ABSTRACT

The following article was published in 1999, at a time when the topic of emotion in organizations was generally ignored by organizational scholars. Very few studies of the emotions of organizational life existed, and few scholars of emotion were given credence in a theoretical world dominated by the rationality of ‘management science’. Hochschild’s 1983 study had caused a stir in the service industry, and a number of similar publications followed, but studies of emotional labour had remained firmly rooted in the service industry for a number of years.