Introduction

This chapter presents an overview of some of the emergent literature on the 'dark side' of organisations, paying particular attention to the ways in which the metaphor has been used in mainstream and more critical bodies of literature. It discusses 'darkness' in relation to emotional labour discourse as exploitation, as alienation, as dissonance and as gendered accounts. The 'dark side' metaphor emerged most visibly in the 1990s as a critical response to frustrations with mainstream managerialism's reluctance to address difficult ethical, political and ideological issues that arise within and from organisational practices, process and experiences. Neofunctionalists were energised by the concept of feeling rules, emphasising the rule-governed aspect of micro-interactions to elucidate the multidimensional nature of service interactions. Morris and Feldman take a functionalist view of the dimensions, antecedents and consequences of emotional labour, concluding that only emotional dissonance leads to lower job satisfaction. The chapter also presents an overview of organisation of subsequent chapters in this book.