Conflict as it happens

Abstract

Although emotions are relevant for conflicts and conflicted interactions, the role of emotions in organizational conflicts has remained understudied. This case study aimed to shed light on conflicted interactions within organizations, looking at the role of nonverbal affective elements in the interactions. Bringing together organizational "becoming" and embodiment approaches, the study focused on a conflict which emerged during a multi-actor consulting conversation. To our knowledge, no previous organizational research has provided a detailed description of a conflicted interaction "as it happened" between clients and a consultant. The episode in question was analyzed via a micro-level discursive method which focused specifically on the participants' use of prosodic and nonverbal behaviors in conveying emotions. Changes in prosody were found to have an This is the accepted manuscript of the article, which has been published in Journal of organizational change management. 2018.

Emotional competence at work

“…Overall, the findings of the study support previous studies (e.g. Huy, 2011;Kykyri and Puutio, 2018;Manzoor et al, 2018); these have emphasized the complexity of emotions within the social processes of organizations and the multiple interpretations that can be placed on them.…”