Positive Emotions Remediate the Communal and Exchange Relationships at the Workplace: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Positive emotions are contagious in nature and hence, play an important role at the workplace. Two emotions, i.e., Companionate love, a mixed emotion and Joy, a positive emotion, have been taken for this research study as they significantly affect the relationships amongst the employees in the organization. An organization-public relationship consists of two types of relationships i.e.: communal and exchange. A communal relationship is a relationship in which employees help each other without expecting something in return, but in the exchange relationship, they expect a return on their favours. This research study is based on the primary data employing a sample size of 108 employees from Delhi-NCR organisations. It was hypothesized that companionate love and joy have a significant positive association with communal relationships and exchange relationships. Structural equation modelling has been performed to analyze the data. Results depict that companionate love has a significant negative association with both communal and exchange relationships. On the contrary, joy revealed a significant positive association with communal and exchange relationships. The reason is love is comparatively an 'others-driven emotion', in which one person's emotions are dependent on others; love is a mixed emotion which can bring jealousy, possessiveness, dominance, and love. On the other side, joy is a 'self-driven emotion' in which a happy person is happy on his own, too. Joy is a positive emotion which brings happiness, pleasure and joviality. This research study contributes insights into Emotions at the workplace for human Resource Managers, Top Level Managers and Policymakers regarding the employee welfare schemes and mental well-being of the employees at the workplace.