Affective Events theory, Study Guides, Projects, Research of Social Psychology of Emotion

Download Affective Events theory and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Social Psychology of Emotion in PDF only on Docsity! Later published as “ Affective Events theory: A strategic perspective”. In Zerbe, W.J., Hartel, C.E.J. and Ashkanasy, N. M. (Ed.) Research on Emotion on Organizations. Volume 4: Emotions, Ethics, and Decision-Making (pp.1-34) Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing/JAI Press. AFFECTIVE EVENTS THEORY: A STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE Claire E. Ashton-James and Neal M. Ashkanasy Abstract Although there has been increasing interest in the role of affect in work settings, the impact of moods and emotions in strategic decision making remains largely unexplored. In this essay, we address this shortcoming by proposing a conceptual model of strategic decision making that incorporates, at its core, the impact of affective states on cognitive processes that are integral to the decision outcome. The model is based on the principles of Affective Events Theory, which holds that environmental exigencies generate ‘affective events’ that cause emotional reactions in organizational members which, in turn, determine members’ attitudes and behaviors. We extend this model to include the effect of the extra-organizational environment, and propose that emotions ‘infuse’ those cognitive processes that are critical to the strategic decision process. We conclude that strategic decision making in organizations is not always a controlled, deliberate, purely cognitive process, as it is often described. Rather, we contend that the moods and emotions that managers experience in response to positive and negative workplace events have a significant affect on strategic decision making processes and ultimately, organizational-level outcomes. We discuss the implications of our model for theory, research, and practice. KEY WORDS: Affective Events Theory; affect; emotions; strategic decision making. AFFECTVE EVENTS THEORY: A STRATEGIC PERSPECTIVE Since publication of the groundbreaking article by Pekrun and Frese (1992), the topic of emotion and affect in organizational settings has steadily gained credence, to the point that it is now attracting considerable attention in the mainstream management and IO psychology literature. This is evidenced in recent special issues of journals (e.g., Ashkanasy, 2004; Fisher & Ashkanasy, 2000; Fox, 2002; Humphrey, 2002; Weiss, 2001, 2002) and edited books (e.g., Ashkanasy, Härtel, & Zerbe; 2000, Ashkanasy, Zerbe, & Härtel; 2002, 2005; Fineman, 1993, 2000, Lord, Klimoski, & Kanfer, 2002; Payne & Cooper, 2001; Härtel, Zerbe, & Ashkanasy, 2005). Indeed, Barsade, Brief, & Spataro (2003) have gone so far as to declare that an “affective revolution” is under way in the study of organizational behavior. To date, however, with the notable exception of Daniels (1999, 2000), there has been little written of the application of affect theories of organizational behavior in the context of strategic management. Thus, although Weick (1979) asked 25 years ago, “Where’s the heat?” (see Ray, 1995), the myth that strategic management is a cold, rational process persists. In particular, no one to date appears to have attempted to apply some of the plethora of recent research findings on affect and cognition to the decision-making processes that underpin strategic management. In this article, we attempt to redress this situation by presenting a critical review of the role played by affect in organizational settings, with a focus on the impact of affect on the cognitive processes of strategic decision making. Our analysis of the role played by moods and emotions in strategic decision outcomes in organizations is based on Affective Events Theory (AET: Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996) as well as social cognitive research on affective influences on cognition and behavior (Bower, 1981; Forgas, 2002; Schwarz & Clore, 1990). AET holds that organizational events trigger affective responses in organizational members, with consequences for workplace attitudes, cognition, and behavior. Although Weiss and Cropanzano developed their theory with specific reference to micro-level attitudes and behaviors within the organization, we apply this basic model of organizational and extra-organizational environments generate ‘affective events’, which result in emotional responses on the behalf of the organizational actors – in this instance, the top management team responsible for strategic decision-making. Intra-organizational affective events include stress-related workplace events, the physical setting, work-group characteristics, and leader-member exchanges – ultimately all derived from the goals set in place by top management strategic decisions. Extra-organizational affective events include (1) organizational change events,; (2) economic, legal, and political events; and (3) inter-organizational negotiations. The emotions that are invoked are the negative emotions of anger, disgust, and fear/anxiety, and the positive emotions of joy and happiness. Each of these emotions has a discrete effect on cognitive functioning which underpins strategic management and decision- making, which is based on a process of matching organizational goals with events and contingencies in the environment. These decisions are ultimately reflected in the nature of the organizational goals that are set by the strategy maker for the organization as a whole which, in turn, generate intra-organizational affective events. Figure 1. A model of affect and cognition in strategic decision-making We propose in particular that affective states influence the content or valence of the cognitive processes that are involved in strategic decision making, as well as the information processing style used to formulate strategic decisions. In the remainder of this article, we discuss each of the elements of Figure 1 in turn, beginning with the antecedents of affect. Antecedents of Affect in Organizational Settings As we have noted earlier, the analysis we present here is founded on the principles of Affective Events Theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). The crux of AET is that elements of the organizational environment that are perceived to facilitate or to impair an organizational member’s progress toward workplace goals (i.e., experienced hassles or uplifts, often in response Emotion Anger Sadness Disgust Fear/Anxiety Strategic Management Decision-Making Strategic Management Cognition Perception Formulation Implementation Inter- organizational negotiation Organizational change events Economic, legal, and political events Impulsive affect-driven decisions Affective Events Emotions and moods Action tendencies and processing style Strategic Organizational Outcomes Strategic Decision Processes ra to events derived from top managers’ strategic decisions) lead to transient positive or negative affective responses (Weiss and Cropanzano, 1996). In the traditional sense of AET, however, events are construed to be intra-organization, and include stress-related workplace events (Folkman and Lazarus, 1984), elements of the physical setting (e.g., se Wasserman, Rafaeli, and Kluger, 2000), work-group characteristics (see Barsade, 2000), and leader-member relationships and exchange (Dasborough & Ashkanasy, 2002). In this essay, however, we extend Weiss and Cropanzano’s (1996) analysis of affective events to include extra-organizational events that impact on the organization as a whole. These are described in the following paragraphs. Organizational change Organizational change has been identified as a major source of stress for managers and employees (Mack, Nelson, & Quick, 1998; Mak & Mueller, 2001; Weiss, 2002). In recent years, researchers have studied organizational members’ emotional responses to a variety of organizational change situations such as downsizing (Brockner, 1988; Torkelson & Muhonen, 2003), mergers (Buono & Bowditch, 1989; Schweiger & DeNisi, 1991), job redesign (Mak & Mueller, 2001), and others associated with organizational restructuring (Begley, 1998; Everly, 1999). Collectively, this research demonstrates that organizational change causes chronic occupational stress that has carry-over effects on family functioning (Dowd & Bolus, 1998), psychological health (Everly, 1999), physical health (Torkelson & Muhonen, 2003), job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and loyalty (Schweiger & DiNisi, 1991).There are several social, cognitive and psychological consequences of organizational change that have a negative impact upon employees’ affective wellbeing. Organizational restructuring is associated with decreased job security (Ashford, Lee & Bobko, 1989; Jordan, Ashkanasy, & Härtel, 2002), role conflict (Yousef, 2000), ambiguity and uncertainty (French, 2001), and decreased social support as work teams are redistributed (Swanson & Power, 2001). While the impact of organizational change on employees’ affective wellbeing is negative in the short-term, organizational restructuring and innovation is necessary for organizations to negotiator. On the other hand, if the negotiator evaluates the other party’s behavior as impeding progress towards the negotiation of desired outcomes, negative emotions emerge (Kumar, 1997). In summary, while research in respect of affective reactions to external environmental events is not as extensive or as detailed as the research relating to events in the internal environment, the three aspects of the environment that we have discussed above provide sufficient indicative evidence to justify our assertion that events external to the organization do, indeed, constitute affective events. In particular, there are the events that are arguably likely to have the most impact on the top management teams, who have responsibility for strategic decision-making (e.g., as evidenced in Keck & Tushmen, 1993). Consequences of Affective Events for Cognition and Behavior A key component of AET is that organizational members’ cognitions and behavior at work are much more likely to be affected by the way they feel on a moment-to-moment basis than by stable belief systems or previously formed attitudes about those workplace events (Fisher, 2000; Weiss, Nicholas & Daus, 1999). Furthermore, an essential property of emotions is that they constitute ‘action tendencies’ to engage in specific forms of behavior directed towards the reversal or maintenance of the felt affective state (Frijda, 1986). As Frijda observes, “Emotions, then, can be defined as modes of relational action readiness, either in the form of tendencies to establish, maintain, or disrupt a relationship with the environment or in the form of relational readiness as such” (p.71). Weiss and Cropanzano refer to behavior that is motivated by emotional state as being “affect-driven”, as opposed to “judgment-driven”. Typical negative affect-driven behaviors include emotional outbursts, sensation-seeking behaviors such as risk- taking and rule-breaking (Ashkanasy, Härtel & Daus, 2002). Research has shown, however, that specific emotional states lead to specific action tendencies and thus different affect-driven behavior (DeSteno, Petty, Wegener, & Rucker, 2000). In the following section of this article, therefore, we deal with the effects of different emotions, with reference to the specific action tendencies that each emotion has been observed to provoke. We focus on the five basic emotions identified by Ekman (1984).1 Emotion and action tendencies The impact of incidental emotions on an individual’s reactions to and evaluations of unrelated events is well documented (for a review, see Loewenstein & Lerner, 2002). Although emotions function to help the individual respond to the emotion-eliciting event, action tendencies associated with specific emotions persist beyond the target situation, and affect behaviors in subsequent situations (Forgas, 1995; Lerner & Keltner, 2000). It is important, therefore, to understand how specific emotions elicited within or outside the organization may affect behavior, cognition, and decision-making processes within the organizational context. Anger The emotion of anger is triggered by an event or object in the environment that is perceived to be a demeaning offence against oneself or one’s own (Lazarus, 1991). As such, anger provokes the action tendency to preserve or to enhance self-esteem against assault. Although it is often inhibited for personal and social reasons, the innate action tendency in anger is attack on the agent held to be blameworthy for the offence (Averill, 1980, 1982, 1983). Accordingly, this action tendency is facilitated by heightened physiological arousal (increased heart rate, adrenal secretions, sweat gland activity) in aid of action readiness. In a state of anger, there is an increased likelihood of impulsive behavior (Parrott & Zeichner, 2003) and social or personal risk taking (Harmon-Jones, 2003). Lerner and Keltner (2001) found in an experimental study that angry people express more optimistic risk assessments and display more risk-seeking behavior. This finding is consistent with Lerner and 1 Ekman also identified ‘surprise’ as a basic for of emotional expression, but notes that this is in a special category, and distinct from the other basic emotions. Keltner’s (2000) appraisal tendency theory, according to which anger is associated with perceived certainty and control over the outcomes of behaviors and decisions. Alternatively, Bushman, Baumeister, and Phillips (2001) propose that risk-taking behavior is a form of mood repair. It may also be the case that risky decision-making associated with anger is a manifestation of a need to exert control over the environment that has, in an unrelated incident, caused offence or harm (Folligstad, Bradley, Helff & Laughlin, 2002). Sadness Sadness is triggered by a real or perceived absence or loss, or threat of loss (Ekman, 1984). Sadness, as opposed to anger, is not characterized by heightened action readiness and physiological arousal. While anger and other emotions such as fear/anxiety and disgust are associated with psychological engagement and activity, sadness involves resignation and disengagement. Sadness is accompanied by the appraisal tendency for helplessness in the face of irrevocable loss. Correspondingly, sadness evokes the implicit goal of changing personal circumstances (Lerner et al., 2004; Loewenstein & Lerner, 2002). As such, sadness is also associated with increased willingness to spend money compulsively (Faber & Christenson, 1996). Lerner and her associates (2004) found that experimentally induced sadness was associated with decreased selling prices and increased buying prices. While these results were explained in terms of a change in situation, the dispositional variable, openness to change, may also be associated with mood repair (Erber & Erber, 2001). Furthermore, while negative affect is generally associated with increased vigilance in behavioral decision making and increased social motivation (Forgas, 2002), the feeling of helplessness and lack of control that is characteristic of sadness has been found to decrease risk aversion, as the consequences of decisions are more likely to be attributed to situational rather than personal factors (DeSteno et al., 2000). Disgust Disgust involves a strong, innate impulse to avoid or to be rid of something offensive. According to Keltner and Haidt (2001), the social function of disgust is to facilitate avoidance or A large body of work in both laboratory and organizational settings indicates that happiness and joy promote helpful and sociable behavior towards others, reduce interpersonal conflict and lead to a tendency towards cooperative behavior (Carnevale & Isen, 1986; Isen & Baron, 1991; Isen, 1987). At the same time, happiness and joy are also associated with optimistic assessments of environmental risk (Lerner & Keltner, 2001). As is the case with anger, Lerner and Keltner (2001) found that happiness induces appraisals of certainty and perceived control over the environment, and also that people in a happy state are more likely to make risky decisions. In summery of the five basic emotions discussed above, it is clear that each has an identifiable and discrete effect on organizational members. Anger, sadness, and joy/happiness appear to promote increased risk taking, although through different mechanisms. Disgust, fear, and anxiety, on the other hand, appear to lead to more risk-adverse approaches. In this respect, affective events – derived either internal to the organization or externally – have different effects depending on which particular emotion is evoked. Finally, we note that, while anger and joy are the emotions most likely to be associated with impulsive emotional behavior and decisions, any of the emotions we have described can result in impulsiveness (see Ashkanasy, 2003; Goleman, 1995). In this instance, emotional activation may result in impulsive decision-making that short-circuits the cognitive processes altogether –shown in Figure 1 as the dashed curved line we mentioned earlier. In addressing strategic management and decision-making, however, there is presumption that decisions will be made after at least a modicum of thought (although recent disclosures in the press leave even this presumption in doubt in many instances). Our main focus, then, is on the effects of affect on the cognitive-rational processes of strategic decision-making. In this respect, Weiss and Cropanzano (1996) note that an individual’s affective states give rise to ‘mental readiness’ or cognitive processing tendencies that influence judgment-driven behaviors. Judgment-driven behaviors involve the conscious evaluation of environmental information. The key distinction between affect-driven and judgment-driven behavior is that that judgment-driven behavior takes place in complex and ambiguous situations that require the use of active, constructive information processing strategies. Judgment-driven behaviors are commonly, although not necessarily, strategic. That is, they purport to maintain or to facilitate adaptation to environmental demands. As such, individuals are motivated by the consequences of their judgment to use controlled cognition in the formulation and implementation of that decision. In addition, judgment-driven behaviors are those that require actors to perceive, to integrate, and to assess complex environmental information, and involve inferential processes that often require actors to go beyond the information given (Kelly, 1958). In the organizational environment, examples of judgment-driven, or strategic behaviors, include risk assessment, performance evaluation, economic transactions such as substantial acquisitions and mergers, and other intra-organizational negotiations with consequences for organizational performance. While the carry-over effects of discrete emotions on affect-driven behavior are well documented, as reviewed above, the impact of discrete emotions on strategic or judgment-driven behavior (complex cognitive processing) is relatively less known. The majority of research into the impact of affective states on strategic behavior has focused on the impact of positive and negative mood states on information processing strategies used in behavioral decision-making processes that precede strategic behavior. Positive and negative moods are associated with different cognitive styles, which influence the strategic decision making processes and subsequent behavior. Mood and its Effect on Cognitive Processing Research initially suggested that people experiencing positive affect tend to employ less effortful and more superficial processing strategies, reach decisions more quickly, use less information, avoid demanding, systematic thinking, and are more confident about their decisions. In contrast, negative affect seemed to trigger a more effortful, analytic and vigilant processing style (Isen, 1987; Schwarz, 1990). More recent studies, moreover, have demonstrated that positive affect also produces distinct processing advantages. People in a positive mood are more likely to adopt more creative, open, constructive and flexible cognitive processing styles (Bless, 2000; Fiedler, 2000; Isen, 1987, 2003). Based on such evidence, Fiedler and Bless (2000) argued that the processing consequences of affect are best understood in terms of a fundamental dichotomy between ‘accommodation’ and ‘assimilation’. Accommodation involves focusing on the demands of the external world (Fiedler & Bless, 2000). In information processing terms, this requires exhaustive processing and careful attention to and conservation of external stimulus material (Forgas, 2002). Assimilation is a complementary process wherein the individual relies on well-established internal knowledge-schemas and behavioral scripts to respond to a situation (Fiedler & Bless, 2000). In contrast to accommodation processing strategies, assimilation involves the active cognitive elaboration and transformation of information using internal knowledge structures (Bless, 2000; Fiedler, 2000, 2001). Most cognitive tasks, including strategic decision-making, involve both accommodation and assimilation in different proportions. Frijda (1986) and Higgins (2001) suggest that the extent to which environmental information and strategic responses are deliberated corresponds to the adaptive significance of the decision. That is, if the prospect of an actor’s decision having aversive consequences does not pose a significant risk to organizational functioning, then assimilative processing strategies are more likely to be employed than accommodative. Thus, positive affective information tends to promote a more assimilative, schema-based, top-down processing style, whereas negative affect induces a more accommodative, bottom-up, and externally focused processing strategy (Bless, 2000; Fiedler, 2000). Despite strong cumulative empirical support for the forgoing mood effects, experimental research shows that these models are context-dependent. Sometimes positive and negative affective states will not influence peoples’ thoughts, or may have incongruent mood effects (Parrott & Sabini, 1990; Sedikides, 1994). For example, Forgas (1990, 1991) and others (Berkowitz, Jaffee, & Troccoli, 2000; Fiedler, 1991) reported that the affective impact on management. In the following section, we make more explicit the role of effect in these processes. Cognitive Processes in Strategic Management In developing a framework for understanding cognitive processes involved in strategic management, it is necessary first to define what is meant by cognition in the organizational context, and then to distinguish between behavioral and organizational contexts. Drawing from cognitive science (Johnson-Laird, 1983), we define cognition as a process of information processing. Individuals perceive, interpret, and respond to their environmental information by assimilating and accommodating external events or objects into internal symbolic representations or mental models (Ocasio, 2001). Mental models in this context comprise working, integrated symbolic representations of goals, data, inferences, and plans that enable the actor to interpret and to attend to environmental stimuli, construct inferences, and ultimately to make decisions (see Holyoak & Gordon, 1984; Ocasio, 2001). In order to understand organizational cognition or, more specifically, cognitive processes within organizations, we must also identify our conceptualization of organization, for there are competing perspectives in this respect. Based on Weick (1977), we see organizations to be defined as social systems in which the behaviors and cognitions of members are regulated and influenced by its rules, resources, expectations, and relations. Organizational cognition, therefore, refers to the thoughts and decisions of individuals within the organizational context, such that the schemas, resources, expectations, and decision rules that they use to frame their interpretation of the organizational environment are shared by all organizational members. This is because all members of an organization share common social, cultural, economic, and physical conditions and experiences, which ultimately shape the experiences and heuristics of the organizational environment, and regulate or structure the way in which events are interpreted within the organizational environment (Weick, 1977). In the following, we describe the processes involved in strategic organizational decision making, which are derived from models of organizational cognition. We integrate these various processes into three phases of strategic decision-making: perception, formulation, and implementation. While it is clear that strategic decision-making is neither rational nor linear, research converges upon these three phases of information processing (Langley et al., 1995). Finally, it needs to be understood that strategic decision making is an iterative process (represented in Figure 1 by the feedback loops), so these phases may be repeated several times as decision alternatives are implemented and adjusted as the success or failure of each alternative is gauged (Daniels, 1999; Hodgkinson, 2001). Perception Perception involves two stages. First, recognition of environmental and organizational events signals a need for organizational adaptation. The second phase involves interpretation of the perceived signal, event, or stimulus. We deal with each stage in the following paragraphs. Recognition According to Weick (1979), strategic decision-making is triggered by the recognition of an environmental event, or an opportunity or threat to the attainment of organizational goals. The recognition of opportunity or threat requires managers to attend to fluctuations in the external organizational environment (economic, socio-cultural, political, legal, or technological) and to locate key issues that may influence organizational performance. The perception of environmental events of significance to the adaptive success of the organization is an active and constructive process (Weick, 1979). As humans, we have a limited attention, storage and information processing capacity, which means that we cannot attend to all available environmental information at once (March & Simon, 1958). Consequently, managers rely on mental models, or schematized knowledge of organizational processes and organization- environment interactions, to facilitate the recognition of potentially beneficial or threatening organizational events (Maule & Hodgkinson, 2002). The perception of issues for strategic consideration is thus biased by a manager’s existing strategic decision-making heuristics and rules of responding that are based on experience of environmental patterns and exposure to organizational norms of decision-making behavior (Ocasio, 2001). Organizations also possess a repertoire of issue categories for making sense of the organizational environment: problems, opportunities, and threats. Organizational participants possess a cultural repertoire of possible problems, opportunities, and threats that have been encountered in the past, both by the organization and in its environment (Hutchins, 1995; Schein, 1985). As cultural products, the issues that are recognized by the organization are reflected in the technology, archives, documents, education, vocabulary, experience, and narratives that are constitute individuals, and collectively, organizational memory (Walsh & Ungson, 1991). Interpretation Bias in judgment and decision-making processes is not exclusive to the recognition of environmental events or perception of risk. Once attention is focused upon the event, the significance or meaning of that event must be interpreted, and the risk associated with the event assessed (Daniels, 1999). That is, it must be considered whether the stimuli is of adaptive significance, in the sense that failure to respond to the event will result in a failure to meet organizational goals. Furthermore, the extent of the opportunity or threat to the organization posed by the perceived event must be assessed. This process of evaluating the strategic significance of the environmental events determines the extent to which organizational resources will be allocated and expended in the formulation of a strategic response (Hodgkinson, 2001). Formulation After perceiving the issue, the next phase of cognition involves formulation of a decision approach. Like perception, this phase also involves two sequential stages: (1) information search and (2) information evaluation. We discuss each of these stages next. The Influence of Affect on Perceptions As discussed above, a strategic manager’s perceptions (recognition and interpretation) of organizational issues depend upon attentional resources and mental models. While temporary affective states do not alter existing mental models, they can bias allocation of attention to the interpretation of potential environmental risks. Negative affect, for example, can make the actor more likely to recognize negative environmental events (Brief, Burke, George, Robinson, & Webster, 1988). Furthermore, negative affect is associated with mood-congruent, negative interpretations of environmental cues. For example, Forgas (1998) found that positive mood produces more positive and optimistic attitudes about the success of the negotiation process, while negative affect leads to a pessimistic interpretation of progress towards the achievement of personal goals of the negotiation, and a negative attitude towards negotiating partners. Consequently, managers in a positive affective state may be more optimistic about the consequences of organizational events and perceive less environmental threat (Bower, 1981, 1991; Isen, Shalker, Clark & Karp, 1978; Schwarz & Clore, 1983). Similarly, such managers are less likely to interpret environmental events as potential threat and more likely to interpret events as opportunities (Forgas, 1995, 1998). The Influence of Affect on Formulation Positive and negative affect have systematic effects on the interpretation of decision- relevant cues such that decision-makers selectively attend to, encode, and retrieve emotion- relevant information (Bower, 1981, 1991; Neidenthal & Setterlund, 1994). Forgas (1989, 1995) suggests that positive and negative affect also determines the nature of subsequent processing, and the effort (quality) and attentional resources (quantity, or depth of processing) allocated to the information processing task (see also Forgas & Moylan, 1991). For example, studies by Basso, Schefft, Ris, and Dember, (1996) and Conway and Giannopoulos (1993) found that people in negative mood states had a narrowed attentional focus, and are more goal-directed, than people in a positive affective state. In their research, people in a negative affective state were motivated to spend more time and attentional resources on information search and consideration of alternatives than people in a positive affective state, considered fewer alternatives, and evaluated decision alternatives more rapidly. Several theorists have posited that negative emotions trigger more systematic processing than positive emotions (Schwarz, 1990; Schwarz & Bless, 1991; Shapiro & Spence, 1997; Simon, 1987). As discussed earlier, the affect-as-information model of affective influences on information processing explains this phenomenon in terms of the signal value of feelings. That is, negative emotions signal that threat is near, and that attentional resources need to be allocated to the situation, whereas positive emotions signal that ‘all is well’. In line with this theoretical perspective, several studies have found that negative moods are associated with vigilant, substantive, and thorough information processing (Lyubomirsky & Nolen-Hoeksema, 1995), where as happiness is associated with heuristic processing (Forgas, 1998). For example, Bodenhausen et al., (1994) found that happiness increased reliance on the use of stereotypes, which indicated categorical and less substantive processing, or assimilative, rather than accommodative processing. As such, positive and negative affective states can impact upon depth of information search, and depth of processing and evaluation of that information. Managers in a positive affective state, therefore, would be expected to engage minimal resources in information search in order to discover or to understand the nature of organizational issues and possible responses, whereas managers in a negative affective state are more likely to engage in a more extensive and thorough search for knowledge regarding the problem, generate more decision alternatives, and evaluate these alternatives more carefully. The evaluation of decision alternatives is also influenced by mood. In the evaluation of choice decisions, Johnson and Tversky (1983) and others (Mittal & Ross, 1998; Nygren, 1998) have found systematic evidence to suggest that people in a positive affective state are more likely to choose a risky alternative with high possible gain, whereas people in a negative affective state are more risk aversive (Lerner & Keltner, 2001). Note, however, as we discussed earlier, this can often depend on the particular emotion represented within the affect circumplex. The Influence of Affect on Implementation Several researchers have shown that people in a negative affective state tend to demonstrate more vigilant behavioral monitoring and self-regulation than people in a positive affective state (e.g., see Diamond & Aspinwall, 2003). This relationship is, however, moderated by intensity of affect. Anger and joy, for example, are opposite in valence (negative and positive). They are, however, similar in intensity and, as found by Lerner and Keltner (2001), both are associated with illusion of control and certainty. Consequently, both anger and joy are associated with impaired behavior and self-regulation, and limited behavioral self-monitoring. Finally, in an organizational setting, affect may influence the attentional resources managers allocate to monitoring organizational processes. In a state of positive affect, managers may be less vigilant in their monitoring of decision-implementation, whereas managers in a negative affective state are more likely to expect, to recognize, and to interpret implementation procedures if they are seen to be awry. In summary, through processes of affective priming and affect-as-information, moods and emotions directly impinge upon all aspects of cognitive functioning underlying strategic decision-making. This includes the perception, facilitation, and implementation stages of decision-making cognition. In the next and final substantive section of our review, we discuss the effect of two variables of personal disposition – trait affect and emotional intelligence. Conclusions and Implications In this essay, we have presented a model of affect in strategic management and, more specifically, in the strategic decision-making process. 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