Guilt and Elation in the Workplace: Emotion and the Governance of the Environment at Work

Abstract

This paper explores the integration of environmental concern into the workplace by combining insights from the literature on governmentality with work that focuses on the role of emotion in organisational contexts. I build on work by Hargreaves (2008) and Butler (2010) to show that environmental concern is an emerging form of workplace governance which acts by and through the emotions and which intersects with pre-existing forms of power in surprising and complex ways. I conclude by reflecting on some additional theoretical approaches which may offer some tools for developing forms of workplace governance that are more socially and environmentally sustainable.