Organizational Mood

An assignment submitted to the Department of Management Studies as

partial requirement of Organizational Behavior course, summer 2011

Prepared For
Dr. Md. Ataur Rahman
Professor, Department of Management Studies

Prepared By

Shamim Hasan Shiraji

ID: 3-10-18-013

June 29, 2011

University of Dhaka

June 29, 2011

Course Instructor
Organizational Behavior
Department of Management Studies
University of Dhaka
Re: Organizational Mood.

Dear Sir,
It is a pleasure to submit the assignment paper on the topic Organizational Mood, as a
partial requirement of the course Organizational Behavior. I thank you for allowing me
the opportunity to do the assignment on this topic.
This assignment paper attempts to find out about Organizational Mood, Sources of mood,
OB Applications of Organizational Moods, how do they affect someones likeability and
performance at work? Also what are the consequences of these different moods for our
behavior at work?
I will always be available for any supplementary interpretation or clarification that may
require. This report definitely gave me an exceptional experience that will be of use in the
future.

Sincerely Yours,

Shamim Hasan Shiraji

ID: 3-10-18-013

Acknowledgement
At this point I would specially like to thank those who had made it possible for me to
prepare this assignment paper. Without their cooperation this work would have been a lot
harder.
I also want to express my thanks & regards to our Course Instructor Professor Dr. Md.
Ataur Rahman, who has given us this assignment and helped us in all possible ways and
directed, guided us properly in completing the report. His continuous support and reenforcement has encouraged me to do the Assignment.

Table of Contents
1.0: INTRODUCTION
1
1.1: ORGANIZATIONAL MOOD
1
1.2: MOOD AS POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECT
2
2.0: SOURCES OF MOOD

3.0: OB APPLICATIONS OF ORGANIZATIONAL MOODS

4.0: MANAGERIAL IMPLICATIONS

5.0: CONCLUSION

REFERENCES

1.0: Introduction
1.1: ORGANIZATIONAL

MOOD

Mood is a feeling that tends to be less intense than emotions and that lack a contextual
stimulus.

A feeling or state of mind.

Positive moods provide excitement, elation, and enthusiasm.

Negative moods lead to fear, distress, and nervousness.

Current situations and a person's basic outlook affect a persons current mood.

A managers mood affects their treatment of others and how others respond to
them.

Subordinates perform better and relate better to managers who are in a positive
mood.

Mood constitutes a distinct additional source of within-person variability and an

important determinant of decision making and behavior in organizational settings.
Positive Mood:
Positive mood results in creativity and cognitive flexibility. Positive mood is associated
with positive outcomes, including better job satisfaction, less turnover, more helping
behaviors at work, better negotiation outcomes and improved performance.
Negative Mood:
Negative mood are less straightforward than those for positive mood. People in a
negative mood are often motivated to perform more positively so that they can change
their mood to a positive one. Thus, people in a negative mood often appear to behave
incongruously displaying more helping behavior and working ore productively.

Nonetheless, people in negative moods are still generally less satisfied with their jobs and
are more likely to want to leave their jobs.

-11.2 MOOD

AS

POSITIVE

AND

NEGATIVE

EFFECT

Fig 1: The structure of Mood

-2-

2.0: SOURCES OF MOOD

Personality
- There is a trait component affect intensity.

Day and Time of the Week

- There is a common pattern for all of us:
- Happier in the midpoint of the daily awake period.
- Happier toward the end of the week.

Weather
- Mood changes with weather.

Stress
- Even low levels of constant stress can worsen moods.

Social Activities
- Physical, informal, and dining activities increase positive moods.

Sleep
- Poor sleep quality increases negative affect.

Exercise
- Does somewhat improve mood, especially for depressed people.

Age
- Older folks experience fewer negative emotions.

Gender
- Women tend to be more emotionally expressive, feel emotions more intensely,
have longer lasting moods, and express emotions more frequently than do men.
- Due more to socialization than to biology.

-3-

3.0: OB Applications of Organizational

Moods

Selection
- Emotional Intelligence should be a hiring factor, especially for social jobs.

Decision Making
- Positive emotions can lead to better decisions.

Creativity
- Positive mood increases flexibility, openness, and creativity.

Motivation
- Positive mood affects expectations of success; feedback amplifies this effect.

Leadership
- Emotions are important to acceptance of messages from organizational leaders.

Negotiation
- Emotions, skillfully displayed, can affect negotiations.

Customer Services
- Emotions affect service quality delivered to customers which, in turn, affects
customer relationships.
- Emotional Contagion: catching emotions from others.

Job Attitudes
- Can carry over to home but dissipate overnight.

Deviant Workplace Behaviors

- Negative emotions lead to employee deviance (actions that violate norms and
threaten the organization).

Managers Influence

- Leaders who are in a good mood, use humor, and praise employees increase
positive moods in the workplace.

-4-

4.0: Managerial Implications

Organizational moods impact all areas of OB

Managers cannot and should not attempt to completely control the emotions and
moods of their employees.

Managers must not ignore the emotions of their co-workers and employees.

Behavior predictions will be less accurate if moods are not taken into account.

5.0 Conclusion
Mood has important and complex effects in organizations, dependent upon the type of
mood, the situation, personality, the social context, and the outcome of interest. The
emerging importance of moods in social and organizational settings leads us to the
conclusion that this is an area where there are exciting prospects for research in the
future. Nonetheless, we propose that the most exciting new work will be in areas where
researchers move away from the study of affect as mood, which is a more diffuse, broadbased state, and instead turn to the study of discreet emotions and their precipitating
events, such as anger, jealousy, and love in the workplace. It is within such domains
where we may actually be able to dissect emotional work experiences with more specific,
predictive accuracy.

-5-

References
1.

Newstrom, John W., Davis, Keith (2006). Organizational Behavior. New York: Tata
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

2.

Griffin, Ricky W. (2007). Management. New York: Houghton Mifflin.

3.

Ashkanasy, Neal M., Hrtel, Charmine E.J. and Daus, Catherine S. (2002). Diversity
and Emotion: The New Frontiers in Organizational Behavior Research. Journal of
Management. <http://jom.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/28/3/307>

4.

Robbins, Stephen P., Judge, Timothy A. Organizational Behavior. New Jersey:

Prentice Hall. <http://www.scribd.com/doc/54752985/OB12-08in>

5.

Robbins, Stephen P. & Judge, Timothy A.(2010) Essentials of Organizational

Behavior. New Jersey: Prentice Hall. <http://www.slideshare.net/kronos2k2000/emotions-andmoods>

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