Navigating the Limits of a SmilE

Navigating the Limits of a Smile

Navigating the Limits of a Smile

Introduction to Human Communication

Organizational connection is a subfield of the bigger control and respect of connection studies. Organizational connection, as a area, is the concern, investigation, and criticism of the function of connection in organizational contexts. (Jansma, 2000)

The area finds its lineage through enterprise data, enterprise communication, and early mass connection investigations published in the 1930s through the 1950s. Until then, organizational connection as a control and respect consisted of a couple of lecturers inside talk agencies who had a specific interest in speaking and composing in enterprise settings. The present area is well established with its own theories and empirical concerns distinct from other connection subfields and other advances to organizations. Several seminal publications stand out as works broadening the scope and identifying the significance of communication in the coordinating process, and in using the period "organizational communication". Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon composed in 1947 about "organization communications systems", saying communication is "absolutely absolutely vital to organizations". W. Charles Redding performed a prominent function in the establishment of organizational connection as a discipline. (Ownsely, 2000)

Case Study

This case study serves to illustrate the complexities and potential abuses of emotion labor and unobtrusive/concertive control in organizations. Emotion labor is considered to be the organizationally mandated commodification and control of employee emotional display. The cruise staff job, consisted almost primarily of emotion labor; as Blake said, "Our job is our personality." Nothing is inherently wrong with emotion management, or the effort people expend on making sure that their private feelings are expressed in a way that is consistent with social norms or expectations. Anyone who has ever put effort into appearing somber at a funeral or joyous at a wedding has engaged in emotion management. (Jansma, 2000)

When this emotion system leaves the doors of private life and enters the gates of public institutions, however, it is "transmuted" and a "profit motive slips in". In other words, when employees are paid to churn out a smile, extend a stoic voice tone or portray a polite demeanor, they are no longer engaging in simple emotion management, but rather are entering the realm of emotion labor, something that can become problematic as emotion becomes "processed, standardized and subject to hierarchical control". The worker must give up control over her emotions and maintain an organizationally prescribed mask— whether that is a mask of fun-loving pleasantry, as in the case of Disney employees (Van Maanen and Kunda, 1989) or one of concerned irritation, as in the case of bill collectors. As Fineman (1993) explains, maintaining such a mask "can be fun; an exquisite drama…it can also be stressful and alienating". (Tracy, 2000)

Maintaining the mask can also be difficult because, in many emotion labor-laden jobs, the control of employees is multi-faceted and unobtrusive, and therefore difficult to resist. In traditional jobs, work conflicts are generally couched in terms of employee versus supervisor interests and control measures are largely in the form of, visible ...