A Mixture of Joy and Sorrow: Digital Technologies and Employee Emotions

Liu Xiaoyu, Yu Caiting

Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 46, Issue 06, pp. 134 - 152 (2024)  DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.20230501.102

Summary

With digital technologies reshaping employees’ work and life, emotion management in organizations is confronting with great challenges. This paper systematically reviews the literature related to digital technologies and employee emotions. Firstly, it sorts out the theoretical perspectives, influence mechanisms, and boundary conditions of the impact of digital technologies (information communication technology, AI and algorithmic technology) on employee emotions. Secondly, it summarizes the commonalities and differences in the effects of different digital technologies on employee emotions, and analyzes the impact of employee motions on their acceptance and use of digital technologies. Thirdly, it constructs a research framework of the mutual influence of digital technologies and employee emotions. Finally, possible future research directions are discussed in terms of deepening research on the mutual influence mechanisms of the use of digital technologies at work and employee emotions, expanding the research level, investigating more emotion management strategies at work in the digital era, and actively promoting the use of digital technologies in emotion management research methods, so as to inform and inspire research and practice of emotion management at work in the digital era. This paper not only provides a comprehensive theoretical framework for future research, which is conducive to deepening the study on digital technologies and employee emotions, but also provides practical reference on how to cultivate emotionally healthy employees and efficient organizations in the digital era.

Keywords

emotions; digital technologies; emotion management; emotion labor; emotion regulation