Organizational culture and emotional contagion as predictors of job competencies

In organizational settings, performing a task refers to the conscious mode through which people develop and process their own working activities inside organizational contexts. However, some scholars (Bion, 1952; Jacques, 2003) also suggest that emotional dynamics at work are key factors in disturbing, or conversely maintaining, employees’ task execution. To our knowledge, no study has yet explored the role of organizational culture and emotional contagion (Hatfield & Rapson, 1998) as predictors of employees’ abilities to perform their job, namely job competencies. The present paper aims at a) proposing an expanded approach to emotional contagion at work by simultaneously considering how people can capture the emotions of others, namely the receiver perspective, as well as, how people are also able to draw others into their emotional orbits and infect them with the emotions they express, namely the sender perspective (Petitta & Di Cave, 2011); b) proposing a conceptualization of org

In organizational settings, performing a task refers to the conscious mode through which people develop and process their own working activities inside organizational contexts. However, some scholars (Bion, 1952; Jacques, 2003) also suggest that emotional dynamics at work are key factors in disturbing, or conversely maintaining, employees’ task execution. To our knowledge, no study has yet explored the role of organizational culture and emotional contagion (Hatfield & Rapson, 1998) as predictors of employees’ abilities to perform their job, namely job competencies. The present paper aims at a) proposing an expanded approach to emotional contagion at work by simultaneously considering how people can capture the emotions of others, namely the receiver perspective, as well as, how people are also able to draw others into their emotional orbits and infect them with the emotions they express, namely the sender perspective (Petitta & Di Cave, 2011); b) proposing a conceptualization of organizational culture grounded in emotionally ways to socially interact in organizations; c) introducing a model of job competencies which encompasses five main domains of skills required to performs a task, respectively entrepreneurship, social, work handling, emotion management, and change management competencies (Borgogni, Petitta, Consiglio, Barbaranelli, 2012); d) studying the role of emotion-related organizational culture and emotional contagion in predicting job competencies. Toward this end, we tested a structural model positing organizational culture as predictor of the two facets of emotional contagion (i.e., receiver, sender), which in turn were expected to differentially predict the five domains of job competencies. Organizational culture, emotional contagion, and competencies. The emotional life of an organization refers to the fact that people who make up the organization tend to share a specific way of emotionally symbolizing the reality in which they work and coexist. Emotional symbolization reflects the process a human being engages in to associate their experiences with the external environment (context) with an inevitable emotional reaction (Carli & Paniccia, 2003). Organizations, therefore, are a reality in which individuals share a way of emotionally representing the context which organizes and regulates interpersonal relationships and coexistence. According to the TAD, “the local culture of an organization refers to the way in which, in a particular moment in its history, members emotionally characterize functions, integrative instruments, products, clients, and users; in other words, every aspect that contributes to defining the contextual reality” (Carli & Paniccia, 1999, p. 148). As such, organizational culture grounded in emotionally ways to socially interact in organizations is a predictor of emotional exchanges among members (i.e., emotional contagion; Petitta, 2012) and task behaviors associated to competencies required to carry out the job. Method. Participants (N=157) were recruited from eleven Italian organizations from different occupational settings; 54.8% were men. The average organizational tenure was 8.6 years (SD=9.3). Each participant completed an anonymous self-report questionnaire and was guaranteed confidentiality. Emotional contagion. The twenty-six items Emotional Contagion at Work Scale, previously validated in Italy (Petitta, 2012), measured emotional contagion in work settings with regard to joy, sadness, fear and anger, both absorbed from others (i.e., contagion received) as well as infected to others (i.e., contagion sent). Respondents were asked to indicate how frequently they experienced the described emotional situations using a 5-point Likert response scale, ranging from 1=“Never” to 5=“Always”. Organizational culture. The Local Culture Scale, previously validated in Italy (Petitta, 2012), measured emotion-related culture as a way of emotionally symbolizing the person-environment relationship proposed by the TAD. The scale was unidimensional and included eight ways to emotionally symbolizing the organizational context: a) to exchange; b) to claim; c) to control; d) to distrust; e) to provoke; f) to oblige; g) to complain; h) to worry. The scale’s thirty-three statements required respondents to evaluate the frequency with which the proposed situations occurred in their organizations, using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1=”Never” to 5=”Always”. Competencies. The Big Five Competencies Map, previously validated in Italy (Borgogni, Petitta, Consiglio, Barbaranelli, 2012), measured five main domains of competencies at work: Entrepreneurship, social, work handling, emotion management, and change management. The scale’s one hundred and five statements required respondents to evaluate the frequency with which they enacted the proposed behaviors in order to perform their job, using a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1=”Never” to 7=”Always”. Results and discussion. A Structural Equation Model was performed using Mplus. It showed an adequate fit to the data: 2 (5, N=157)=6.103, p=296, RMSEA = .037 (.000; .122), CFI=.99, TLI=.98. Together, the results indicate that emotionally rooted organizational culture enhances contagion of emotions among members, which in turn predicts competencies at work. Furthermore, our findings contribute to disentangle the differential role played by contagion received from and sent towards others in fostering behaviors that enhance employees’ competencies at work and their abilities to perform the job task. This counterintuitive finding may facilitate managerial preventive initiatives by including a more agentic perspective aimed at increasing people’s awareness of their emotional contribution to shape relationships at work, and use the emotions experienced to effectively manage relationships and develop job competencies.