Employee emotions during organizational change—Towards a new research agenda

SummaryIn this research note, we address the role of employee emotions during organizational change processes. While prior studies have examined emotions during a single change, such research analyzes emotions and change as snapshot events. In addition, we lack sufficient knowledge of the role of employee emotions during repeated changes, despite the evidence that organizations increasingly need to adapt to dynamic environments. We address these shortcomings and offer a research agenda on emotions during change, which incorporates the so far neglected view of emotions as processes that unfold during and across organizational changes. Specifically, we illustrate the role of employee emotions during sequential and simultaneous changes and offer six suggestions for future research on emotions in such contexts.

► We identify major shortcomings in extant research on emotions in organizational change, namely, the orthogonal and static definition of emotions, the neglecting of change as a process, and the focus on single organizational change.
► We develop a new research agenda that includes a dynamic conception of emotions and organizational change and offers an integrated view on emotions within repeated organizational changes.
► We suggest six future research propositions on the dynamic unfolding of emotions during and across organizational change processes.
► The suggestions presented in this research note extend research on emotions in single changes to the context of repeated organizational change processes, illustrated by the scenarios of sequential and simultaneous organizational changes.