Title: Antecedents and consequences of positive emotions in the workplace

Authors: Avas Sahu; Kailash B.L. Srivastava

Addresses: First Floor, Ispat Bhawan Durgapur Steel Plant, Durgapur – 713203, West Bengal, India ' Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur – 721302, West Bengal, India

Abstract: This paper examined the relationship of social relations, role characteristics; transformational leadership and group emotions with positive individual emotions, its consequences on job satisfaction, stress, work motivation, individual performance and the mediating effect of positive emotions on the relationship of antecedent and outcome variables. The data were collected from 406 respondents from six organisations across hierarchy. The results suggested that social relations, transformational leadership and group emotions significantly predicted positive emotions, but role conflict and role ambiguity negatively predicted positive emotions. Positive emotions significantly predicted job satisfaction, work motivation and individual performance, but negatively predicted stress. Positive emotions also mediated the relationship between antecedent and outcome variables. The study contributes to the literature by identifying the role of certain individual and group level factors in building positive emotions and its impact on employee performance, motivation and satisfaction. The implications of the study are discussed.

Keywords: emotions; social relations; role conflict and ambiguity; transformational leadership; group emotions; positive emotions; work motivation; job satisfaction; stress; individual performance; antecedents; consequences; workplace; organisation.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWOE.2017.086428

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 2017 Vol.8 No.2, pp.99 - 117

Received: 18 Jun 2016
Accepted: 15 Mar 2017

Published online: 10 Sep 2017 *

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