Themed articles: Virtuality and emotion: Introduction

Abstract

In this special section we seek to explore the relationship between emotions and virtuality. In particular, we are interested in understanding how emotions are constructed, modified or suppressed within the virtual environment.In the last few years there has been an overwhelming increase in the number of studies on virtual organizations and virtual teams (e.g. Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1999;Lipnack & Stamps, 1997). Running parallel has been a vigorous interest in emotion in organizations (e.g. Domagalski, 1999;Fineman, 2006Fineman, , 2007. Rarely, however, have these streams of research met. This seems strange given the commonplace experience that working in a virtual environment is far from emotionally void. Virtual workplaces are sites where people bond, trust, love, get angry, frustrated, make friends, create enemies, shape their identities, confront their loneliness, feel oppressed or liberated.These are, of course, everyday happenings in the non-virtual organization. Virtual working, however, removes most, if not all, of the corporeal cues that have underpinned much of our understanding of the social construction of emotion, axiomatic to organizing and meaning making. Yet the rhetoric of virtuality is upbeat, a vision of a brave new world of organizational efficiency. The popular literature describes it as a communication intensive form of organizing that collapses conventional boundaries of space and time. It promises flexibility and responsiveness by shifting the work and expertise to as-needed bases through ever-evolving technologies. So organizations are increasingly investing in information tools with collaborative potentials, enabling them not only to take advantage of globally dispersed business partners and competent workforces, but also to transform themselves into virtual organizations. E-mail, mobile phones, video-conferencing, teleconferencing, as well as group support systems, web-based discussion 5 5 5 Human Relations

Virtual Teams Research

“…As a result of the theorized salient role that well-being may play within VTs and the absence of empirical considerations of the topic, we echo the sentiments of Fineman, Maitlis, and Panteli (2007) who called for research to consider how emotions are constructed, modified, or suppressed within VT environments. A possible starting point might be to consider the work engagement framework.…”

Towards unions 2.0: rethinking the audience of social media engagement

“…ICTs have usually been associated with workplace surveillance and Internet monitoring (Bain and Taylor, ; Stoney Alder et al ., ; Ball, ; Ball and Margulis, ). However, they now seem to be able to offer more positive effects within and possibly outside working hours, especially given the fact that virtual workplaces already surpass conventional boundaries of space and time (Fineman et al ., ).…”

The catalytic role of emotions in sensemaking: Evidence from the blogosphere

“…The use of blogs as a source of research data is especially appropriate for studying sensemaking since blogs are a place where people express themselves with a specific type of audience/reader in mind (Nardi et al, 2004). Fineman et al (2007) expanded the study of emotions to include the virtual world-a context that includes "sites where people bond, trust, love, get angry, frustrated, make friends, create enemies, shape their identities, confront loneliness, feel oppressed or liberated" (p. 555). This is especially likely to be the case with online internal blogs.…”

“…Indeed, literature has found that individuals spend a great deal of time managing aspects of their online identity (Ellison, 2007;Harrison and Thomas, 2009), making blogs appropriate ground for study of identity-related sense processes and emotion. Fineman et al (2007) also observed that researchers entering the virtual work territory face a heavy legacy of emotion research in "non-virtual" organizations. While many organizations are likely to be a mix of virtual and non-virtual settings, virtual settings are best regarded as different and analyzable in their own right-a new social production (Fineman, 2003;Handy, 1995).…”

“…Also, participants in blog "conversations" can post comments using pseudonyms, providing a veil of anonymity. As Fineman et al (2007) note, virtual settings offer creative opportunities for individuals to experiment with the construction and expression of feeling. Thus, one of the ways we ascribed emotionality to blog text was when specific expression of emotion occurred (described in detail in the findings section).…”