Emotional Balancing of Organizational Continuity and Radical Change: The Contribution of Middle Managers

Based on a three-year inductive field study of an attempt at radical change in a large firm, I show how middle managers displayed two seemingly opposing emotion-management patterns that facilitated beneficial adaptation for their work groups: (1) emotionally committing to personally championed change projects and (2) attending to recipients' emotions. Low emotional commitment to change led to organizational inertia, whereas high commitment to...