Emotions and Organizational Governance

Keywords: Emotionology; emotion rules; emotion resources; emotion regulation; case study; inter-organizational information systems project

In recent years, emotion has become an increasingly popular topic in organization studies (Benozzo & Colley, 2012; Grant, 2013; Kopelman, Rosette, & Thompson, 2006; Lindebaum & Cartwright, 2010). Despite emotions having been identified as an important topic (Lord & Kanfer, 2002), the concept of emotion remains elusive for different reasons (Lawler & Thye, 1999). First, different theoretical traditions discuss and define a multitude of emotion-related concepts, such as feelings, moods, affects, and temperament (Lord & Kanfer, 2002). Second, much of the work on emotions shows that feelings and emotions constitute a very demanding research object, for example, data collection situations may only reveal the display of emotions, not the internal experience of emotions, thus, partially obscuring the phenomenon under study (Kopelman et al., 2006).

Feelings (and emotions) are said to be helpful for individuals, as they provide information on, for example, what is important, meaningful, or harmful to an individual (Kopelman et al., 2006). Some researchers (Layder, 1997, p. 16) have highlighted that emotion is everywhere, often operating almost invisibly, as a “behind-the-scenes co-ordinator.” In short, it may transpire that we are much less rational than we like to believe (Groth, 1999; Kopelman et al., 2006), and emotions may be the source of both cohesion and conflict in our lives (Groth, 1999): “Sometimes, our emotions lead us to do the oddest things. Grown men pull over so they can brawl over which driver is the biggest idiot. Parents lose their cool and bark hateful things at their children that they later regret. Adolescents who were best friends before a jealous spat vow never to speak again …” (Gross, Richards, & John, 2006, p. 13). Given this significant, both invisible and visible, presence of emotions in our lives, research has highlighted the importance of successful emotion regulation as a prerequisite for adaptive functioning (Grant, 2013; Gross et al., 2006; Gyurak, Gross, & Etkin, 2011), that is, in order to, for example, keep one’s career and friendships people need to manage their feelings. To get along with others, one must be able to regulate which emotions one has and how one experiences and expresses these emotions (Gross & John, 2003; Gross et al., 2006).

Regulation of emotion describes the ways in which people aim to actively manage their emotional states (Grant, 2013; Gross, 2002; Gyurak et al., 2011; Koole, 2009; Kopelman et al., 2006), for instance by denying, intensifying, weakening, masking, modifying, or completely hiding them (Gross, 2002). Based on Hochschild’s (1983) seminal work, research has adopted the terms deep and surface acting to illustrate two forms of emotional labor. Deep acting refers to the conscious regulation of internally experienced and externally displayed emotions in such a way that they align, whereas surface acting refers to emotional labor that focuses on the display of emotions, resulting in potential inconsistencies between the external display and internal experience of emotion as well as emotional dissonance (Coté, 2005; Zapf, 2002). In addition, the possibility of automatic emotion regulation or “passive deep acting” has been noted, as in many cases the experience and display of emotions is “regulated” unconsciously based on, for example, social norms deeply embedded in a profession, society or organization (Zapf, 2002).

Our interest in emotion regulation lies in trying to understand the role it plays in complex, inter-organizational projects, specifically information systems (IS) development projects. There are just a few studies (Beaudry & Pinsonneault, 2010; Hekkala & Newman, 2011; Stein, Newell, Wagner, & Galliers, 2015) that have examined emotions (“lived experiences”) within IS project contexts. These studies (ibid.) have shown that emotions have a powerful influence on everyday organizational processes and functioning, including how IS are implemented and used, and periods of change make extreme demands on individuals and organizations, often leading to intense ambivalence that is difficult to cope with (cf. Ashforth, Rogers, Pratt, & Pradies, 2014). These findings suggest that IS projects are settings ripe for “odd things” to happen and, thus, also likely to place difficult demands on project members in terms of emotion regulation. Accordingly, in this study, we explore the emotional work of IS project members. We distinguish between the concepts of “feelings” and “emotions” to indicate that feeling is what is felt (personal experience), and emotion is what is displayed. Our departing standpoint is that “emotions [as displays of feelings] are social acts, and their role in social life is communicative” (Harré, 1998). We focus especially on the concept of “emotionologies,” that is, “the attitudes or standards that a society, or a definable group within a society, maintains toward basic emotions and their appropriate expression; ways that institutions reflect and encourage these attitudes in human conduct” (Stearns & Stearns, 1985, p. 813; see also Fineman, 2008). Our aim is to understand: (1) what kind of emotionologie(s) are present in inter-organizational information systems (IOIS) development projects?, and (2) what kind of emotion regulation do these emotionologies encourage?

This study’s contribution to previous literature is threefold: descriptive, theoretical, and practical. First, we offer rich descriptions of the kinds of emotionologies and emotion regulation strategies involved in a complex IS project. There has been little research on emotionologies in organizational contexts (Wright & Nyberg, 2012) and most prior research on emotion regulation has been conducted in service industries with direct client interactions involved (e.g., flight attendants, bank managers, Zapf, 2002). Thus, our study sheds light on emotionologies and emotion regulation in the “back office.” Theoretically, we propose the adoption of Callahan’s (2004) framework for a structured understanding of emotionologies and emotion regulation present in IOIS projects. We suggest that emotionologies can be studied through the concept of emotion structure, consisting of emotion rules and resources (Callahan, 2004), which we argue helps to understand both the standards a group holds toward emotions and their expression as well as the influence of these standards on emotion regulation. Practically, we propose the importance of distinguishing between external, internalized, and internal emotion rules, which may emanate from the profession, organization, society, and personal principles. In short, we argue that group emotionologies with their professional, organizational, and social emotion rules interact with personal emotion rules, resulting in interesting emotion regulation strategies that often try to minimize emotional dissonance, sometimes at the expense of risking the escalation of open conflict among project members.

This rest of this chapter is organized as follows. In the next section, we present the definitions of feeling and emotion, the basic aspects of emotionology and emotion management. The following three sections present the research case, the research method, and our findings. We conclude by discussing our findings and their implications.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND: DEFINITIONS OF FEELING, EMOTION, AND EMOTIONOLOGY

In the following section, we introduce the definitions for feelings and emotions, and the basic elements of the concept of emotionology. This study distinguishes the concepts of “feelings” and “emotions” to indicate that feeling is what is felt (personal experience), and emotion is what is shown. Our departing standpoint is that “emotions [as displays of feelings] are social acts, and their role in social life is communicative” (Harré, 1998). The question of what (emotion) is appropriate to display in interaction has been investigated in some depth in prior research (Bolton, 2005; Bolton & Boyd, 2003; Fineman, 2008; Goffman, 1974; Kelly & Noonan, 2008; Lawler & Thye, 1999). While the idea of emotionology was first defined in the 1980s, the concept has been investigated in more detail only recently (Fineman, 2008; Wright & Nyberg, 2012). Based on Stearns and Stearns (1985), we define an emotionology as the attitudes or standards that a definable group within a society maintains toward feelings and their appropriate expression [display of feelings, i.e., emotions]; [and] ways that institutions reflect and encourage these attitudes in human conduct. In a nutshell, we focus on local emotionologies of different groups within an inter-organizational project that guide the project members in terms of what to feel and express toward oneself, toward situations and objects, and toward other people. According to Fineman (2008, p. 10) “emotionologies are produced and reproduced through all manner of discursive and institutional practices, some more potent and enduring than others.” Fineman (ibid., p. 10) explains that different sources such as the family, television programs, schools, and religious authorities are linked by the dominant ideologies of their resident culture. As a consequence we inherit many emotionologies; we learn “how we should feel, and express our feelings, about ourselves (“happy,” “positive,” “fine”) as well as how to feel about others.” These shape our particular encounters, such as “what to feel or reveal at weddings, funerals, dinner parties, places of worship, or before a judge” (Fineman, 2008, p. 10). Wright and Nyberg (2012; see also Fineman, 2010) highlight that emotionologies are also relevant in organizational settings where they inform standards of emotional expression in regard to specific issues (e.g., climate change), subjects, or occupational groups (e.g., social workers, doctors, police officers). Some occupational groups are expected to display, for example, a façade of a “cool” and rational professional, while others are expected to display forcefulness and even aggression. Regardless of the fact that emotionologies seem to play a significant role in people’s everyday and work lives, little is known about the specific emotionologies and the processes through which they enter and impact upon organizational contexts (Wright & Nyberg, 2012).

In an effort to offer a unified theoretical framework for the understanding of emotions in organizations, Callahan (2004) reframed Giddens’ (1984) structuration theory to describe the process of how emotions and social contexts interact and, as a result, modify each other. He introduced the concept of emotion structure, consisting of emotion rules and emotion resources. This emotion structure guides how people feel and express their feelings in everyday interactions, which in turn, maintain or modify the emotion structure. Emotion rules consist of emotion signification or display rules and emotion legitimation or feeling rules. Signification or display rules include, for example, explicit guidelines for employee performance (e.g., “smile at customers”) or more implicit guidelines for behaving at work. Legitimation or feeling rules, conversely, define a consensus about what is considered “right” or “good” about feelings. Emotion legitimation rules do not determine how we might actually feel, but they do guide how we are expected to feel in specific situations. Emotion resources form the second element of emotion structure. When individuals exert personal control over their emotions, they have an allocative resource (Callahan, 2004). However, when an organization, profession or society exerts control over an individual to the extent that the individual’s emotions are controlled, that would be considered an authoritative resource (ibid.). In other words, the person owns the object (emotion) and either controls it directly (allocative) or it is controlled indirectly by another through the control of that person (authoritative). Thus, the components of emotion structure suggested by Callahan (2004) show how emotion rules and resources guide and control how we should feel, express these feelings (as emotions) and manage both feelings and emotions (as well as how we can change the rules and resources through changes in feelings, expressions, and management). We have summarized these concepts, their definitions as well as some examples in Table 1.

Table 1. Key Concepts Related to Emotionology or Emotion Structure.

Concept	Definitions (Based on Callahan, 2004)	Example (Based on Callahan, 2004; Fineman, 2008)
Emotionology or emotion structure, consisting of: – Emotion rules – Emotion resources	The rules and resources associated with the experience and expression of emotion in a social context	Guidelines and control that tells us how to feel, how to express these feelings, and how to manage them (see below)
Emotion rule: Legitimation	The social guidelines or rules about how one should feel (i.e., feeling rules)	Explicit or implicit guidelines that tell us how we should feel in a given context (which feelings are legitimate for different situations) (e.g., “Feel sad at a funeral,” “Feel happy at a wedding,” “Feel neutral in the office”)
Emotion rule: Signification	The social guidelines or rules about how one should appear to feel (i.e., display rules)	Explicit or implicit guidelines for behaving and expressing feelings in a given context (e.g., “Look interested and engaged during meetings”)
Emotion resource: Authoritative emotion regulation	An external power (e.g., the organization) holds control over the experience and expression of emotion (enforced emotional labor)	External power exerting control over emotions (e.g., Disney dictates how its employees should display emotions in their theme parks)
Emotion resource: Allocative emotion regulation	The individual holds control over the experience and expression of emotion (self-imposed emotional labor)	Internal control over emotions (e.g., being positive will make a person more likeable, so individuals strive to regulate their emotions to feel/appear to feel positive)

As indicated in Table 1, we consider Callahan’s emotion structure and emotionology to be the same. The attitudes and standards referred to in the emotionology concept are incorporated in the emotion rules, while the way institutions reflect and encourage these attitudes in human conduct is considered in emotion resources. Callahan’s (2004) framework provides us with a more structured way of studying emotionologies. Emotion signification and legitimation rules reveal much about the kinds of attitudes and standards a group holds toward the experience and expression of emotions, while emotion resources allow us to consider the kinds of emotion regulation strategies that these attitudes encourage.

In the management literature, there is an increasing interest in studying how workers express emotions in a variety of work settings and how employers and the employees themselves attempt to control and direct their display of emotions (Fineman, 2008; Grandey, Fiska, Mattila, Jansen, & Sideman, 2005; Grant, 2013; Kopelman et al., 2006; Morris & Feldman, 1997). Grandey et al. (2005) have highlighted that managing emotional expressions is an important strategy to achieve goals, such as to engender satisfaction and repeat business in customers. Kopelman et al. (2006) even offer some guidelines for manipulation of strategic emotional display, for example, on how to develop a positive bargaining style. “Although there are definitional differences in the concepts of emotional intelligence, soft skills, emotional labour and social competence, they refer to overlapping skills such as to the ability to manage one’s own and other people’s feelings, to be empathic and inclusive, to get on with people in interactions, to be a good communicator and to display empathy” (Kelan, 2008, p. 65).

FINDINGS

In this section, we will describe project members’ felt feelings and displayed emotions. We then demonstrate the emotionologies at work in various sub-groups that project members belong to.

Patterns in Feelings and Emotions among Project Sub-Groups

In order to understand the emotionologies (emotion rules and regulation) at play in the IOIS development project, it is necessary to first describe the feelings and emotions that seem to be prevalent among the project members. As outlined above, we understand feelings as professed individual affective experiences, whereas emotions are defined as the more or less congruent displays of these feelings. We noticed considerable differences between groups involved in the project in terms of their professed feelings and emotions. We also noticed changes in these feelings and emotions over time (our data were collected at two time points: beginning of the project in spring 2013 and one year later in spring 2014).

Within the project group, we noted three different sub-groups or individuals with varying patterns of feelings and emotions: Alpha sub-group, Beta sub-group and the project manager. The Alpha sub-group (Carol and Chloe) professed to feeling positive and “good” at the start of the project, while also claiming to feel apprehensive about any potential negativity in the project. We have no evidence that the displays of their feelings (emotions) were incongruent with these feelings at the time.

I’m a positive person, and I’ve a positive feeling about with whom we’re going to do work … we have a very good project manager, he is doing very well. […] If there is only one person in the project who is negative … it will be very hard …. (Chloe)

I have strong confidence in that we’ll get something ready in this project [laughing]…. (Carol)

One year later, these positive feelings and emotions show both continuance and change. First, a noticeable change is the addition of feelings of annoyance, distrust and anger. However, not all of these are expressed to other project members – in particular, it seems annoyance and anger are more freely expressed in, for example, complaints, whereas distrust is less freely discussed across the project group:

It’s very annoying because some people think that they are doing a system for three organizations and the others are doing it for themselves … […] The starting point was that they will guarantee equality, for example, Beta organization is paying for half of the project, but gets one third say … we have been horrified, [because] in some situations project members have somehow shown that they have more power in the project, although our decision-making rights are split equally … it causes distrust …. (Carol)

I haven’t cried, but I’ve had huge feelings of anger … and when I blow up, people can see it … I can say that my ears have been burning at times [laughing]. (Chloe)

The Beta sub-group (Amber, Nicole, Jacob) confessed to having mixed feelings in the beginning of the project: hope, uncertainty, as well as dissatisfaction were mentioned. As with the Alpha sub-group, we have no evidence that the displays of their feelings (emotions) were incongruent with what they felt at the time.

I hope that it will be possible to do the kind of project that we could be very proud of, that we could even say on Facebook that “hey, we did this one.” (Amber)

These five years that I’ve been here, the situation has been getting worse all the time, our leaders have made a fool of themselves [talking about the old projects]… a lot of wrong people, lack of know-how, […] old technology … and they just continued. It cost very much and it is rubbish … so it is difficult to be satisfied …. (Jacob)

One year later, both Jacob and Amber have left the project and the mixed feelings have changed into overwhelmingly negative feelings of anger and anxiety, of which anger seems to be expressed also to the other project members in, for example, project meetings:

There were six shouting people, talking about some process … it was quite harrowing … there is a very strange dynamic in the project group because of Chloe and Carol … they talk a lot … and then there is Alex (Project manager, Alpha) who is rather quiet and does something that I’m not aware of … and if there are conflicts in the project, … of course I assumed that someone would come and would like to solve the situation, but no … I guess they are quite satisfied now that we are not in the project anymore …. (Amber)

It seemed awful and we [other Beta people in the project group] had a feeling that they [management group people] can set aside anyone, if the faces are not pleasant … this project started to distress me a lot [she says that the reason was that Chloe and Carol (Alpha, project group) complained all the time that Beta people are doing things wrong]. (Nicole)

The project manager (Alex), while part of the project group and employed by Alpha, was not considered fully part of either the Alpha or Beta sub-groups. While in the beginning of the project, his only comment around feelings and emotions was the expectation that many of these will arise, by the second round of interviews, he described having mostly negative feelings of frustration, irritation, and even hate.

It’s frustrating, we’re having power struggles inside our own organization … I’m quite irritated at times, because the issues proceed so slowly, especially decision-making. […] I even feel hate at times, because some people are throwing spanners in the works. (Alex)

Based on the comments from other project group members, it seems however that Alex did not express these to them (“Alex is rather quiet and does something that I’m not aware of”).

The steering and management group members seemed to share similar, generally neutral or positive feelings in the beginning of the project and mixed feelings as the project progressed. Feelings of uncertainty, expectation of strong opinions as well as hope were described in the beginning:

It feels at the moment that I don’t know exactly what is coming in this project. (Grace)

I’m quite hopeful at the moment, I guess we are going to get a new common system for these three organizations, of course we need to be able to compromise …. (Sean)

There are enthusiastic people in this field and they have very strong opinions …. (Lily)

As the project progressed, these feelings also continued, but were accompanied by new, mostly negative feelings of sadness, disappointment, worry, and failure.

I’m very enthusiastic at the moment … but I know that some people can have different opinions about things, but I’m going to win them over [laughing] …. (Sean)
I was very disappointed that Amber (Beta, project group) left the project … I feel sad even more because she was so committed …[…] I’m worried, because I feel that we don’t have a strong product owner, instead we have five product owners …. (Tyler)

It has been very sad and when we had this crisis, it was the beginning of last fall [2013]… everything culminated and we had to solve the situation … Of course, I feel that we failed [talking about Jacob (Beta, project group) and the decision that they discharged him from the project]…. (Lily, project leader)

It is interesting to note, however, that many of these feelings were not expressed publicly, especially not to members of the project group. For example, Nicole (Beta, project group) read about Amber and Jacob (Beta, project group) no longer being in the project from the minutes of the management group meeting. And while Nicole (project group) expressed her distress to Eliza (steering group) (discussed below), we have no evidence that similar emotional displays in reverse direction (from management and steering group members to project group members), either one-to-one or in groups took place.

Attitudes toward Emotions in the Project

While in the previous section we described the patterns of feelings and emotions among the various sub-groups working on the project, we now turn to considering the identifiable emotion rules of these sub-groups. Our focus in this section is particularly on “the attitudes or standards that a definable group maintains toward [feelings] and their appropriate expression [display of feelings, i.e., emotions]” (based on Fineman, 2008; Stearns & Stearns, 1985). In other words, we focus on Callahan’s (2004) emotion rules of legitimation and signification, while the ways these attitudes are encouraged in human conduct are considered in the next section in terms of authoritative and allocative emotion regulation.

In the beginning of the project, we noticed that all the sub-groups working on the project seemed to have a similar set of standards they maintained toward their own and others’ feelings and their appropriate expression. This attitude could perhaps best be described as “caution with varying degrees of optimism.” The Beta sub-group described the importance of exercising care in taking initiative in organizing things, in not offending others in the project, and the positive aspects of discussing fears. The attitude is veering on the side of very cautious and not very optimistic in this sub-group.

Alex [Project manager, Alpha] asked me to do something and I started to organize it but then suddenly thought if the other members will be offended … that I need to be very careful because there is this political game … […] People are talking about their fears at the moment [at the beginning of the project]… I think it’s quite good, because the project members have seen so many failed projects …. (Amber)

I’ve been doing this for a long time, and it’s a miracle if there will not come the feeling of jumping into a well and leaving the whole project …. (Nicole)

The Alpha sub-group also described the attitude of being cautious and not expressing too much enthusiasm: “I think that some people are feeling more positive than they are saying aloud …” (Carol). Similar attitudes were revealed by steering and management group members:

There will definitely be many kinds of feelings and annoyance, because it is not possible to show green lights to everyone …. (Tyler)

The project manager is collecting expectations in this phase. It’s common that if you are too enthusiastic, you’ll be disappointed at the end …. (Ewan)

As the project progressed, we see this attitude or standard of caution and not showing too much enthusiasm shifting in all the sub-groups. Notably, much of the standard of exercising care and not offending others disappears. The Beta sub-group explains their attitude in terms of expectations of fair and respectful treatment (perhaps even favorable treatment, given that they are financing half of the project) by the leaders and the Alpha sub-group:

There have been some failures in personnel administration … Leaders [management group] have admitted it … I feel that they’ve treated people badly and set them aside from the project. […] We had very bad conflicts in the project group … from our point of view it seemed that there was a juxtaposition between Alpha and Beta organizations, Alpha people said that Beta people are stupid … the situation was like we are on the playground [laughing], and we are just going to play with the kids who live in the same apartment … it can’t be so that you want to dismiss all the Beta people, damn it, you’re not going to manage this project alone, we are paying half of this shit …. (Nicole)

The Alpha sub-group, conversely, sets the standard of expecting all parties to be able to take criticism, while also stressing the importance of celebrating the “good moments”:

I’ve felt that the people in Beta show a lot of solidarity to their own people, at times I feel that they don’t criticize each other …. (Carol)

We have tried to enjoy good moments and have tried to highlight them. We gave a big hand to developers last Friday. Carol bought some sweets …[…] I think that Beta people are praising their own employees too much. We have noticed that other people can’t criticize them … It makes their blood boil, although it would be justified. (Chloe)

In the management and steering groups, the common professional standard of “rationality” (cf. Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995; Wright & Nyberg, 2012) has come to the fore – members of these groups are expected to make decisions rationally even if such decisions may be unpopular. In addition to the “golden standard of rationality,” the management and steering groups now share the attitude that the major conflicts the project has been experiencing are inevitable and actually productive:

If you feel aggressive or irritation, you need to able to make a decision in a rational way. We look at what kinds of solutions we need in order to get a functional system … and if there is a solution that you don’t like, you just need to handle it somehow …. (Sean)

It’s a good sign that there are conflicts in the project because there are conflicts inevitably. There will not be any progress if there are no conflicts. If everyone is saying like yay, yay, we’re having a nice time; it is not going to lead anywhere. Conflicts are signs that people are committed …. (Lily)

We have summarized the identified group attitudes or standards (per project phase) in Table 3.

Table 3. Group Attitudes (and Corresponding Emotion Rules) in the Project.

Project Phase	Definable Group in the Project	Standards/Attitudes the Group Maintains Toward Feelings, Their Appropriate Expression
Beginning (in 2013)	Alpha (project group)	“Cautious testing of the waters”
	Beta (project group)	Emotion legitimation rules (what to feel): – Fear is good and productive – Expect many feelings – Don’t be too enthusiastic, but cautiously optimistic
	“Managers”	Emotion signification rules (what to express): – Exercise care; learn to play the political game – Do not offend others
In 2014	Alpha (project group)	“Critiquing each other’s work is part of the project and everyone should be able to take critique; good moments should be celebrated” Emotion legitimation and signification rules (what to feel and express): – Beta people cannot take criticism – It is important to celebrate the good moments
In 2014	Beta (project group)	“All project members should be treated fairly and respectfully; some maybe more fairly and more respectfully” Emotion legitimation and signification rules (what to feel & express): – Alpha people are immature and disrespectful – The one who pays more gets a bigger say – Project members expect to be treated well
	“Managers”	“Rationality is the golden standard; conflict is productive” Emotion legitimation rules (what to feel): – Conflict is important (cathartic and shows commitment) Emotion signification rules (what to express): – Decisions must be made in a rational way

Allocative and Authoritative Emotion Regulation in the Project

As discussed above, emotionologies or emotion structures (Callahan, 2004; Fineman, 2008) are the guidelines and forms of control that tell organizational actors how to feel, how to express these feelings (as emotions) as well as how to manage both feelings and emotions (Table 1). As such, a full picture of emotionologies in an organization requires an understanding of the emotional labor that is encouraged by the attitudes toward emotions. Accordingly, we now turn to the consideration of the regulation of emotions that project members do for a wage, due to pressures and control from an organization or a profession, and the regulation of emotions that the project members do for themselves due to socialization, personal goals, etc. (cf. Bolton & Boyd, 2003; Hochschild, 1990). Authoritative and allocative emotion resources (Callahan, 2004) are two concepts that can help us understand how external powers (project organization, members’ home organizations, professions) and internal powers (individual’s skills, personality) exert control over how one should feel and how one should express these feelings.

Our data showed various instances of authoritative and allocative emotion regulation among the project members. Most of the significant emotion regulation episodes took place as the project progressed, so we will focus on these in the following. In the project group, the project manager commented on various expression regulation efforts he engaged in:

I can see that Beta people are a bit spineless, and the other people are then “Shush, shush, please don’t make them angry” [laughing]. It has been that way over a year now, it is quite emblematic, I automatically act so that I try to avoid making them angry. Oh, this is a long story … the story about monkeys, ladders, and bananas, and how to condition monkeys comes to my mind. […] I’m not good at showing emotions. I would say that emotions become more visible in the way I behave […] I’m not aggressive or volcanic. But I can comment on issues very sarcastically. And then the other way round, I don’t necessarily remember to say if I’m satisfied or remember to say thank you to people …. (Alex)

The Alpha sub-group described similar instances of organizationally conditioned “tip-toeing” around the members of the Beta sub-group:

Many people here say that “Shush, shush, you can’t say things straight to Beta people, because they are going to get insulted.” I was very unsatisfied with the work the user interface designers did, but I wasn’t able to say what I felt although we needed to restart … I was unsatisfied because they were so unprofessional …. (Carol)
I think that Beta people are praising their own employees too much. We have noticed that other people can’t criticize them, it’s not sensible … It makes their blood boil, although it would be justified, but no, it’s better to be quiet. (Chloe)

However, the two members of the Alpha sub-group (Chloe and Carol) also described different individual tactics they employed in relation to this expression regulation around Beta:

If you would ask Carol she probably would say that it’s always better to say it straight if you’re annoyed about something … but somehow I feel that if you want to develop as a human, it’s not always best to say it straight. I want to think empathetically, I don’t want to hurt anyone …. (Chloe)

I’m politically incorrect …. If something comes to my mind, I blurt everything out without thinking about the consequences …. (Carol)

At the same time, members of the Beta sub-group felt overwhelmed by the complaints coming from Carol and Chloe, but instead of expressing this to them, Nicole turned to another member of Beta (Eliza), a steering group member:

I poured my heart out to Eliza (Beta, steering group), that this is quite unbelievable, very absurd that our guys are not good enough for them. That it can be so that when I leave the room, they (Chloe and Carol) start to complain that Nicole is an idiot and so on. I was so distressed, and I almost cried … I needed to tell to Eliza …. (Nicole)

The steering and management groups also mentioned instances of emotion regulation, both within these groups but also across all groups:

If you feel annoyance, you need to handle it and think how to say it. I’m not saying that you cannot show that you are not satisfied, but you need to think and consider how you say it … because if you are showing it all the time, it doesn’t work anymore …. (Lily)
I can remember two steering group meetings, where I’ve had the feeling that I need to contain myself, because I need to work with these people …. (Grace)

I’m quite an emotional person, but I try to hide my emotions at work. Well, I don’t want to restrict the showing of enthusiasm. But I think that it is essential that you’re aware of it, just in case you might become too enthusiastic [laughing]…. (Sean)

Emotionologies in the Project: Rules and Regulation

Given the sub-group attitudes toward the experience and expression of emotions (emotion rules) observed earlier (Table 3), we can now form a more complete picture of the emotionologies (consisting of emotions rules and corresponding emotion regulation strategies) present in the project. Our findings in that regard are summarized in Table 4. In line with prior research (Bolton, 2005; Bolton & Boyd, 2003), we find the project members following multiple different emotion rules in guiding their feelings and expressions. To illustrate, we find many examples of organizational, social, and professional emotion rules. Professional and organizational emotion rules refer to expectations set by one’s profession or organization in terms of how an individual should feel and express feelings. A prototypical example present also in our case is the emotion display rule of “rationality” often followed by those in the managerial profession. The differences between the Alpha and Beta sub-groups in the project group also demonstrate the salience of organizational emotion rules (e.g., the organizations clearly differ in terms of the display rule of everyone being allowed to express criticism of each other’s work). Social emotion rules refer to general social expectations in terms of, for example, being polite and not offending others (Bolton, 2005; Bolton & Boyd, 2003). Many social emotion rules are often expressed as proverbs or idioms in a particular culture. For example, the importance of being respectful and polite toward others is often based on the well-known idea from the Bible “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” to which there are also many folk equivalents across Europe. Similarly, the idea that conflict is productive can be linked to the common saying and belief in “that which does not kill you, makes you stronger” and “pain is gain.” In some cases, it is clear that an emotion rule may be both organizational and social (e.g., “the one who pays gets a bigger say” is clearly influenced by the specific project organization in this case, but is also likely influenced by general social norms around “one’s fair share”).

Table 4. Group Emotionologies: Emotion Rules and Corresponding Authoritative and Allocative Emotion Regulation among the Project Members.

Emotion Rules	Emotion Regulation
Alpha sub-group
Legitimation (feeling) rules (2013): – Fear is good and productive (social) – Expect many feelings (social) – Don’t be too enthusiastic (social)	Authoritative (external): experiences from this project organization suggest to Carol and Chloe to learn not to criticize Beta people
Signification (display) rules (2013): – Exercise care (play the game) (organizational) – Do not offend others (social)	Allocative (internal): Carol and Chloe want to celebrate the good times based on internalized general social rules
Legitimation and signification rules (2014): – Beta people cannot take criticism and should be able to (organizational) – Celebrate the good moments (social) – “Say it straight, no matter the consequences” (personal, Carol) – “Be empathetic” (personal, Chloe)	Allocative (internal): based on her personal rules, Chloe wants to be empathetic and not hurtful, even when criticism is deserved
	Allocative (internal): based on her personal rules, Carol wants to say it straight regardless of consequences
Beta sub-group
Legitimation (feeling) rules (2013): – Fear is good and productive (social) – Expect many feelings (social) – Don’t be too enthusiastic (social)	Allocative (internal) and Authoritative (external): based on internalized general social rules that all people should be treated equally and fairly and experiences from this project organization (Alpha people being disrespectful), Nicole goes up the project hierarchy and turns to Eliza to try to indirectly make Carol and Chloe stop complaining
Signification (display) rules (2013): – Exercise care (play the game) (organizational) – Do not offend others (social)
Legitimation and signification rules (2014): – Alpha people are immature and disrespectful and should not be (organizational) – The organization that pays, gets a bigger say (organizational, social) – Everyone should be treated well (social)
Management and steering groups
Legitimation (feeling) rules (2013): – Fear is good and productive (social) – Expect many feelings (social) – Don’t be too enthusiastic (social)	Authoritative (external): leadership and managerial authority dictates to the management and steering group members that rationality is the golden standard to be expressed always
Signification (display) rules (2013): – Exercise care (play the game) (organizational) – Do not offend others (social)	Authoritative (external) and allocative (internal): experiences from this project organization and general internalized social rules of “pain is gain” suggest that conflicts should be considered as productive
Legitimation (feeling) rules (2014): – Conflicts in this project are good (organizational and social)
Signification (display) rules (2014): – Decisions must be shown to have been made in a rational way (professional)

Based on Callahan (2004), we are able to identify the locus of control of these different rules. Social rules, despite what one might expect, are followed as part of allocative, internally controlled emotion regulation (Table 4). Social rules, therefore, seem to successfully guide feelings and expressions only when they have been internalized by actors. Professional and organizational rules, conversely, are followed as part of authoritative, externally controlled emotion regulation. These professional and organizational rules may be both predefined (e.g., many professions come with a few strongly encouraged standards, such as appearances of rationality) and emergent (e.g., other standards emerge from the everyday activities of professionals and organization members in context). Furthermore, our findings suggest that beyond collective emotion rules, we should also consider personal emotion rules and distinguish these from internalized social rules. We find that personal rules are followed as part of an allocative, internally controlled emotion regulation and it is possible that the rules may contradict group emotion rules. For example, we find that although Carol and Chloe (Alpha sub-group) share the same group emotion rules, they have different personal emotion rules, leading them to more and less readily comply with external organizational emotion rules because these align with their personal rules to a different degree. While Chloe follows the rule of “being empathetic” as part of her personal growth, Carol follows the rule of always “saying it straight.” We note that while “being empathetic” may seem like an instance of “philanthropic” emotion management (Bolton & Boyd, 2003), which refers to going above and beyond social expectations, we rather see it as following an internal personal emotional rule rather than an internalized, but externally originating social rule. Interestingly, what distinguishes many of the emotion rules covered in Table 4, including Chloe and Carol’s personal rules, is their orientation toward others (e.g., “be kind to others,” “Beta people should be able to take criticism,” “Alpha people should not be disrespectful”) or the self (e.g., “stay true to what you believe and be honest,” “don’t be too enthusiastic”). A skilled emotion manager will likely draw on both kinds of rules in a workplace.

DISCUSSION

The aim of this longitudinal case study was to research the kinds of emotionologies present in an IOIS project. Our findings showed how the feelings and emotions (displayed feelings) of project members developed as the work on system development progressed. From largely positive feelings in the beginning of the project, all sub-groups moved toward more negative feelings midway through the project, for example, describing increased annoyance, distrust, anger, and anxiety. Jointly with these changes in feelings, our findings revealed the growing presence of some form of emotion regulation – we noticed that, among the project group, anger was more freely expressed to others, while distrust and anxiety were often hidden. The steering and management group members and also the project manager showed particular reluctance to share their negative feelings with others (especially project group members) and communication of emotionally charged topics (e.g., staffing changes in the project) was often left to formal meeting minutes. Earlier studies have highlighted similar patterns in employees who frequently engage in surface acting; in such cases actors are likely to feel confident that they can mask their fear, and only express the negative and positive emotions necessary to speak up constructively and effectively (Grant, 2013). However, in our case, while the project members were undoubtedly acting in what they perceived as a constructive manner, the actual effectiveness of their emotion regulation remains an open question (especially given the high level of conflict we observed) and requires further research.

In order to better understand what encouraged project members to engage in emotion regulation the way they did, we explored group attitudes toward emotions (including both group and personal emotion rules) present in the project. Earlier studies (Fineman, 2010; Wright & Nyberg, 2012) have highlighted that, in organizational settings, attitudes toward emotions set the expectations of emotional expression in regard to specific issues, subjects, or occupational groups. We identified three different sub-groups in the project that were guided by different attitudes: the Alpha and Beta sub-groups in the project group and the sub-group of “Managers” (consisting of steering and management group members). In the beginning of the project, all three sub-groups shared an attitude we described as “cautious testing of the waters,” characterized by the feeling rules that “fear can be good and productive,” and “don’t be too enthusiastic, but cautiously optimistic” as well as the display rule of not offending each other. As the project progressed, we noticed that this emotionology started to shift. While in the beginning the focus lay on “what we should expect, feel and express ourselves,” gradually an additional emphasis on “what we should expect from others and feel/express towards others” started to creep in among all sub-groups. It is interesting to note that while anxiety was high in the beginning of the project and increased further as the project progressed, the rule that “fear can be good and productive” is only a feeling rule, suggesting that expressing anxiety or fear is not encouraged. As the project progressed, even the feeling rule disappears, making both the experience and expression of fear and anxiety not part of the project’s repertoire. This may relate to general social rules that often suggest not being afraid of failure or trying, suggesting that being afraid coincides with inaction and is negative. At the same time, no similar rules apply to the expression of (rightful) anger or annoyance. Criticism and conflict are painted as constructive even when they are not. We suggest for both practice and future research that it is perhaps time to reconsider the constructive role that experiencing and expressing fear can play in emotion work.

While identifying the group attitudes toward emotions (Table 3) provided us with hints as to why the project members expressed and masked their various feelings as they did, how the emotionologies actually guided project members in terms of what to feel and express needed further exploration. Callahan’s (2004) concept of authoritative and allocative emotion resources helped us to consider emotion rules and different forms of emotion regulation together (Table 4). As discussed above, our findings demonstrate that not only do different group emotion rules (organizational, professional, and social) interact, but they are also supplemented by personal emotion rules. As a result, authoritative and allocative emotion regulation work hand-in-hand. The idea that employees in organizations have the skillful ability to mix authoritative and allocative, as well as self- and other-oriented emotion regulation based on personal and group emotion rules has some affinity to the contested concept of emotional intelligence (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2008). However, our findings clearly demonstrate that personal rule based allocative emotion management is almost always accompanied by authoritative emotion management based on professional or organizational rules (or allocative emotion management based on social rules). Thus, our findings indicate a strong need for theorizing emotion management in a way that allows for the bridging of the gap between studies that acknowledge the power of the “social” in our emotional lives (cf. Bolton, 2005; Bolton & Boyd, 2003; Callahan, 2004; Fineman, 2008; Hochschild, 1979) and studies that highlight the power of our explicit and implicit cognitive skills (Gross & John, 2003; Gyurak et al., 2011; Mayer et al., 2008). Callahan’s (2004) attempt to describe the emotion system in terms of interplay between structure and actions (as in structuration theory) represents one such theorization. However, while Callahan explicates the structural side in some detail in terms of emotion rules and resources, the actions undertaken by actors, in which the emotion rules and resources are applied on a recurring basis and that create, maintain, or destroy the emotion system in an organization, receive limited consideration (Callahan, 2004, pp. 1434–1435). Further research is needed to understand the mutual implication of emotion-related structural conditions and actions on one another. For example, in a recent study, Toegel, Kilduff, and Anand (2013, p. 334) highlighted that there are often discrepancies in role interpretations, so that “employees treat caring as part of the manager’s role that requires no reciprocation, whereas managers see such help-giving as discretionary extra-role behavior that requires reciprocated commitment.” Such discrepant expectations can lead to positive outcomes (e.g., managers being attributed leadership qualities by subordinates) but also negative outcomes (e.g., managers feeling disappointed at the lack of reciprocity). How these outcomes, in turn, impact on role expectations (and emotion rules) remains an open question, however.

In sum, this study makes several contributions. First, this qualitative case study examines the attitudes that members of an IOIS project hold toward emotions and their appropriate expression in this particular IS project. We have identified and described different patterns of changing feelings and emotions, and emotionologies among the various sub-groups working in the IS project. Second, in order to understand emotionologies in a more systematic manner, we suggest the adoption of the concept of emotion structure, consisting of emotion rules and resources (Callahan, 2004), which we argue helps to understand both the attitudes and standards of a group toward emotions and their expression (emotion rules) as well as the influence of these attitudes and standards on allocative and authoritative emotion regulation. Third, we propose the importance of distinguishing between external, internalized, and internal emotion rules, which may emanate from the profession, organization, society, and personal principles. In short, we argue that group emotionologies with their professional, organizational, and social emotion rules interact with personal emotion rules, resulting in interesting emotion regulation strategies that often try to minimize emotional dissonance, sometimes at the expense of risking open conflict among project members. With this in mind, one theoretical and practical suggestion is to further explore the potential constructive implications of experiencing and expressing fear in projects.

*The authors have contributed equally to the chapter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

This study was funded by the Academy of Finland (Grant number 259454).

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CHAPTER 14

SILENCES AND VOICES OF FEAR, ANGER, AND RATIONALITY: EMOTIONOLOGIES IN AN INFORMATION SYSTEMS PROJECT

ABSTRACT