Prelims

Section 1: Identity, Anger, Diversity

In the opening chapter, authors Johanna Raitis, Riikka Harikkala-Laihinen, Melanie Hassett, and Niina Nummela outline a case study of an organization undergoing major change following a Finnish acquisition of a British firm. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with 32 employees of the British firm, Raitis and her colleagues focuse on identifying positivity in the change process. They found that positivity was indeed present; and identified how individuals in this firm were able to construct positive identities in the context of their changing environment. These positive identities in turn enabled employees to establish a sense of belongingness that helped them to adjust to their new employer. The results challenge the usual notion that employees find their participation in acquisition-led change to be stressful and negative. Instead, through adopting a positive identity with the acquiring organizations, the employees interviewed for this study were able to adapt to the (sometimes challenging) demands of the merger.

In the next chapter, Eugene Y. J. Tee, TamilSelvan Ramis, Elaine F. Fernandez, and Neil Paulsen present the results of a survey of 112 Malaysian citizens who were asked to respond to a widely publicized incident involving embezzlement on a massive scale from the government-owned development fund (IMDB) by their Prime Minister, Najib Razak. The authors set out to test a model, founded in social identity theory, which they refer to as the SIMCA (Social Identity Model of Collective Action). The model holds that intentions to engage in collective action stem from feelings of anger in response to perceived injustice. The hypothesized effects are, in turn, hypothesized to be moderated by followers’ group identification (strengthens the effect of injustice on anger) and perceptions of group efficacy (strengthens the effect of anger on intentions to take action). Results supported the hypothesized effects with the exception of the moderating effect of group efficacy, which they found to weaken, rather than to strengthen, the effect of anger on intentions to take action. The authors argue that this may be because followers may have simply assumed there was little need to take action of the group was seen to be efficacious. Overall, however, the findings support the idea that emotions and identification are important precursors of intentions to engage in collective action in response to perceived injustice.

The research outlined in Chapter 3, by Kati Järvi and Mikko Kohvakka, deals with institutional logics in the context of a Finnish University, or more specifically, how the organization’s members cope with a “plurality” of institutional logics. Based on the results of interviews with 47 organizational members across a wide range of functions, the authors reach two main conclusions. The first is that members deal with the circumstances of their employment in different ways, depending on their status, their knowledge and information, and their experiences and interactions with others both within and without the organization. The second is that this process is inherently emotional. The authors illustrate the different logics by presenting six in-depth case studies of organizational members who differ in terms of status and motivation. In particular, each of the six appears motivated by an over-arching emotional reaction to the organization and the circumstances surrounding their position in it.

Section 2: Public Sector Settings

In Chapter 4, Leighann Spencer suggests that the behavioral response to particular anger-triggering events at work can differ depending on whether the situation is “self-relevant,” namely personal anger, or “other-relevant,” namely moral anger. Drawing upon the Dual Threshold Model of anger and using the Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis, the author addresses the following research questions on a sample of nurses. (1) What are the triggering events that lead to the experience of anger? (2) Given the appraisal of the anger-triggering event, when do nurses suppress or express their anger? Findings confirm that nursing identity is tied to relationships with the patients as well as caring and compassion. Consistently, results also indicate that different behavioral anger responses (suppression vs. expression) are diversely triggered by concern for others (i.e., an other-centered and moral form of anger) as opposed to personal concern for conflict and disrespect (i.e., a self-centered form of anger).

Bettina Lampert and Christine Unterrainer explore in Chapter 5 the emotion-generative process of detached concern (i.e., employees’ concern toward and detachment from their clients) that arises during client-interaction in people-oriented work environments. Using a two-stage approach, the authors first examined the two-dimensionality of the detached concern concept across different human service professionals via a cross-sectional survey on a heterogeneous sample of 1,411 employees. Next, they focused on a subsample of 43 physicians and assessed intra- and interpersonal effects of professionals’ detached concern on patient-centered care quality by using a two-source design that included patients’ (N = 332) perceptions of satisfaction with care quality. Findings suggest that different types of detached concern exist, depending on the various combinations of levels of concern and detachment, which apply to all sectors of human service professionals. Further, findings show that balanced employees (scoring high on both concern and detachment) yield lower burnout levels compared to imbalanced professionals. They also found that patients’ perception of care quality is positively related to their physicians’ concern and detachment, and is significantly higher for the balanced than for the imbalanced physicians. Overall, this study calls attention on how identification and engagement with work are part of developing a professional identity; and affect how employees balance their concern and detachment.

Section 3: Gender, Emotions and Identity

In Chapter 6, Sunita Ramam Rupavataram reports findings from an online study of 217 Indian managers aimed at identifying whether self-construal of psychological gender (i.e., sex roles) influences emotional intelligence (EI) more than biological gender. She measured sex-role perceptions using the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) and measured emotional intelligence using the EIA, which assesses the four main dimensions of Goleman’s model of EI (i.e., self-awareness, social awareness, self-management, and relationship management). The results revealed no difference in EI scores for binary biological gender categorization but significant differences based on sex-role perspective, with scores on the feminine and masculine scale of the BSRI accounting for 35.6% of the variance in EI scores. Interestingly, masculine sex-role participants scored significantly higher on EI than feminine sex-role participants. This contradicts the traditional belief that EI is a feminine intelligence. An alternative explanation for the finding could be that respondents with feminine sex-role orientation are constrained by the interdependence aspects of their sex-role (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), leading them to respond to the need to integrate the self into a group rather than the situational need.

In Chapter 7, authors Leonidas A. Zampetakis, Maria Bakatsaki, Konstantinos Kafetsios, and Vassilis S. Moustakis outline a model of how gender traits (masculinity and femininity) play a role in subjective entrepreneurial success (SES). SES refers to the individual’s evaluation of their business accomplishment. The authors surveyed a random sample of 572 Greek entrepreneurs, with equal numbers of both genders using the short form of the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) (Bem, 1981) for gender role orientation. They assessed anticipated affect from business success using Larsen, Norris, McGraw, Hawkley, and Cacioppo’s (2009) evaluative space grid and evaluated SES using five items from Wach, Stephan, and Gorgievski (2015). Using a Bayesian approach, the authors confirmed that gender traits are both positively related to SES, with femininity having a greater impact. This shows that gender role orientation affects entrepreneurs’ evaluation of their accomplishment above and beyond other motivating variables such as need for achievement (which were control variables in the study). Zampetakis and his colleagues also found that gender traits were both positively related to positive anticipated affect and again the effect of femininity is stronger. This could be because the gender-role expectation placed on males for entrepreneurship is more a part of their core motivation compared to females. Entrepreneurship may simply be a role for males; but for females, it represents a choice so they anticipate more positive emotions from their business success. Finally, the authors report finding that positive anticipated affect is positively related to SES, and partially mediates the relationship between gender traits and SES. This sheds light on how gender traits affect SES – it is partly through the cognitive mechanism of entrepreneurs’ affective forecast. Such evidence bolsters our understanding of the increasingly significant relationship between gender traits and entrepreneurship

In Chapter 8, Alberto R. Melgoza, Neal M. Ashkanasy, and Oluremi B. Ayoko tested a model that portrays the moderating influence of gender self-categorizations on individual emotional experiences and prejudicial attitudes. The model also reflects the nature of emotional experiences and how they affect individual prejudicial attitudes and, later, experiences of aggression. In the study, a random sample of 603 employees from a male-dominated global workplace completed an online survey of their individual gender self-categorizations, emotional experiences (using single item measures), prejudicial attitudes (using an implicit association test), and experience of aggressive behavior (Overt-Covert Aggression Scale). The authors found that individuals who self-categorize as either males or females experience different powerful emotions such as anger and contempt. Moreover, they found a positive correlation between anger experienced by employees and female prejudicial attitudes among participants who self-categorized as male, but not for those who self-categorized as female. As for contempt experienced by employees, the authors report finding that this was negatively correlated with prejudicial attitudes toward females, but not mediated by self-categorized gender. They explain the difference in the effect of anger and contempt on female prejudicial attitudes in terms of how anger is an active powerful emotion associated with confrontation, whereas contempt is a passive powerful emotion associated with indifference and exclusion. Melgoza and his associates also found that individuals with prejudiced attitudes toward females are more likely to experience aggressive behavior from females compared to participants with prejudicial attitudes toward males, and vice versa. This is salient because the experience of aggressive behavior triggers turnover and stress (especially in developed economies’ industries).

Section 4: Emotions and Identification with Work

In Chapter 9, Richard McBain and Ann Parkinson conceptually explore workplace friendships in relation to workplace engagement and emotions. Specifically, the authors review the literature on engagement, finding that friendship at work links to emotion and attachment. They also discuss several areas of the literature in depth, such as the formation and various categories of friendship at work. In turn, the authors suggest that workplace friendships and their related emotions can provide an overall context for personal engagement at work. Overall, McBain and Parkinson outline paths for future research, and suggest a stronger focus on qualitative work to understand the complexities of friendships, emotions, and work engagement. In particular, they suggest that traditional quantitative approaches to studying engagement often focus heavily on tasks, whereas a qualitative approach should allow for a more holistic understanding of personal engagement.

Sara Bonesso, Fabrizio Gerli, Anna Comacchio, and Laura Cortellazzo focus in Chapter 10 on the positive impact of emotional, social, and cognitive (ESC) competencies on leadership effectiveness, and address how higher education can favor leadership development at the early stage. By adapting intentional change theory (ICT) to the academic context, the authors collected a two-source assessment of ESC competencies in order to compare ideal self and real self-profiles of students attending two seminars (Ns = 37, 59) with different intent in terms of leadership (entrepreneurial vs. managerial career path). Findings supported the authors’ prediction that, through reflection on the ideal and real self, students can develop self-awareness as well as self-regulation of emotional and social competencies, which are preconditions for the discovery and the development of their leadership skills. In summary, this study demonstrates how the processes of identity formation and self-regulation during higher education are associated to different trajectories in future leadership development.

Finally, in Chapter 11, Vishal Rana, Peter J. Jordan, Zhou Jiang, and Herman H. M. Tse discuss job design in relation to job crafting, emotional state, and extra-role discretionary work behavior. The specific aspect of job design of interest to the authors is non-preferred work tasks (NPWT), which refers to tasks that may be significant to the job but are nevertheless not enjoyed by the employee. Using conservation of resources (COR) theory, the authors develop a testable model that suggests that NPWT reduce the likelihood that employees will engage in extra-role behavior (contextual performance). Furthermore, they propose that job crafting and the individual’s emotional state moderate this relationship. Specifically, Rana and his team suggest that task, relational and cognitive job crafting will weaken the negative relationship between NPWT and contextual performance. Similarly, they suggest that positive affect will weaken this relationship, while negative affect will strengthen it.

Overall, the chapters in this volume show the importance of emotions in identifying with work at various levels and the role of identity in the emotional reaction of individuals to their work. Whether it is developing a collective identity through the catalyst of negative emotions or the interplay between emotion and gender to influence perceptions of personal success, identity is constantly being shaped by affective experiences. In turn, identity can also create and influence emotion, such as identifying with others through workplace friendships, and in reactions to workplace events that enhance or threaten identity. These contributions show the complex interplay between emotion and identity and highlight identity and emotion as rich areas for additional future inquiry. Taken together, this volume is a compilation of the latest research on emotion and identity from a diverse range of perspective, which shows the importance of considering the crucial role of emotion within and among identities at work.

Wilfred J. Zerbe

Charmine E. J. Härtel

Neal M. Ashkanasy

Laura Petitta

Editors