Pride in Organizations

Abstract

Pride is a self-conscious emotion evoked when individuals perceive themselves attaining an outcome that is congruent with their goals and being responsible for achieving a socially valued outcome. The experience of pride can influence one’s own behaviors but the accompanying expressions can also elicit behavioral changes in observers. Although pride is a positive emotion and provides individuals with psychological rewards and pleasant feelings, accumulated empirical findings show a broad range of consequences in response to both the experience and expression of pride in organizations. In attempts to explain the various outcomes, pride researchers have conceptualized the construct in different ways. Some researchers examine pride as a unified emotion that arises from the attainment of positive outcomes; others adopt a multifaceted view to explain its divergent consequences. The multifaceted view suggests that pride can be authentic or hubristic depending on whether the achievement is assumed to arise from one’s efforts or abilities, and promotive or preventive depending on whether the achievement is assumed to result from promotion-related eagerness or prevention-related vigilance. Pride may also be differentiated into specific facets based on whether it is elicited by the achievement of performance or moral standards. Furthermore, as the individual self is embedded in social contexts, pride can arise from group belongingness. Thus, the conceptualization of pride can extend beyond the individual level to cover group and organizational pride. This article concludes that pride is an important source of motivation for both individuals who experience it and those who express it in organizations. Yet, what outcomes or behaviors result depends crucially on the source of pride because pride leads individuals to repeat behaviors attributed as the original cause of the positive feeling. Although pride is commonly engendered by achievements and socially desirable outcomes, it can also arise from immoral behaviors when those behaviors are assumed to benefit the organization. The outcomes of pride experience and expression are also contingent on individual and contextual boundary conditions.