in Psychology from Stanford University. She has conducted research in a number of areas within social and health psychology. However, she is best known as one of the pioneering researchers on job burnout, and the author of the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the most widely used research measure in the burnout field. In addition to numerous articles, she has written several books on this topic. She has also received numerous teaching awards, and in 1997 she received national recognition from the Carnegie Foundation as “Professor of the Year.”Debra L. Nelson, Ph.D. is The CBA Associates Professor of Business Administration and Professor of Management at Oklahoma State University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington. Dr. Nelson’s research has been published in the Academy of Management Executive, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, MIS Quarterly, Journal of Organizational Behavior, and other journals. Her books include Stress and Challenge at the Top: The Paradox of the Successful Executive, Advancing Women in Management, Preventive Stress Management in Organizations, Gender, Work Stress and Health, and Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Realities, Challenges among others. Her primary research interests are workplace stress and gender issues at work.James Campbell (Jim) Quick is Professor of Organizational Behavior and Director, Doctoral Program in Business Administration, The University of Texas at Arlington. The American Psychological Foundation honored him with the 2002 Harry and Miriam Levinson Award as an outstanding consulting psychologist. He is a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, the American Psychological Association (APA), the American Institute of Stress, and was awarded a 2001 APA Presidential Citation. He was Founding Editor of APA’s Journal of Occupational Health Psychology and was APA’s stress expert to the National Academy of Sciences (1990). He is co-author with Debra L. Nelson of Organizational Behavior: Foundations, Realities, and Challenges, 4th Edition (Thompson/Southwestern). He is listed in Who’s Who in the World (7th Edition). He was awarded The Maroon Citation by the Colgate University Alumni Corporation, and The Legion of Merit by the U.S. Air Force. He is married to the former Sheri Grimes Schember.Jonathan D. Quick is Director, Essential Drugs and Medicines Policy (EDM) for the World Health Organization, Geneva. EDM works to ensure for people everywhere access to safe, effective, good quality essential drugs that are prescribed and used rationally. He joined WHO in 1995 after 20 years in international health, serving in Pakistan, Kenya, and over 18 other countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. He has authored or edited ten books, including as senior editor of Managing Drug Supply (1997/1978), and over 40 articles and chapters on essential drugs, public health, and stress management. He is a Diplomat of the American Board of Family Practice, and a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Medicine (UK) and the American College of Preventive Medicine. He earned an A.B. degree magna cum laude from Harvard University and a M.D. degree with distinction in research and a M.P.H. from the University of Rochester.Norbert Semmer is professor for the psychology of work and organizations at the University of Berne, Switzerland. He earned his Ph.D. from the Technical University of Berlin and worked for the Technical University of Berlin, and the German Federal Health Office in Berlin before moving to Berne. He has a long standing interest in stress at work and its relationship to health, in recent years with a special emphasis on low back pain. He has also published about job satisfaction, the development of efficient strategies in groups, on human error, and on the transition of young people into work. He is a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, the Zeitschrift für Arbeits- und Organisationspsychologie, and the Scandinavian Journal of Work, Environment and Health, and he served as Associate Editor for Applied Psychology. An International Review from 1992 to 1998, and for the Psychologische Rundschau from 1995 to 1998.Arie Shirom is Professor of Organizational Behavior and Health Care Management at the Faculty of Management, Tel Aviv University. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has published several reviews on burnout, burnout and health, organization development, and the impact of stress on employee health, each including a section describing his past research in the respective area. These reviews are downloadable from his internet site at Tel Aviv University. He is currently funded by the Israel Science Foundation to conduct a large scale, four-year study on the effects of positive emotions, including vigor, on employee health.Bret L. Simmons is Assistant Professor of Management in the College of Business at North Dakota State University. He received his Ph.D. in Management from Oklahoma State University. Dr. Simmons is a member of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. His research interests include eustress and positive psychology at work.Tores Theorell, M.D., Ph.D. is a world-renowned lecturer and widely published pioneer in psychosocial factors research. He is Director of the National Institute for Psychosocial Factors and Health and Professor of Psychosocial Medicine, Department of Public Health Sciences, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden. His research interests include psychosocial factors, health, and occupational stress.Howard M. Weiss is Professor of Psychological Sciences at Purdue University. He is also co-director of Purdue’s Military Family Research Institute, which is funded by the Department of Defense and dedicated to studying the relationships between quality of life and job satisfaction, retention and performance. He received his Ph.D. from New York University. His research interests focus on the emotions in the workplace and on job attitudes.

Despite ongoing controversy, emotional intelligence is emerging as a potentially important variable in furthering our understanding of individual behavior in organizations. In this respect, however, most of the research in relation to emotional intelligence has been at the individual level of behavior. In this chapter, we develop a framework for considering the impact of emotional intelligence at the organizational level. Specifically, we map Mayer and Salovey's four emotional intelligence abilities onto Shein's three-level organizational culture schema. We conclude with a discussion of implications for managers and suggest that the model we propose may prove to be a useful starting point for future research into emotional intelligence as an organizational phenomenon.

The working day has always comprised frequent interruptions. Yet the frequency and intensity of these disruptions appear to be on the rise as a result of advancing technology, increasing interdependent work processes, and changing work environments (e.g., open-plan offices). Interestingly, there have only been a handful of studies on workplace interruptions, and the primary focus among researchers has been on the effects of interruptions on task completion. In this chapter, we argue that interruptions at work can be conceptualized as emotion-inducing events. We draw on research across different disciplines to develop a framework to show how the work-enhancing or work-hindering effects of different types of interruptions are, in part, determined by the employees' capability to manage (regulate) their emotional responses.

We initially review the literature regarding workplace interruptions. We then develop a framework for understanding the different types of interruptions experienced by individuals at work and then use this framework to develop a model linking interruptions to emotion regulation drawing on Affective Events Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). In essence, we advance our understanding of work interruptions by considering these as events that are able to produce positive or negative affective reactions that may enhance or hinder work performance.

The framework presented in this chapter increases understanding of the different types of workplace interruptions and shows how emotion regulation impacts subsequent work-related outcomes. This chapter provides valuable insights into the nature of work interruptions to identify both positive and negative aspects of work interruptions to establish two different domains of work interruptions that may improve (work-enhancing interruptions) or thwart (work-hindering interruptions) work-related outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Job design researchers advocate that jobs should be interesting, that is they should involve tasks that are meaningful and have significance. However, all jobs contain tasks that may be meaningful and significant and essential to organizations’ operation but not enjoyed by the employee. We refer to these tasks as non-preferred work tasks (NPWT). In this chapter, we draw on Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory to develop a conceptual model proposing that the intensity and frequency of non-preferred work tasks reduces employees’ propensity to engage in extra-role discretionary work behavior, and that job crafting and emotional state moderate this relationship.

The purpose of this paper is to examine if teachers’ trust in others is predicted by their perceptions of others and their emotional intelligence. Employees need to trust others to achieve outcomes, and a lack of trust can have a negative impact on workplace performance.

The paper surveys a sample of 84 employed teachers.

Our findings show that perceptions of others’ ability, benevolence and integrity are strongly and positively associated with trust. The emotional intelligence ability to perceive emotions is also related to trust. Regression analysis showed that perceptions of others (ability and integrity) and an individual’s emotional intelligence (perceiving) combined to predict a large portion of the variance in trust.

This study was limited by a small sample size and the use of a cross-sectional design. These issues were addressed in our analysis.

The majority of trust research examines employee-to-manager trust. Our study is one of the few to examine trust among co-workers. This study also contributes to research on the emotional intelligence and trust relationship by showing that the ability to perceive one’s own and others emotions significantly predicts increases in trust. It also reaffirms that perceptions of others’ integrity and ability are strongly linked to trust, but that further investigation of the benevolence construct is required.

Purpose: This introduction sets the stage for the book theme, “Emotions and Negativity,” by reviewing the early work on negative emotions and by discussing the impact of the COVID pandemic on people’s moods and emotions. It discusses how most of the chapters in this book were first presented as conference papers at the Twelfth International Conference on Emotions and Worklife (“Emonet XII”). It then highlights the key contributions from each of the chapters. Study Design/Methodology/Approach: This gives an overview of the organizational structure of the book and explains the four major parts of the book. It then relates each chapter to the theme of each part and discusses the key contributions of each chapter. Findings: The introduction concludes by observing that the chapters offer a variety of practical solutions to negative emotions that should be of use to both practitioners and academicians. Originality/Value: The chapters investigate underresearched topics, and thus make original and important new contributions. Although underresearched, the topics they explore have a major impact on people’s lives. Thus, these chapters add considerable value to the field.

The impact that workplace aggression has on organizations and its members has become a focal point for organizational research. To date, studies have primarily examined the perpetrator of workplace aggression, specifically their personality traits. In this chapter, we draw on Institutional Theory to better understand a specific form of workplace aggression, indirect (covert) aggression. We specifically present a model that shows how the normative pressures and social roles within an institution influence the aggressive actions by employees as well as the scripts employees utilize in response to indirect aggression. We assert that an examination of how scripts are used to respond to indirect aggression will be especially helpful in understanding how institutional pressures influence this type of workplace aggression within organizations.

Aggression in the workplace has increasingly become a focus of organizational behavior research given its debilitating effects on employees and consistent links to reduced organizational performance. The current literature on workplace aggression presents a bewildering array of definitions with overlapping meanings creating confusion for researchers and academics. In response to this, we consider a range of definitions of workplace aggression and build a taxonomy of workplace aggressive behaviors based on four dimensions: intensity, impact, intentionality, and indirect/direct aggression. This chapter contributes to the field offering a taxonomy of aggressive behaviors at work that can be used in subsequent research.