The Organization of Emotions

• In Event: 553 - Regular Session. Care, Emotions, and the Self at Work

Abstract

Drawing on seventeen months of field work in the Entertainment division at an American theme park, the organization of emotions perspective is proposed and developed as a compliment to Hochschild’s theory of feeling management. While Hochschild conceptualizes organizational feeling management as a social-psychological process, her theory underestimates the role of social setting. More than just the backdrop against which people label emotional arousal and assess its appropriateness, social settings are characterized by structures and practices designed to increase certain emotional outcomes over others. Companies invest resources into efforts to organize around emotional experiences and expressions, thus setting the stage for how workers enact feeling management and experience work. After exploring how Wonderland Entertainment organizes around fun, joy, and emotionally memorable encounters, the paper concludes with some brief thoughts on how the organization of emotions approach advances our understanding of feeling management.

Author

• David Orzechowicz, University of California-Davis