UCL School of Management is delighted to welcome Olivia (Mandy) O’Neill, George Mason University , to host a research seminar discussing: Love hurts: The unintended consequences of an emotional culture of companionate love.

Abstract:

Love hurts: The unintended consequences of an emotional culture of companionate love

Olivia (Mandy) O’Neill, Associate Professor, George Mason University

Yoonjin Choi, Assistant Professor, William & Mary

Recent work has highlighted the emotional component of organizational culture, known as emotional culture. Early work on emotional culture has documented the ways in companionate love—comprised of affection, caring, compassion, fondness, and tenderness—enhances employee, team, and organizational outcomes. Yet other studies suggest that the implications of strong cultures of love are not as straightforward as some studies would suggest. Taken together, the relationship between the culture of companionate love and employee and organizational outcomes remains elusive. The present research addresses this puzzle by disentangling the factors contributing to heterogeneity of emotional cultures of companionate love within organizations. We investigated our research question through a quantitative study of Glassdoor culture ratings from S&P 500 companies and a mixed method study of emotional culture at a global technology company. We theorize that the positive effects of a culture of companionate love may backfire when love is intensely shared among a subgroup of members. Evidence from national language processing analysis of culture ratings across a variety of organizations, qualitative analysis of over 100 employee interviews and 11 organizational site visits, and quantitative analysis of employee survey responses and archival human resources data support our theory. Organizations and organizational units where most members describe love as characteristic of the emotional culture while a few strongly disagree showed the weakest performance and the highest rate of voluntary exits, even compared to those with no evidence of a culture of companionate love. Employees who perceived heterogeneity in emotional culture of companionate love expressed resentment and reported favoritism, unfairness, and ingroup-outgroup tensions. We interpret our findings in light of the literatures on organizational culture, emotions, and work relationships.