If organizational behavior is shaped by a set of rational tools and processes, it is nevertheless grounded in a sensitive and affective web of relations. Deprived of this web, organizations are portrayed as insensitive, anaesthetized, disaffected. However, including affects as objects of study risks distorting the picture and thus losing sight of what we aim to understand. We thus propose three research strategies that try to respect organizational dynamics imposed by affects, preserving the intensities and dualities of affects. We conclude by calling for organizational behavior research that is open both to rationality and affects, intelligibility and sensitivity.
- affects
- affective turn
- sensitivity
- autoethnography
- ordinary affects
- performance ethnography