Guilt by design: Structuring organizations to elicit guilt as an affective reaction to failure

摘要

When employees fail/poorly perform their tasks, they experience a form of negative emotion. Some of the negative emotions may be adaptive such as guilt and some maladaptive such as shame. The research work has tried to outline a model of how organizations can shape employees' discrete affective reactions to performance failure especially by promoting guilt without simultaneously fostering shame. The paper outlines a theory of how employees' negative reactions to failure can be modified so that they are less debilitating (although not necessarily less negative). The paper discusses some of the antecedents of guilt and how promoting guilt over shame reactions in response to performance failures at work can be advantageous for both individual employees and organizations. The paper also discusses a set of organizational characteristics -namely, autonomy, specificity of performance feedback, and outcome interdependence - that can increase the likelihood that employees will experience guilt without simultaneously increasing the likelihood that they will experience shame. The implications of the research work in terms theoretical and practical limits of shaping employees' emotional experiences, especially forms of negative effect. (136 refs.)