Completing the Affective Turn in Educational Organizational Theory: Educational Organizing as an Emotion

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 43
  In Roundtable Session: Putting Organizational Theory Into Practice

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that educational organising is an emotion. We analyse: the central aspects of educational organising - leadership and management, and the nature of emotions. Leadership entails influencing others to achieve desirable goals. Management entails carrying the responsibility for the proper functioning of an educational system, which has particular goals. It is a state of mind. In any system for which someone is responsible, events/activities will occur/be initiated, which may require influencing responses – leadership actions. In emotions, an individual experiences an event; it is appraised, various changes are initiated, and the individual acts. These processes are conditioned by the individual’s affective state. The similarities lead us to conclude that educational organisational practices can be construed as emotions.

Authors

• Michael Connolly, University of Glamorgan

• Christopher R. James, University of Bath