Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: An Examination of CEO Emotion's Relationship with Organization-Level Performance.My study examined the relationship between CEO emotions and organization-level performance.I also tested the feasibility of using FACS in a business setting.Lastly, I explored the nature of CEOs' expressive styles.I found support for a relationship between CEOs' positive emotion displays and organization-level performance, but not a relationship between CEOs' negative emotion displays and organization-level performance.My results also supported the idea that CEOs have a unique and consistent expressive style that remains independent of displayed emotion and that researchers can use FACS to measure this expressive style.Understanding what emotion is, why it exists, and what functions it serves will illuminate the interconnection between CEOs and organization-level performance.Background.Many definitions of emotion exist, but researchers agree that emotion consists of transitory states of persons denoted in everyday language by words such as 'happiness', 'sadness', and 'fear' (Reisenzein & Weber, 2009).Researchers also agree that emotions occur in reaction to some environmental stimulus and that they have both objective and subjective manifestations (Reisenzein & Weber, 2009).Before further discussing emotion, I must differentiate emotion from two related concepts, moods and attitudes.Researchers consider both moods and attitudes distinct from emotion.Length of time and focal point distinguish these three concepts from one another.Emotions last for a shorter time period whereas moods tend to last longer (Frijda, 2008).Attitudes endure longest, sometimes lasting up to a lifetime (Frijda, 2008).In this sense emotions, moods, and attitudes are points on a time continuum (Frijda, 2008).In addition to length of time, emotions and attitudes have a different focal point than moods.Emotions and attitudes are both characterized by an appraisal of a single stimulus.Emotion, however, is only one component of an attitude (also referred to as a general sentiment; Schleicher, Hansen, & Fox, 2011).In addition to an emotional, or affective, component, attitudes contain a cognitive and a behavioral component (Schleicher, Hansen, & Fox, 2011).For example, an employee might hold an attitude that he likes his manager.After an interaction with his manager, the employee might experience happiness (the affective component).He might think about how he likes his manager (the cognitive component).Finally, the emotional and cognitive components influence the employee to seek out his boss for conversation (the behavioral component). CEO EMOTION AND ORGANIZATION--LEVEL PERFORMANCE 3In contrast to emotions and attitudes, moods are more general and not directed at a single stimulus (Frijda, 1994).Consequently, an individual experiencing a mood may not know what caused the mood's onset.The commonalities between these three constructs make it difficult for researchers to create a measure that assesses only the desired construct.Continuing with the background on emotion, the first known existence of the word emotion in the present sense dates back to Descartes's Passions de l'Âme, which corresponds to "uproar" or "social unrest," (Frijda, 2008).Before Descartes many societies had words to describe an emotional state.These words focused on the passivity of the state (i.e., the French and British word of passion).Emotions were things that happened to people without their control (Frijda, 2008).Psychological theories of emotion began with William James's (1884) and Carl Lange's (1885) theories of emotion.Each independently developed a theory that described emotion as the automatic reaction to one's conscious appraisal of a stimulus (Weiten, 2004).In other words, if a person sees a snake, he thinks he should feel afraid and then the physiological response of fear follows automatically.Half a century later, Cannon (1927) noticed that emotion did not always accompany arousal (e.g., exercising)and concluded that, in contrast to the James-Lange theory, physiological arousal occurred first and the feeling of emotion followed.Philip Bard (1934) later elaborated on this theory, creating the Cannon-Bard theory of emotion (Weiten, 2004).The most recent theory of emotion, Schachter's Two-Factor Theory, described emotional experience as involving two factors: autonomic arousal and cognitive interpretation (Schachter, 1964).He combined notions from the two previous theories to conclude that people do feel CEO EMOTION AND ORGANIZATION--LEVEL PERFORMANCE 4emotional arousal in response to stimuli.However, they use cues from the environment in order to appraise what emotion they feel.Emotions contain both automatic and effortful components (Gross, 2008).Models of emotional regulation contrast "automatic" and "deliberate" processes.Automatic processes do not require attention or awareness and are stimulus-driven.Deliberate processes involve effort and awareness and are goal-driven.Mauss, Cook, and Gross (2007) found that emotion regulation might activate implicitly (outside of conscious awareness).They primed participants before a task during which most participants became angry.Those participants primed with emotional control reported feeling less angry than the participants primed for emotional expression. Emotion functions.Emotion has two functions that make it a likely mechanism for linking leader behavior and organizational performance: communication (Ekman, 1992) and reasoning (Damasio, 1994).The communication aspect allows emotion to influence social interaction, even implicitly.Emotion's role in reasoning is implicit as well and, therefore, may play a large role in decision-making and, consequently, behavior.Next I will discuss these two functions of emotion and their role in linking leader emotion to organizational performance. Emotion as a communication tool.According to one of the most influential theories on emotional expression, Discrete Emotions Theory (Izard & Malatesta, 1987;Magai & McFadden, 1995;Malatesta, 1990;Tomkins, 1962), emotion has an evolutionary function.The theory identified three processes of emotion that illustrate its utility to humans: first, emotions direct attention to the potential causes of the emotion and adaptive responses (Schwarz, 1990); second, emotions prepare individuals for actions CEO EMOTION AND ORGANIZATION--LEVEL PERFORMANCE 5in response to this potential cause (Frijda, 1986); third, emotional responses (such as distinct facial, postural, vocal, and verbal behavior) communicate these emotions to others (Ekman, 1992;Izard, 1977).The involuntary, reactionary nature of emotions (Gross, 2008) supports an innate emotional communication system (Ekman, 1992;Haggard & Isaacs, 1966;Izard, 1977).Ekman (1992) theorized that emotions evolved in order to deal with fundamental life tasks (e.g., fleeing from danger).The emotional response involves three processes: focusing attention on an environmental stimulus, stimulating a physiological response, and communicating the situation to others (Ekman, 1992;Izard, 1977).For example, if an individual encountered a poisonous snake, he would have an emotional response, focusing his attention on the snake (process one), stimulating a physiological reaction preparing him to either fight the snake or flee the area (process two), and his facial, postural, vocal, and verbal behavior would communicate fear and the presence of a danger to others around him (process three).This third process, the communication aspect, involves facial expressions and strengthens the link between personality and emotional expression.Each of the universally recognized emotions (such as anger, fear, disgust) has a distinct set of facial, postural, vocal, and verbal behavior (Ekman, 1992;Izard, 1977), making them useful as communication tools.Emotion as a communicator of personality.Researchers have found a link between emotional displays and personality.This means that an emotional display, although fleeting itself, might indicate a stable trait (Keltner, 1996).Each of the universally recognized emotions (such as anger, fear, disgust) is signaled by a distinct set of facial, postural, vocal, and verbal behavior (Ekman, 1992;Izard, 1977).Individuals
Author: Elizabeth J. Peyton
Institution: Wright State University
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2553542547