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Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Emotions in institutional work
T2 - a discursive perspective
AU - Moisander, Johanna
AU - Hirsto, Heidi
AU - Fahy, Kathryn
PY - 2016/7
Y1 - 2016/7
N2 - This paper focuses on the dynamics and interplay of meaning, emotions, andpower in institutional work. Based on an empirical study, we explore andelaborate on the rhetorical strategies of emotion work that institutional actorsemploy to mobilize emotions for discursive institutional work. In an empiricalcontext where a powerful institutional actor is tasked with creating support andacceptance for a new political and economic institution, we identify threerhetorical strategies of emotion work: eclipsing, diverting and evoking emotions.These strategies are employed to arouse, regulate, and organize emotions thatunderpin legitimacy judgments and drive resistance among field constituents. Wefind that actors exercise influence and engage in overt forms of emotion work byevoking shame and pride to sanction and reward particular expedient ways ofthinking and feeling about the new institutional arrangements. More importantly,however, the study shows that they also engage in strategies of discursiveinstitutional work that seek to exert power—force and influence—in more subtleways by eclipsing and diverting the collective fears, anxieties, and moralindignation that drive resistance and breed negative legitimacy evaluations.Overall, the study suggests that emotions play an important role in institutionalwork associated with creating institutions, not only via “pathos appeals” but alsoas tools of discursive, cultural-cognitive meaning work and in the exercise ofpower in the field.
AB - This paper focuses on the dynamics and interplay of meaning, emotions, andpower in institutional work. Based on an empirical study, we explore andelaborate on the rhetorical strategies of emotion work that institutional actorsemploy to mobilize emotions for discursive institutional work. In an empiricalcontext where a powerful institutional actor is tasked with creating support andacceptance for a new political and economic institution, we identify threerhetorical strategies of emotion work: eclipsing, diverting and evoking emotions.These strategies are employed to arouse, regulate, and organize emotions thatunderpin legitimacy judgments and drive resistance among field constituents. Wefind that actors exercise influence and engage in overt forms of emotion work byevoking shame and pride to sanction and reward particular expedient ways ofthinking and feeling about the new institutional arrangements. More importantly,however, the study shows that they also engage in strategies of discursiveinstitutional work that seek to exert power—force and influence—in more subtleways by eclipsing and diverting the collective fears, anxieties, and moralindignation that drive resistance and breed negative legitimacy evaluations.Overall, the study suggests that emotions play an important role in institutionalwork associated with creating institutions, not only via “pathos appeals” but alsoas tools of discursive, cultural-cognitive meaning work and in the exercise ofpower in the field.
KW - Institutional work
KW - Power
KW - Emotions
KW - Discourse
KW - Economic and Monetary Union
U2 - 10.1177/0170840615613377
DO - 10.1177/0170840615613377
M3 - Journal article
VL - 37
SP - 963
EP - 990
JO - Organization Studies
JF - Organization Studies
SN - 0170-8406
IS - 7
ER -