Managing Workforce Emotions Using Systems Approach in Digital Workplace

The study aims to improve the current understanding of the work environment and related workforce emotional experiences by reinterpreting them from a systems perspective. The study focuses on adopting human-centric design principles for managing the emotional experiences of the employees in day-to-day operations so that positive emotions can be amplified and negative/damaging emotions can be attenuated to create a positive work environment. A constructivist approach has been used to introduce the systems theory of the Viable System Model and its structural principles in the field of organizational behavior for comprehending the features of work environment and the affective events occurring within holistically. A systemic analysis is conducted from the first-tier journals of organizational behavior and systemic thinking to propose a conceptual model for diagnosing the work features of the organizational system and the emotional work events occurring within in totality, to understand work aspects that trigger emotions among the workforce so that a positive work environment can be provided to them. The study proposes that a Viable System Model (VSM), known as the theory of organizational viability, offers a “meta-language” helpful in diagnosing and designing the structural elements of the organization and the interactions existing within from different perspectives. The workplace events classified under the VSM’s functional components allow viewing the contribution of functions in producing workforce emotions in totality. The interactive relationships between the VSM components give a consolidated account of the relations inherent to the collaborative functioning of the social organizations, helpful in comprehending the influence of organizational relations on employee’s emotions. It can contribute to the holistic understanding of the work environment and the related features, facilitating managers to deal with the behavioral complexity existing in the system. The study develops a theoretical framework for emotion measurement, capable of giving a holistic view of the work environment and emotion-oriented work events in digitalized work settings. The use of the cybernetics approach in emotions measurement methodologies has been proposed for the first time since the initial development of this field of investigation, which is unique.