“They Are One of Us” – Change Agents’ Emotion Management During Change Processes

Abstract

Organizational changes are emotive events. Extant research has theorized the significance of emotions for such events. Missing from the existing scholarship is a deeper understanding of the mechanism through which those emotions are triggered and effectively and strategically managed. Drawing on data from an ethnographic study of change implementation in the English National Health Service, this study advances theory on emotion and organizational change in two ways. First, it complements existing research by suggesting that change recipients’ emotional response towards change can be triggered by their distinctive personal, organizational, and professional aspects. Second, it argues that change agents’ emotion management practice, based on professional embeddedness and proactive engagement, manifested by framing and tailoring, has important implications for managing emotions towards change. In particular, by illustrating change agents’ emotion identification and emotion management strategies, this paper highlights the role of professions in change management.