NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND

KNOWLEDGE WORK PERFORMANCE

Maiju Vuolle and Harri Laihonen

I f k a d 2 0 1 4 Matera, Italy

Agenda today

• Background and motivation for the paper

• Overall knowledge work performance + well-being

• Findings from the literature

• Summary and next steps

NEMO Business Value from Negative Emotions

How negative and contradictory emotions influence

intangible assets of the firm? (TUT)

~ 20 SMEs and large companies

Motivation – Inner work life

• Literature review on the role of negative emotions in

knowledge work context; how to benefit from naturally

occuring negative moods?

• Motivation and performance results from the constant

interplay of perceptions, emotions and motivations triggered

by workday events (Amabile & Kramer, 2007)

Affective events at work

Inner work lifeWorkplace behavior

and outcomes

Antecedents Negative emotions Consequences

OVERALL KNOWLEDGE

WORK PERFORMANCE

Task performance

Creative performance

Contextual performance

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB)

WELL-BEING AT WORK

Burnout OR Boredom

Engagement Workaholic

Satisfied ’just 9 to 5’

(e.g., Russell and Feldman Barrett, 1999; Cropanzano et al. 2003; Salanova et al., 2014; Shaufeli & Salanova, 2014; Koopmans et al., 2013)

Findings from the literature

1. Three types of well-being at work (workaholic, burnout and

boredom) and link to overall job performance of knowledge

workers.

2. Certain types of affective events, such as understimulation,

pressure and previous counterproductive work behavior can

lead to positive work behavior and high performance.

3. Negative emotions can lead to engagement and creative

performance through affective shifts.

Linking affective events, emotions

and performance

Boredom

Anger

Guilt

Co-worker lack of performance, Organizational constraints, Lack of expected rewards

Understimulation

(Ohly & Smith 2013; Spector & Fox, 2010; Cushen & Thompson, 2012)

Task performance

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB)

Contextual performance

Mood-as-information perspective

• Creative performance - hard work and effort;

– “individuals in negative mood tend to find novel and useful ideas

because they are more critical, push themselves more, sees need for

change, identifies problems in current situations etc.”

• In supportive contexts, negative emotions can lead to creative

performance through interaction of negative and positive

moods.

High negative mood

High Positive mood

(George & Zhou, 2002; George & Zhou, 2007)

Creative performance

Summary of the findings

Positive and negative affective

events(e.g., problem

solving, feedback, control, conflicts, job demands, structural

liabilities)

Perceptions Emotions

Motivation

Well-being- Engagement

- Burnout, Boredom- Workaholic

- 9 to 5

Antecedents Inner work life Behavior and outcome

Overall job performance- Task performance

- Creative performance- Organisational citizenship- Counterproductive work

Next steps

• The initial results provides a starting point for the empirical

research.

• Identifying and testing research methods for empirical case

studies on creative knowledge workers (questionnaires, diary

studies, experience sampling, mobile applications etc.)

• Identifying and developing tools for individuals, teams and

managers to become better with negative emotions.

Maiju Vuolle, D.Sc. Tech.

Novi research center

@Noviresearch

www.tut.fi/novi

@MaijuVuolle

maiju.vuolle@tut.fi