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Previous research has shown that diversity is related to both task and relationship conflict in groups. The purpose of this paper is to posit that leadership is an important factor for maintaining high group performance and morale under conditions of conflict. Specifically, the paper argues that leader conflict management, emotion management, and transformational behaviors determine the impact of conflict on group outcomes.

Data were collected from 585 people in 89 workgroups from eight public service organizations in Australia. The authors used hierarchical regression to test the hypotheses regarding group performance and morale. To test mediation and moderation, the authors followed the procedure outlined by Baron and Kenny. Finally, they used the formulas provided by Preacher, Rucker and Hayes to test for moderated mediation.

Results showed that diversity increased task conflict but was unrelated to relationship conflict. Both task and relationship conflict were negatively associated with group performance and morale, and effective leadership reduced these negative effects to zero. There was also a partial support for the authors’ theoretical model predicting that leadership moderates the indirect effect of diversity on group outcomes occurring through the mediator of conflict.

A greater amount of variation in the diversity of work groups included in the sample would have been useful for overcoming problems of restriction of range, which likely reduced ability to observe an association between diversity and group outcomes. Based on the results, in order to prevent negative emotions from task and relationship conflict from damaging group performance, leaders of diverse groups can act to manage those emotions among their group members. Results from this study implicate conflict management training. While training for conflict management is beyond the scope of this research, further research should examine this issue.

The study extends research in the area of diversity, leadership and group work. In particular, it demonstrates that transformational leadership is an important factor for maintaining high group performance and morale under conditions of conflict. It also offers practical assistance to individuals entrusted with the responsibility of managing culturally diverse workgroups.

The fundamental challenge for project management is dealing with people and their feelings. While there has been sporadic attention to the importance of emotions in project work, project management practices tend to neglect the role of emotions and emotional reflexivity. The authors use a symbolic interaction framework to present an in-depth exploration of emotions and emotional reflexivity in projects.

Empirical data was gathered in 19 semi-structured interviews with diverse project managers to assess their experience of emotion (15 male, 4 female, early 20s to late 50s, 3–38 years of expertise). Transcribed interviews were thematically analysed using a sociology of emotions informed, grounded theory, interactional framework.

The data revealed that emotional states are framed by factors specific to project management, including organisational change, project constraints and dealing with stakeholders. Explicitly managing emotions improved team engagement and project performance by acting as a catalyst for engaging in reflective practice and intuitive decision making.

Given the widely held misconceptions of emotion as maladaptive, project management education must focus on empathy in communication and leadership if practitioners are to master valuable soft skills. Techniques for emotional reflection and learning feeling lessons must be incorporated into practice.

The authors contribute to the emerging understanding that emotions matter in project management. The authors demonstrate the centrality of emotions in projects and the substantial impact they have on the wellbeing of practitioners and staff. Emotional reflexivity in practice, which is widely acknowledged yet tends to be ignored, is an essential part of the project manager's toolkit.

This study scrutinised Shanghai junior high school teachers’ emotions and emotion management strategies in relation to teachers’ work settings and content. A mixed-methods approach was applied to collect data via field observations, interviews, and a quantitative survey. The aim of this study was two-fold. Firstly, it aimed to identify the typical work settings in which teachers experienced work-related emotions. Secondly, it aimed to reveal teachers’ priority work in school and how it affected teachers’ choices of emotion management strategies.

The data were analysed through the lens of emotional labour theories and professional agency theories. Findings showed that classroom teaching and the professional learning community activities were two typical settings in which the teachers experienced the most intensive emotions. Most Shanghai teachers managed their momentary emotions by either genuinely expressing their emotions that matched their roles and the scenario, or by purposely suppressing emotions to meet social and organisational expectations. Furthermore, most teachers adopted the long-term mood regulation strategy by aligning their emotions with long-term goal achievement in the future. As professional agents, the Shanghai teachers did not only manage their own emotions at work using these two strategies, but also managed students’ emotions as part of the moral education.

Little research has focused on the impact of organizational crisis on their internal stakeholders – the employees. This paper aims to fill this void by examining the impression management strategies used by senior managers in managing their employees during organizational crisis and the impact of these strategies on employees.

The authors collected qualitative data from three organizations and used multiple analytical lenses (such as thematic, content and trope) to explore patterns in senior managers’ management of employees during crisis.

Emerging patterns in the data revealed that the emotional state and reactions of employees (individual and collective) during crisis include anger, fear, shame, depression and shock. Additionally, data revealed two major contradictions (tensions) in managing employees during crisis: maintaining and compromising standard and managers’ wants versus employees’ desire in the way organization crisis is managed. Based on these preliminary findings and using affective event theory and the theory of collective emotions as a frame, the authors built a conceptual model that depicts the relationship between organizational crisis, impression management and emotion-driven employee attitudes and behaviors.

A major limitation in the current research is that authors’ data are largely composed of text (e.g. from newspaper and websites). Nevertheless, the textual data were based on actual interviews with stakeholders and victims and have more than compensated for the limitation. Theoretically, by examining the emotional states and reactions of internal (rather than external) stakeholders to organizational crisis, the authors extend the literature in the area of organizational crisis and crisis management, while the testable propositions in this conceptual model have a potential to open up new pathways for studying organizational crisis. Practically, it is imperative for managers to have skills to identify and manage key employees’ emotional states and reactions to crisis. Managers should align their words and actions during crisis management to increase employees trust. Also pre-crisis planning should include specific guidelines on how to identify and manage employees’ individual and collective emotions during crisis.

The results show that inappropriate impression management strategies may worsen employees’ emotional states and reactions (individual and collective) during crisis; therefore, it is imperative for managers to have skills in identifying key employees’ emotional states and reactions to crisis and the impression management strategies appropriate in managing them. A training that sharpens managers’ emotional intelligence will be helpful in managing the emotions of employees (individual and collective) during crisis. Also, pre-crisis planning should include specific guidelines on how to identify and manage employees’ individual and collective emotions during crisis, while senior managers’ words and actions during crisis need to be synchronized to engender employees’ trust.

This study demonstrates that beyond emotions of employees during crisis, there are contradictions and tensions in the senior manager’s management of their employees during crisis. Also, outcomes of a quantitative test of the conceptual model developed from the current study should improve the generalizability of the results and open up new pathways for future research in this area.

This paper offers a cross-cultural examination of emotion management in two service organizations: a Japanese specialty shop and a chain of grocery stores in the US. Building on an overview of service culture in the US and its domestication in Japan, we provide an analysis of the two organizational case studies, focusing on their common initiation of a “behavior campaign,” its normative character, perceptions, and repercussions. The paper concludes by focusing on the comparative aspect of the analysis, locating the organizational management of emotions in the context of national culture, and focusing on the organizational use of broader emotional blueprints of socialization related to collectivism and individualism, such as “shame” (in Japanese culture) and “guilt” (in North American culture).

Scholars and practitioners in the OB literature nowadays appreciate that emotions and emotional regulation constitute an inseparable part of work life, but the HRM literature has lagged in addressing the emotional dimensions of life at work. In this chapter therefore, beginning with a multi-level perspective taken from the OB literature, we introduce the roles played by emotions and emotional regulation in the workplace and discuss their implications for HRM. We do so by considering five levels of analysis: (1) within-person temporal variations, (2) between persons (individual differences), (3) interpersonal processes; (4) groups and teams, and (5) the organization as a whole. We focus especially on processes of emotional regulation in both self and others, including discussion of emotional labor and emotional intelligence. In the opening sections of the chapter, we discuss the nature of emotions and emotional regulation from an OB perspective by introducing the five-level model, and explaining in particular how emotions and emotional regulation play a role at each of the levels. We then apply these ideas to four major domains of concern to HR managers: (1) recruitment, selection, and socialization; (2) performance management; (3) training and development; and (4) compensation and benefits. In concluding, we stress the interconnectedness of emotions and emotional regulation across the five levels of the model, arguing that emotions and emotional regulation at each level can influence effects at other levels, ultimately culminating in the organization’s affective climate.

The current study aims to identify the factors underlying differing preferences for conflict‐management patterns within work teams. Two major antecedents of dispute resolution modes were examined: the team members' emotional reactions to and their perceptions of the type of conflicts encountered in their work group. The sample consisted of 69 medical teams, comprising 331 employees (nurses and physicians) employed in several medical organizations. Self‐report structured questionnaires were used to assess the research variables. A series of regression analyses showed that cooperative (integrating and compromising) patterns of conflict management were associated with positive intragroup emotional states; contentious (dominating) patterns were associated with positive as well as negative emotions; and an avoidance pattern was associated with negative emotions only. Additionally, negative emotions were found to mediate the association of relationship conflict with a dominating pattern of conflict management. The findings point to the centrality of emotional states in determining conflict management preferences at the intragroup level.

Organizational behavior scholars have long recognized the importance of a variety of emotion-related phenomena in everyday work life. Indeed, after three decades, the span of research on emotions in the workplace encompasses a wide variety of affective variables such as emotional climate, emotional labor, emotion regulation, positive and negative affect, empathy, and more recently, specific emotions. Emotions operate in complex ways across multiple levels of analysis (i.e., within-person, between-person, interpersonal, group, and organizational) to exert influence on work behavior and outcomes, but their linkages to human resource management (HRM) policies and practices have not always been explicit or well understood. This chapter offers a review and integration of the bourgeoning research on discrete positive and negative emotions, offering insights about why these emotions are relevant to HRM policies and practices. We review some of the dominant theories that have emerged out of functionalist perspectives on emotions, connecting these to a strategic HRM framework. We then define and describe four discrete positive and negative emotions (fear, pride, guilt, and interest) highlighting how they relate to five HRM practices: (1) selection, (2) training/learning, (3) performance management, (4) incentives/rewards, and (5) employee voice. Following this, we discuss the emotion perception and regulation implications of these and other discrete emotions for leaders and HRM managers. We conclude with some challenges associated with understanding discrete emotions in organizations as well as some opportunities and future directions for improving our appreciation and understanding of the role of discrete emotional experiences in HRM.

We develop a multilevel model of emotional processes grounded in social identity theory to explore the role of emotion in transformational leadership.

This work is conceptual in nature and develops theory surrounding emotion in organizations by integrating theories on transformational leadership, emotion management, and organizational identity.

Transformational leaders utilize interpersonal emotion management strategies to influence and respond to emotions arising from the self-evaluative processes of organizational members during times of organizational identity change.

The conceptual model detailed provides insight on the intersubjective emotional processes grounded in social identity that influence transformational leadership. Future research into transformational leadership behaviors will benefit from a multilevel perspective which includes both interpersonal emotion management and intrapersonal emotion generation related to social identity at both the within-person and between-person levels.

The proposed model expands on the role of emotions in transformational leadership by theoretically linking the specific transformational behaviors to discrete emotions displayed by followers. While previous empirical research has indicated the positive outcomes of transformational leadership and the role of emotion recognition, work has yet to be presented which explicates the role of discrete emotions in the transformational leadership process.

The concept of emotional labor refers to the management of emotions in interaction with customers. This study aims to suggest an integrative definition of emotional labor. It develops a conceptual framework that helps organize and synthesize key insights from the literature, in an interactional and multi-level perspective.

This integrated framework consists in a mapping of key research themes resulting from a systematic literature review, which includes research in sales and marketing. As critical affective processes in sales have not been studied sufficiently, both in business-to-business and business-to-customer selling, this review also incorporates works in other research fields.

Sales representatives’ emotional labor must be considered as a bi-directional interaction with the customer in a multi-level perspective. Moreover, emotional labor has rather negative consequences for the salesperson (e.g. burnout and job stress), but may have positive sales and customer outcomes. Findings suggest that the expression of genuine emotions should be used during sales interactions. In addition, organizations should prevent customers’ negative behaviors (e.g. mistreatment).

Emotional labor key practical implications with regard to several management functions such as the recruitment, performance management and training (Ashkanasy and Daus, 2002) of the sales representatives.

Research on emotional labor in a sales ecosystem is scarce. It has largely covered service industry employees in contact with customers, but has not paid enough attention to sales representatives (Mikeska et al., 2015). The proposed integrated framework concerning emotional labor focuses on the bi-directional interaction between the sales representatives and their customers.