This paper identifies the relative effectiveness of two mechanisms of emotional contagion on shared emotion in teams: explicit mechanism (active spreading of one’s emotion) and implicit mechanism (passive mimicry of others’ emotion). Using social network analysis, this paper analyzes affective communication networks involving or excluding a focal person in the process of emotional contagion by disaggregating team emotional contagion into individual acts of sending or receiving emotion-laden responses. Through an experiment with 38 pre-existing work teams, including undergraduate or MBA project teams and teams of student club or co-op officers, we found that the explicit emotional contagion mechanism was a more stable channel for emotional contagion than the implicit emotional contagion mechanism. Active participation in affective communication, measured by outdegree centrality in affective communication networks, was positively and significantly associated with emotional contagion with other members. In contrast, a team member’s passive observation of humor, measured by ego network density, led to emotional divergence when all other members engaged in humor communication. Our study sheds light on the micro-level process of emotional contagion. The individual-level process of emotional convergence varies with the relational pattern of affective networks, and emotion contagion in teams depends on the interplay of the active expresser and the passive spectator in affective networks.

Prior research on cross-cultural negotiation has emphasized the cognitive and the behavioral elements. This study takes a different perspective and presents a motivation–emotion model of cross-cultural negotiation. We propose that the cultural differences in chronic regulatory focus will lead to cultural biases in emotion recognition, which in turn will affect negotiation behaviors. People are inclined to perceive and behave in ways that enhance regulatory fit. Westerners and East Asians, who each have different chronic regulatory focus, are likely to interpret the negotiation situation differently in order to increase their regulatory fit. Specifically, this study proposes that when the emotion of the opponent is ambiguous, people from different cultural backgrounds may show cultural biases in emotion recognition, concentrating on the emotion that fits their chronic regulatory focus. Drawing on the Emotion as Social Information (EASI) model, this study discusses how these cultural biases in emotion recognition can affect people’s negotiation behaviors. Finally, some possible moderators of the motivation–emotion model including power and emotion recognition accuracy are suggested to promote sustainable practices in cross-cultural negotiation.

Purpose: This study investigates how organizational control systems induce emotional labor in frontline service employees (FLEs). Drawing on the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) theory, we hypothesized that two control systems, an outcome-based control system (OBCS) and a behavior-based control system (BBCS), trigger work engagement rather than organizational dehumanization in FLEs, leading them to choose deep acting rather than surface acting as an emotional labor strategy.Design/methodology/approach: This study employed three-wave online surveys conducted 3–4 months apart to assess the time-lagged effects of S-O-R. We measured OBCS, BBCS (stimuli) and control variables at Time 1 (T1); work engagement and organizational dehumanization (organisms) at Time 2 (T2) and emotional labor strategies (responses) at Time 3 (T3). A total of 218 employees completed the T1, T2 and T3 surveys.Findings: OBCS increased work engagement, leading to increased deep acting. BBCS enhanced organizational dehumanization, leading to increased surface acting. Post-hoc analysis confirmed that the indirect effect of OBCS on deep acting through work engagement and the mediation effect of BBCS on surface acting through organizational dehumanization were statistically significant.Originality/value: This study collected three-wave data to reveal how organizational control systems affect FLEs’ emotional labor in the S-O-R framework. It illustrated how organizations induce FLEs to perform effective emotional strategies by investigating the effects of organizational control systems on their internal states.