TOWARD A HOLISTIC UNDERSTANDING OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: THE ROLE OF EMOTIONS IN CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.32782/city-development.2026.1-22Keywords:
emotions, organizational behavior, mood theory, emotional labor, Affective Events Theory, leadership, teamwork, sustainable organizational development, human resource managementAbstract
This article reviews contemporary developments in emotions within organizational behavior, marking a shift from rational-cognitive models to a holistic view of workplace functioning. It focuses on three key streams: mood theory, emotional labor, and Affective Events Theory (AET). Emotions gain relevance in modern organizations due to service economy growth, digitalization, intensified communication, and fast-paced interactions, making emotional competence essential for leadership, teamwork, client relations, adaptability, and performance. Mood theory (George & Brief, 1992, 1996; Forgas’ AIM; Isen’s work) shows positive mood boosts creativity, heuristic thinking, prosocial behavior, job satisfaction, and contextual performance, though it may reduce precision in routine tasks. Negative mood promotes systematic processing, realism, and critical judgment, but often links to lower satisfaction and detachment. The review stresses context-dependency and the need to study discrete emotions (anger, envy, pride) over broad affect. Emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983; Rafaeli & Sutton; Grandey; Morris & Feldman) distinguishes surface acting (faking) from deep acting (genuine adjustment). The “Manhattan effect” reveals unexpected negative links between smiles and sales in high-pressure settings. Emotional contagion shapes customer perceptions and loyalty. Chronic dissonance causes exhaustion, burnout, physiological strain, and health risks, impacting service quality, retention, and reputation. AET (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) bridges micro-affective events and macro-attitudes: momentary reactions to daily events drive performance, citizenship, withdrawal, and long-term attitudes more than global satisfaction. Experience-sampling studies (Weiss et al., 1999) confirm event frequency over intensity, with positive events buffering negatives. Emotions are systemic, permeating productivity, team dynamics, leadership, decisions, client interactions, and sustainability. Integrating emotional and rational approaches turns emotions into strategic assets for innovation, engagement, and advantage in service/knowledge economies. Future directions: longitudinal emotional labor studies, cross-cultural affective validation, applied AET models, discrete emotion profiling, and evidence-based interventions for emotionally intelligent workplaces.
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