The gap in the literature comprises a deficit of deep and practical understanding of the action of the workers’ subjective relationship with emotion in organisations and at work. The literature does not expose the meaning of emotional intelligence in relation to the power discourse, largely because it is a technology of power in organisations. Whilst I see the emotional intelligence construct as shallow in its theory and directive in its application, I regard it as a starting place from which to critique and from which to unearth and gain access to deeper emotion. Overall, I believe there is a major gap in the contextualized research arising from the lack of emotionally engaged reflective practitioners who feel, think and take reflexive action to explore and come to know the role and position of emotion in and at work. There is a place for radical and
challenging research and theses that write the self whilst acknowledging the post- structural paradox of not permitting the fixing of the self in text. Foucault’s prison metaphor is a resounding sign that, to break out of the paradox, radical self writing and reflective research may be needed to liberate our emotion and unearth more and more of what we can know.
My literature discussion and reflection on my experience have firmed up my belief that:
1. Emotional intelligence is limited in definition and practical substance for application in organisations.
2. Over the past one hundred and twenty years the emotion discourse has been dominated by research into affect rather than emotion. Emotion is complex and does not lend itself to modernist rational thinking and research. The emotional intelligence vanguard has simplified and generalised emotion for society to
consume; as a result, research and practice in organisations have reified this pattern with a numbing impact on the role and place of emotions in work. This has left the researcher frustrated and fearful about how to change things in order to contribute to the discourse in different and individual ways.
3. A broader reading of the sociology, physiology and psychology of emotion combined with that of power in organisations has, despite the limitations in scope and content of my thesis, given rise to a new vista and landscape of emotion within which the reflective practitioner can journey. The place of subjectivity in power is described very often in a superior versus inferior sense (such as through labour process theory and other Marxist approaches). The subjective emotions of the individual are viewed in organisational study and practice as chaotic or problematic and so, perhaps understandably, are felt too difficult to grasp. The existing power relationships in the researched organisation can influence what and how the research is done, analysed and communicated.
4. The innovation process is central to organisations’ ability to survive and develop. My discussion of the literature uncovers the crucial place of emotion in ideas and innovation.
I set up the following central proposition and research questions.
limited by organisational power.
Research questions: Is emotion in organisations controlled and limited by power? Can the researcher grapple with the central problem of power in order to study emotion in a work context?
Can the conceptual model help to liberate the self and others in relationship to emotion in work?
What does this reveal about the role and contribution of emotion in work?
Can the researcher find a way to experience and write the self in a knowing process that transfers to others through the discourse?
2.12.1 The Conceptual Model of the reverse panopticon informing the
Conceptual Framework
Reflecting further on the literature, I draw on Hillman and Foucault in a profound way that has moved me. An enlightening phase arose when I saw what I call a “reverse panopticon” conceptual model.
The Panopticon metaphor has stayed by my side – quite literally in diagrammatic form – throughout the years of reading and reflective practitioning. I began to see EI as serving the central control tower of leaders; EI displays and affect promoted to the surveillent hierarchy, noting and checking off corporate behaviours. The self is
scrutinized by the appraisals, service and business plans of performative culture, with a lack of innovation in the prison cells (interacting only during permitted exercise
sessions) and qualified by the powerful leaders in the watch-tower. I appreciate that this paragraph may seem extreme or exaggerated but it has set up the possibilities for my research.
Following from the above interpretation of the panopticon metaphor I have formed a new conceptual model that is the foundation of my study. I have reversed the central watch-tower of controlling power over the individual. In this way I hypothesise that emotions with the self at the centre bring a capacity and power to interpret the
objectified world impacting on them. At different levels of operation of the
translated by layers of bureaucracy and processes (shown as boundaries) as they travel to where the individual is situated in the organisation in relation to the other. The individual is at the centre of power in the work they do (they can feel the power through engaging with their felt energy or emotions) and makes his or her own
subjective interpretations of work flows returning back out and within the organisation. The diagram below gives a simple illustration of my reflective practitioner position in the organisation being empowered by emotion through the self in relation to the other and others, and captures the active process of felt energy as a counter to the centralised objective power of an organisation (Figure 2.12.1).
Figure 2.12.1 The reverse panopticon conceptual model
KEY
Organisational boundary
Myself or others receiving and perceiving instructions in the contextualised centre of our organisation
Interpretation of objectives by self or other powered with emotion
Organisational objectives, instructions coming to the self or
Waves of objectives arriving at the centre
Re-interpretations and ideas in relationship with emotion at interfaces
Interpretations and ideas of rational objectives at interfaces of self and? others (directed by organisational power)
3.0 Chapter 3 Methodology