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Sub-theme 43: Institutions and People at Crossroads: The Hidden Role of Emotions in Understanding Actions and Disruptions -> HYBRID sub-theme!

Convenors:
Maxim Voronov
York University, Canada
Rongrong Zhang
The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen, China
Simona Giorgi
University of Bath, United Kingdom

Call for Papers

Institutions are populated with and made real by the people who inhabit them (Hallett & Ventresca, 2006; Voronov & Weber, 2020). For quite some time, people were simply thought of as human resources that made the organizational machine work and managers and leaders as emblematic of the homo economicus – actors that can quickly and rationally engage in cost-benefit analyses whose results guide and determine their actions. Yet this view is quite far from reality and does not account for the complexity and messiness of the human experience (Petriglieri, 2020). Far from the clean models of economics (Hirsch, Michaels, & Friedman, 1987), organization theorists have started to acknowledge the key role of emotions in institutional processes (Zietsma, Toubiana, Voronov, & Roberts, 2019).
 
Emotions often put institutional actors at a crossroad, making them experience a clash between conflicting goals and loyalties, or uncertainties on how to manage emerging issues. Yet, for the most part, researchers have focused on emotions as something to explain the functioning of institutions, while glossing over the reverse relationship – how institutions shape emotions and people’s lived experience of the natural and social world more broadly. Our aim, therefore, is to have a more focused conversation about how institutions act as emotional repertoires and as the cultural-material fabric from which people artfully construct their lives.
 
The importance of examining how institutions shape people’s emotions and lived experience is underscored by the emergence of new types of institutions and the disruption of existing ones that have, in turn, put people’s lives at a crossroad ‘between worlds’ on a scale rarely-seen before. For instance, the emergence of new technologies has not merely changed the way we work and play, but it has created novel institutions that have transformed how we relate to one-another (Manley & Williams, 2022). Social media platforms is an example of new institutions facilitated by new technology that have transformed how we communicate and interact with one another (Toubiana & Zietsma, 2017).
 
Another example is crowdfunding platforms (Soublière & Gehman, 2019), which have democratized fundraising and revolutionized the funding process by leveraging emotions to enable individuals, start-ups, and non-profits to connect with a large audience, support a diverse range of initiatives, and lead to significant contributions (Steigenberger & Wilhelm, 2018). Similarly, the Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted a variety of entrenched institutions that shape our work, leisure, and family life. Also, climate change has disrupted institutions that supply food and shelter to billions, and the rise of militant populism has stressed the institutions that govern economic and political activity in numerous countries. Extant research has suggested that institutions are influential in shaping emotions (Creed, Hudson, Okhuysen, & Smith-Crowe, 2014), and it is therefore important to consider how the emergence of new institutions and the nearly-unprecedented disruptions of entrenched societal institutions impacts people’s emotional experiences in organizations at work and outside work.
 
Consistent with the above interest in examining how the large-scale transformation of societal institutions impacts people’s lived experience and the role of emotions in both making these disruptions meaningful and in enabling people to cope with these disruptions, here is a non-exhaustive list of the kind of topics we are interested in exploring:

  • How have the social media induced disruptions and transformations of institutions impacted people’s lived experiences and aspirations?

  • What are the effects of this technological mediation and the resulting echo-chambers (Toubiana & Zietsma, 2017) on the dynamics of social construction of truth, and how do these dynamics impact people’s lives on and off-line?

  • How does social media impact emotional resonance (Giorgi, 2017) and energize social action? How can the manipulation of certain emotions foster resonance and lead to collective action?

  • How does the technology of metaverse affect the emergence of collective emotions (von Scheve & Salmela, 2014) and institutionalize or de-institutionalize particular emotional expressions and displays?

  • How has the Covid-19 pandemic disrupted or transformed our work and non-work institutions, and what are the associated emotional experiences?

  • How has the Covid-19 pandemic strengthened or weakened social bonds within and across institutional arrangements, and the associated emotional experiences?

  • How has the normalization of remote working influenced people’s emotion work and the differential emotional competence (Voronov & Weber, 2016) required at work and at home?

  • How has the notion of ‘expertise’ changed during the pandemic? And what roles do emotions play in both contestation of expertise and trust in experts?

  • How can emotions be used to influence people’s perceptions and actions about climate change (Barberá-Tomás, Castelló, De Bakker, & Zietsma, 2019)?

  • How do the massive institutional disruptions that characterize our world impact the processes of stigmatization and destigmatization (Zhang, Wang, Toubiana, & Greenwood, 2021), and what is the role of emotions?

  • What is the role of emotions in both propelling and challenging the rampant populism that has threatened crucial societal institutions?

 
We invite colleagues to contribute to this endeavour through empirical studies, conceptual papers, and a variety of methodological reflections.
 

References

  • Barberá-Tomás, D., Castelló, I., De Bakker, F. G., & Zietsma, C. 2019. Energizing through visuals: How social entrepreneurs use emotion-symbolic work for social change. Academy of Management Journal, 62(6): 1789-1817.
  • Creed, W. E. D., Hudson, B. A., Okhuysen, G. A., & Smith-Crowe, K. 2014. Swimming in a Sea of Shame: Incorporating Emotion into Explanations of Institutional Reproduction and Change. Academy of Management Review, 39(3): 275-301.
  • Giorgi, S. 2017. The Mind and Heart of Resonance: The Role of Cognition and Emotions in Frame Effectiveness. Journal of Management Studies, 54(5): 711-738.
  • Hallett, T., & Ventresca, M. J. 2006. Inhabited Institutions: Social Interactions and Organizational Forms in Gouldner’s "Patterns of Industrial Bureaucracy". Theory and Society, 35(2): 213-236.
  • Hirsch, P., Michaels, S., & Friedman, R. 1987. "Dirty Hands" versus "Clean Models": Is Sociology in Danger of Being Seduced by Economics? Theory and Society, 16(3): 317-336.
  • Manley, A., & Williams, S. 2022. ‘We’re not run on Numbers, We’re People, We’re Emotional People’: Exploring the experiences and lived consequences of emerging technologies, organizational surveillance and control among elite professionals. Organization, 29(4): 692-713.
  • Petriglieri, G. 2020. F**k Science!? An Invitation to Humanize Organization Theory. Organization Theory, 1 (1).
  • Soublière, J.-F., & Gehman, J. 2019. The Legitimacy Threshold Revisited: How Prior Successes and Failures Spill Over to Other Endeavors on Kickstarter. Academy of Management Journal, 63(2): 472-502.
  • Steigenberger, N., & Wilhelm, H. 2018. Extending signaling theory to rhetorical signals: Evidence from crowdfunding. Organization Science, 29(3): 529-546.
  • Toubiana, M., & Zietsma, C. 2017. The Message is on the Wall? Emotions, Social Media and the Dynamics of Institutional Complexity. Academy of Management Journal, 60(3): 922-953.
  • von Scheve, C., & Salmela, M. 2014. Collective Emotions: Perspectives from Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology. New York, NY, US: Oxford University Press.
  • Voronov, M., & Weber, K. 2016. The Heart of Institutions: Emotional Competence and Institutional Actorhood. Academy of Management Review, 41(3): 456-478.
  • Voronov, M., & Weber, K. 2020. People, Actors, and the Humanizing of Institutional Theory. Journal of Management Studies, 57(4): 873-884.
  • Zhang, R., Wang, M. S., Toubiana, M., & Greenwood, R. 2021. Stigma Beyond Levels: Advancing Research on Stigmatization. Academy of Management Annals, 15(1): 188-222.
  • Zietsma, C., Toubiana, M., Voronov, M., & Roberts, A. 2019. Emotions in Organization Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Maxim Voronov is Professor of Organization Studies and Sustainability at the Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada. He researches social change, with a particular focus on institutions, emotions, and authenticity. Maxim’s work has been published in ‘Academy of Management Review’, ‘Academy of Management Journal’, and ‘Journal of Management Studie’s, among others.
Rongrong Zhang is an Assistant Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong Shenzhen, China. She studies the intersection of emotions and social evaluations of firms (e.g., reputation, legitimacy, and stigma). Her work has been published in ‘Academy of Management Annals’ and ‘Business Ethics: A European Review’, among others.
Simona Giorgi is Professor of Human Resource Management at the School of Management of the University of Bath, United Kingdom. Her research is centrally concerned with dynamics of influence in social settings, at the individual, organizational, industry, and societal level. Simona’s research has been published in ‘Administrative Science Quarterly’, ‘Academy of Management Annals’, ‘Organization Science’, ‘Organization Studies’, and ‘Journal of Management Studies’, among others.