Integrating Emotions and Affect in Theories of Management

Abstract

Scholars have studied emotions and affect in organizational settings for over twenty years, providing numerous insights into understanding how organizations and the people who work in them behave. With such a rich accumulation of knowledge, the time seemed right to call for today’s scholars of management to propose new and exciting theory. The eight articles in this Special Topic Forum address topics that cross multiple levels of analysis and include a range of different theories, explicating: how anger and fear can spark productivity, how employees respond to abusive supervision over time, how leader-member exchanges are shaped by affective events, the social functions of emotional complexity for leaders, team entrepreneurial passion, the effects of institutional beliefs on emotional displays, the nexus of affective climate and organizational effectiveness, and the role of gratitude in organizations. In this introduction, we briefly summarize the main points from each article, and discuss new research directions arising from the articles. To spur even deeper research into this important and still unfolding field of discovery, and stimulated by the articles in this STF, we conclude with additional thoughts and ideas on the role of emotions and affect in organizations.