Because of the rapid growth in literature on emotion and communication in organizations and the many disciplinary homes of this work, scholars use many conceptualizations of emotion in the workplace. In this article, the authors map the terrain of emotion and communication in the workplace. They first review extant literature and argue for five types of organizational emotion: emotional labor (inauthentic emotion in interaction with customers and clients), emotional work (authentic emotion in interaction customers and clients), emotion with work (emotion stemming from interaction with coworkers), emotion at work (emotion from nonwork sources experienced in the work-place), and emotion toward work (emotions in which work is the target of the feeling). They then explore these types of emotion through an analysis of workplace narratives from the books Working (Terkel, 1972) and Gig (Bowe, Bowe, & Streeter, 2000). Themes that characterize workplace emotion are considered, and directions for future research are proposed.

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Previous research on organizational dissent has explored a number of issues, but that research has been overly focused on the dissenter while neglecting the active role of others in co-constructing dissent. That line of scholarship has also tended to examine dissent expressions in isolation rather than exploring how previous experiences shape present expectations. This essay redefines dissent to situate interaction centrally and to focus on dissent interactions over time as a process rather than a one-time event. The success or failure of dissent is conceptualized as part of that process. Such a perspective reveals nuances by including the stories and discourses that are told as part of and in addition to an initial dissent conversation. A case study demonstrates how this reconceptualization of dissent recognizes the primary importance of interaction in constituting organizations and advances process theory by explicating the value such a perspective adds to this context.

Nonprofit organizations often depend on volunteers, so volunteer retention is an important priority for these organizations. Yet volunteers may be on the periphery of communication, particularly when it comes to voicing feedback to others within the organization. The present study examines volunteers’ satisfaction, motivations, and the ways in which those volunteers respond to problems in the organization. Results indicate relationships between participants’ satisfaction and motivation and their responses to problems. Motivation, satisfaction, and responses to frustrating events all affect volunteer retention. The theoretical implications of these results regarding volunteer voice and retention are discussed as well as practical implications, which suggest that nonprofit organizations should be more intentional in terms of volunteer motivations, ensure that volunteers feel supported and have opportunities to connect with other people in their volunteer work, and encourage volunteers to express their ideas using considerate voice.

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