Collective emotional labor and subgroup dynamics in global virtual teams: a dramaturgical perspective

Emotional labor is a performance of job-required emotions, staged before an audience. Typically, this not only individual but also collective in nature: it emotional display put on jointly by teams employees. And yet, research into has tended to neglect its aspects, analyzing primarily as rather than group act. This study aims redress gap. Drawing Goffman’s dramaturgical analysis social groups “performance teams,” we reframe collaborative at the level. We then apply framework examine intricacies between national subgroups global virtual (GVTs), which communicate both cross-culturally and virtually. Based semi-structured interviews with members Indian-Israeli high-tech organizations, show that each subgroup GVTs acts “emotional team” front other subgroup/s audience; tends be suppressive expressive shallow deep; collective, suppressive, character might fuel paradoxical vicious cycle exacerbates ethnocentrism estrangement alleviating them.