Emotion and Management Learning

Abstract

This article argues that what and how learning takes place for managers is inextricably emotional, or of emotions. The traditional cognitive approach to management learning has obscured the presence and role of emotion. The conceptual positioning of emotion is reviewed, illustrated though `competencies' and `business ethics'. It is concluded that we need more explicit frameworks, derived from the wider organizational literature on emotion, to place emotion as both a product and process of learning. Special attention is required to the growth of corporate emotion engineering, flexible' work structures and `virtual' managing. These areas raise challenging technical and moral questions for `learning' theorists and practitioners.