The Emotions of Control: A Qualitative Exploration of Environmental Regulation

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Abstract
Processes of control remain central to managerial and critical theories of organization, but their inherently emotional form has been largely neglected. The experience and expression of emotions are more than simply objects and outcomes of control, they also shape its context, processes, and consequences. Drawing upon observations of interpersonal encounters between environmental regulatory inspectors and industrial managers in the U.K., an emotional framing of the dynamics of control is developed. This presents emotion as a condition and consequence of interacting socioeconomic roles and power structures such as those associated with occupations, gender, and capitalism. It also provides a way of analyzing control that is sensitive to its emotional characteristics and may be applied to other, more conventional control contexts.

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