Maintaining Order Through Deviance? The Emotional Deviance,Power,and Professional Work of Municipal Court Judges

Abstract

This study examines the intersection of power, professional work, organizing, and emotional deviance at two municipal courthouses in the United States. A variety of qualitative methods including observation, shadowing employees, informal interviewing, and semi-structured respondent interviews were used to collect the data. A total of twelve municipal court judges were observed during arraignments, pre-trial conferences, and trials, and four of these judges participated in member checking interviews for a total of sixteen in-depth, audio-recorded interviews.This article centers on emotional deviance, or the expression of emotion that occurs when employees disregard feeling rules and express emotions that do not align with organizational expectations. In the case of judges who are mandated to be rational and neutral, emotional deviance becomes a distinctive advantage. Furthermore, the findings of this piece suggest that professional work is actually quite emotional and it also introduces the concept of privileged deviance to describe the ways in which deviance is related to power and specific verbal and nonverbal communicative behaviors. The article ends by discussing implicit and explicit privileged deviance and offers practical implications related to the training of municipal court judges and the mandates to process cases quickly while still fostering a high level of defendant satisfaction.

Keywords

emotional deviance emotional labor power professional work municipal court judges

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Anleu, S.R. , & Mack, K. ( 2005). Magistrates’ everyday work and emotional labor . Journal of Law and Society, 32, 590-614.

Ashcraft, K.L. ( 2000). Empowering "professional" relationships: Organizational communication meets feminist practice. Management Communication Quarterly, 13, 347-392.

Ashcraft, K.L. , & Mumby, D.K. ( 2004). Reworking gender: A feminist communicology of organization . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Ashforth, B.E. , & Kreiner, G. ( 1999). How can you do it? Dirty work and the challenge of constructing a positive identity. Academy of Management Review, 24, 413-434. Retrieved September 27, 2010, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/259134

Boog, J. ( 2008, July). When judges get the blues. Judicial Reports. Retrieved September 27, 2010, from http://www.judicialreports.com/2008/07/when_judges_get_the_blues.php

Charmaz, K. ( 2001). Grounded theory. In R. M. Emerson (Ed.), Contemporary field research (pp. 335-352). Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

Cheney, G. , & Ashcraft, K.L. (2007). Considering "the professional" in communication studies: Implications for theory and research within and beyond the boundaries of organizational communication. Communication Theory, 17, 146-175.

Cheney, G. , Zorn, T.E., Jr. , Planap, S. , & Lair, D.L. ( 2008). Meaningful work and personal/social well-being organizational communication engages the meaning of work. Communication Yearbook (Vol. 32, pp. 137-185). Mahwah, NJ : Lawrence Erlbaum.

Fineman, S. ( 2003). Emotional arenas revisited. In S. Fineman (Ed.), Emotion in organizations (2nd ed., pp. 1-24). London: Sage.

10.

Fineman, S. ( 2008). Emotion and organizing. In S. Clegg , C. Hardy , & W. Nord (Eds.), Handbook of organization studies (pp. 675-700). London: Sage.

11.

Geertz, C. ( 1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books.

12.

Glaser, B.G. , & Strauss, A.L. ( 1967). The discovery of grounded theory: Strategies for qualitative research. Chicago: Aldine.

13.

Grandey, A. ( 2003). When "the show must go on": Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 86-96.

14.

Harris, L.C. ( 2002). The emotional labour of barristers: An exploration of emotional labour by status professionals. Journal of Management Studies, 39, 553-584.

15.

Hochschild, A. ( 1983). The managed heart. Berkley: University of California Press.

16.

Kirby, E.L. , Golden, A.G. , Medved, C.E. , Jorgenson, J. , & Buzzanell, P.M. (2003). An organizational communication challenge to the discourse of work and family research: From problematics to empowerment. In P. J. Kalbfleishch (Ed.), Communication Yearbook (Vol. 27, pp. 1-43). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

17.

Lindlof, T.R. , & Taylor, B.C. ( 2002). Qualitative communication research methods (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

18.

Lively, K.J. ( 2002). Client contact and emotional labor: Upsetting the balance and evening the field. Work and Occupations, 29, 198-225.

19.

Lutgen-Sandvik, P. ( 2003). The communicative cycle of employee emotional abuse: Generation and regeneration of workplace mistreatment. Management Communication Quarterly, 16, 471-501.

20.

Lutgen-Sandvik, P. , & McDermott, V. ( 2008). The constitution of employee-abusive organizations: A communication flows theory. Communication Theory, 18, 304-333.

21.

Lynch, O.H. ( 2002). Humorous communication: Finding a place for humor in communication research. Communication Theory, 12, 423-445.

22.

MacDonald, K.M. ( 1995). The sociology of the professions. London: Sage.

23.

Miller, K.I. ( 2002). The experience of emotion in the workplace: Professing in the midst of tragedy. Management Communication Quarterly , 15, 571-600.

24.

Miller, K.I. , Considine, J. , & Garner, J. ( 2007). "Let me tell you about my job": Exploring the terrain of emotion in the workplace. Management Communication Quarterly , 20, 231-260.

25.

Pfeffer, J. ( 1981). Power in organizations. Cambridge , UK: Ballinger.

26.

Rafaeli, A. , & Sutton, R.I. ( 1987). Expression of emotion as part of the work role. Academy of Management Review, 12, 23-37.

27.

Scott, C. , & Myers, K.K. ( 2005). The socialization of emotion: Learning emotion management at the fire station. Journal of Applied Communication Research , 33, 67-92.

28.

Schuler, S. , & Sypher, B.D. ( 2000). Seeking emotional labor: When managing the heart enhances work experience. Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 50-89.

29.

Spradley, J.P. ( 1980). Participant observation. New York : Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

30.

Tracy, S.J. ( 2000). Becoming a character for commerce: Emotion labor, self-subordination, and discursive construction of identity in a total institution. Management Communication Quarterly, 14, 90-128.

31.

Tracy, S.J. ( 2004). The construction of correctional officers: Layers of emotionality behind bars. Qualitative Inquiry, 10, 509-533.

32.

Tracy, S.J. ( 2005). Locking up emotion: Moving beyond dissonance for understanding emotion labor discomfort. Communication Monographs, 72, 261-283.

33.

Tracy, S. , Lutgen-Sandvik, P. , & Alberts, J.K. ( 2006). Nightmares, demons, and slaves: Exploring the painful metaphors of workplace bullying. Management Communication Quarterly, 20, 148-185.

34.

Tracy, S.J. , Myers, K.K. , & Scott, C.W. ( 2006). Cracking jokes and crafting selves: Sensemaking and identity management among human service workers. Communication Monographs , 73, 283-308.

35.

Tracy, S.J. , & Tracy, K. ( 1998). Emotion labor at 911: A case study and theoretical critique . Journal of Applied Communication Research, 26, 390-411.

36.

Tracy, S.J. , & Trethewey, A. ( 2005). Fracturing the real-self fake-self dichotomy: Moving toward crystallized organizational identities. Communication Theory, 15, 168-195.