Bounded emotionality is a

communications studies Communication studies (or communication science) is an academic discipline that deals with processes of human communication and behavior, patterns of communication in interpersonal relationships, social interactions and communication in diffe ...

approach to dealing with

emotional control In psychology, control is a person's ability or perception of their ability to affect themselves, others, their conditions, their environment or some other circumstance. Control over oneself or others can extend to the regulation of emotions, t ...

in the workplace. Emotional control simply refers to how employers and employees handle the range of emotions that naturally occur in the

workplace A workplace is a location where someone works, for their employer or themselves, a place of employment. Such a place can range from a home office to a large office building or factory. For industrialized societies, the workplace is one of the ...

. These emotions can occur because of work, or they can be brought into work from an employee's home life. Bounded emotionality was proposed by Dennis K. Mumby and Linda Putnam. Mumby and Putnam (1992) stress that bounded emotionality encourages the expression of a wide range of emotions. Their theory encourages expression of emotions because it is a way to maintain

interpersonal relationships In social psychology, an interpersonal relation (or interpersonal relationship) describes a social association, connection, or affiliation between two or more people. It overlaps significantly with the concept of social relations, which ar ...

and boundaries among people in the organization. Additionally, the expression of emotions strengthens work relations because people bond over mutual feelings. Bounded emotionality is a broad framework for organizations to use when dealing with emotions. It has six defining characteristics. The characteristics are: intersubjective limitations, spontaneously emergent work feelings, tolerance of

ambiguity Ambiguity is the type of meaning (linguistics), meaning in which a phrase, statement, or resolution is not explicitly defined, making for several interpretations; others describe it as a concept or statement that has no real reference. A com ...

heterarchy A heterarchy is a system of organization where the elements of the organization are unranked (non- hierarchical) or where they possess the potential to be ranked a number of different ways. Definitions of the term vary among the disciplines: in soc ...

of values, integrated self identity and authenticity, and

community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

Origins

Prior to Mumby and Putnam's specific articulation of bounded emotionality research and the role it plays in what is known about organizational emotion regulation, workplace emotion research focused on the relationship between emotion regulation,

work performance Job performance assesses whether a person performs a job (role), job well. Job performance, studied academically as part of industrial and organizational psychology, also forms a part of human resources management. Performance is an important crite ...

and general attitudes towards work. Traditionally, two concepts,

bounded rationality Bounded rationality is the idea that rationality is limited when individuals decision-making, make decisions, and under these limitations, rational individuals will select a decision that is satisficing, satisfactory rather than optimal. Limitat ...

and

emotional labor Emotional labor is the work of trying to feel the right feeling for a job, either by evoking or suppressing feelings. It requires the capacity to manage and produce a feeling to fulfill the emotional requirements of a job. More specifically, work ...

, were used to describe conventional organizational theory pertaining to emotional regulation.

Bounded rationality

Whereas bounded emotionality encourages the expression of a large spectrum of emotions in organizational communication, bounded rationality advocates for the "control" or tempering of any emotion or personal characteristics that may interfere with

rational Rationality is the quality of being guided by or based on reason. In this regard, a person acts rationally if they have a good reason for what they do, or a belief is rational if it is based on strong evidence. This quality can apply to an ...

organizational decision making. Simon introduced the term bounded rationality and cast it as "bounded" because he viewed highly emotion-based forms of reasoning such as

intuition Intuition is the ability to acquire knowledge without recourse to conscious reasoning or needing an explanation. Different fields use the word "intuition" in very different ways, including but not limited to: direct access to unconscious knowledg ...

and

judgement Judgement (or judgment) is the evaluation of given circumstances to make a decision. Judgement is also the ability to make considered decisions. In an informal context, a judgement is opinion expressed as fact. In the context of a legal tria ...

irrational Irrationality is cognition, thinking, talking, or acting without rationality. Irrationality often has a negative connotation, as thinking and actions that are less useful or more illogical than other more rational alternatives. The concept of ...

and thus unhelpful in reaching organizational goals. Bounded rationality approaches to emotional regulation not only devalue individual emotion in the workplace but also view excessive emotional expression as inappropriate for the work setting.

Emotional labor

Emotional labor refers to the way in which individuals manage emotions based on what is perceived as "appropriate" in specific social or environmental situations. Human beings often pay close attention to their surroundings and how they should act in certain social situations. A variety of organizational factors as well as personal factors may impact emotional regulation including:

socialization In sociology, socialization (also socialisation – see American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), spelling differences) is the process of Internalisation (sociology), internalizing the Norm (social), norm ...

, channels of communication, departmental differences (e.g. sales vs. packaging), etc. In an organization that deploys a bounded emotionality approach to emotional regulation, much less emotional labor will be required than an organization that deploys a bounded rationality approach. Mumby and Putnam introduced the concept of bounded emotionality as an alternative organizational concept to bounded rationality and emotional labor in order to demonstrate the instability of traditional understandings and highlight what they believe to be the importance of emotions in organizational decision-making. In an organization framed by bounded emotionality (as opposed to bounded rationality and emotional labor), hierarchical goals and values are flexible as emotion and the physical self are not isolated from the process of organizing. In other words, emotions are "bounded" in organizations to protect

and mutual understandings, two organizational aspects that Mumby and Putnam argue as important to success.

Bounded vs. unbounded emotionality

''Unbounded emotionality'' should be enacted not for the instrumental gain of the organization, but to enhance the well-being of the individual organizational members. Work stress is a political, organizational and community issue that can be difficult to implement in large organizations. ''Bounded emotionality'' is a limited, pragmatic approach to the problem of emotional control in organizations. It focuses on work related emotions, defined as, "feelings, sensations, and affective responses to organizational sensations". However, it is acknowledged that such work feelings stem from and affect emotions that come from one's

personal life Personal life is the course or state of an personhood, individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity. Apart from hunter-gatherers, most pre-modern peoples' time was limited by ...

. * It encourages the expression of a wider range of emotions than is usually condoned in traditional and

normative Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A Norm (philosophy), norm in this sense means a standard for evaluatin ...

organizations. * It stresses the importance of maintaining interpersonally sensitive, variable boundaries between what is felt and what is expressed. * The goal of bounded emotionality to build interpersonal relationships through mutual understanding of work related feelings. The following table shows six differentiating characteristics.

Defining characteristics

''Intersubjective limitations'': This is a necessary restriction known by individuals in the organization that helps them adequately work with and respond to one another . Just as individuals do in personal relationships, they need to respect emotional boundaries in professional ones. :Example: If a coworker feels certain emotional expressions or topics are inappropriate, you will not discuss them. Similarly, they will respect what you find inappropriate. Those

personal boundaries Personal boundaries or the act of setting boundaries is a Life skills, life skill that has been popularized by self help authors and support groups since the mid-1980s. Personal boundaries are established by changing one's own response to interp ...

are the intersubjective limitations of the work relationship. For instance, a cabin crew member may be absolutely repulsed by vomit, but when a passenger vomits that cabin crew member controls the disgust and helps calm the passenger down. ''Spontaneously emergent work feelings'': Feelings about work emerge in response to work tasks. Generally these form around the organizations

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

and environment. This is natural and

management Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a Government agency, government bodies through business administration, Nonprofit studies, nonprofit management, or the political s ...

should not try to ascribe feelings to employees. When spontaneous feelings emerge they should be dealt with within the previously set intersubjective limitations. :Example: An example of this would be a study done on hair stylists. The study found that for the employee they found enjoyment when a

customer In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a Client (business), client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a Good (economics), good, service (economics), service, product (business), product, or an Intellectual prop ...

confided in them about a private matter. That consumer as well would find it satisfying, therefore more likely to return. ''Tolerance of

'': Complex emotions are likely to occur because of emotional labor (the process of controlling emotions during interactions at work). Bounded emotionality entails tolerance of these complex emotions. Contradictory feelings must coexist. This constitutes a new norm that wants to be aware of different positions, and even those directly opposite among its organizational members. :Example: People with low tolerance of ambiguity experience stress react prematurely and avoid ambiguous stimuli. The person with high tolerance will look at ambiguous situations as desirable, challenging, and interesting. ''

Heterarchy A heterarchy is a system of organization where the elements of the organization are unranked (non- hierarchical) or where they possess the potential to be ranked a number of different ways. Definitions of the term vary among the disciplines: in soc ...

values In ethics and social sciences, value denotes the degree of importance of some thing or action, with the aim of determining which actions are best to do or what way is best to live ( normative ethics), or to describe the significance of different a ...

'': The opposite of

hierarchy A hierarchy (from Ancient Greek, Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy ...

of values, or placing certain values as more important than others. A heterarchy of values means that no one is set above another. The context of situations and individual preferences determines what values may be prioritized in a given moment. There is not just one universal set of values guiding one's life choices. Heterarchy is designed for handling the innovative side of things therefore it requires a different form of conflict management. This helps prevent undermining the governing logic. :Example: An individual may highly value human life and be against abortion rights, but may be for the death penalty, or the other way around. ''Integrated self identity and authenticity'': Bounded emotionality assumes that people have one single

identity Identity may refer to: * Identity document * Identity (philosophy) * Identity (social science) * Identity (mathematics) Arts and entertainment Film and television * ''Identity'' (1987 film), an Iranian film * ''Identity'' (2003 film), an ...

. This means that their

personality Personality is any person's collection of interrelated behavioral, cognitive, and emotional patterns that comprise a person’s unique adjustment to life. These interrelated patterns are relatively stable, but can change over long time per ...

, their

, and their actions are the same no matter where they are physically. The goal of bounded emotionality is to make it easy to be one's

true self The true self (also known as real self, authentic self, original self and vulnerable self) and the false self (also known as fake self, idealized self, superficial self and pseudo self) are a psychological property dualism, dualism conceptualized ...

while at work. It means you are part of a social collective working toward obtaining goals for your organization. :Example: If an

actor An actor (masculine/gender-neutral), or actress (feminine), is a person who portrays a character in a production. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. ...

brings in private experiences to create an original character presentation. ''

Community A community is a social unit (a group of people) with a shared socially-significant characteristic, such as place, set of norms, culture, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given g ...

'': The purpose of bounded emotionality is to create a strong sense of community among its members. There is a need for connections within freedom and for diversity within individuality. Research has shown this structure works best in smaller organizations. :Example: When a director encourages questions and then the director discusses performance related critiques with them afterwards developing a sense of togetherness.

References

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