Passion contagion at work: Investigating formal and informal social influences on work passion

Abstract

We integrate research in work passion, social influence, and social networks to examine whether work passion can be contagious and “spread” to others, such that an employee's passion is influenced by the broader social milieu to become more similar to that of a social referent. We investigate formal (supervisory) and informal (trust-based) referents, and also consider direct and indirect (through common third-parties) avenues through which passion contagion may occur. Using data from 70 full-time employees (providing 4830 pairwise observations) in a non-profit organization, we found that respondents' harmonious passion was more similar to that of people they trusted, but their obsessive passion was less similar to that of the same referents. Respondents who had similar trust relationships to third parties also reported less similar harmonious passion. For both forms of passion, we did not find evidence that employees' passion was related to that of their supervisors, or of coworkers who shared the same supervisor. Overall, the findings provide nuanced insights into whether and which workplace relationships have a role in shaping one's harmonious and obsessive work passion. In doing so, this study contributes to the work passion literature by extending the limited body of works on passion antecedents and the social aspects of passion.