INTRODUCING A RELATIONAL APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF EMOTIONS IN PROJECT TEAMS: The Case of a Public–Non-profit Partnership Programme Hiva Rafiei A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctorate in Management Studies Essex Business School University of Essex June 2018 ii I declare that this thesis is entirely my own work and that I have referenced others’ ideas and concepts in the text and in the bibliography as required. iii To Mum, Dad, and Hesam iv ABSTRACT This thesis explores the nature of emotions in the context of a programme team involved in the planning phase of a local partnership initiative in the UK. Positioned in the social constructionist tradition, the study adopts a relational perspective, where primacy shifts from selves to relationships in founding social realities. Accordingly, the thesis frames emotions as intersubjective and dialectical experiences that emerge through dialogue and embodiment. Drawing on ethnographic data collected over a fifteen-month period, this study unravels the ‘actuality’ of programme work at both collective and individual levels. At the collective level, the results from the thematic analysis of data highlight emotions during the ever-changing flux of events as the team ceaselessly engage in sense-making with the hope to establish a level of coherence and stability. At the individual level, the results from the interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) reveal the innermost struggles of individuals in giving rise to emotions; individual emotions are found to rise strongly when matters of 1) identity, 2) justice and 3) meaningful work are questioned. By showing the salience of emotions in the actuality of programmes as a form of project-based work, the thesis develops two major contributions. First, it proposes relational leadership as a more pragmatic approach to leading programmes that are commonly characterised by ambiguity, turbulence, and change. Second, the thesis urges the need to cultivate situational (rather than standardised) ethics in teams, specifically suggesting the feminist ethics of care as the moral paradigm that remains sensitive to subtleties of situations and relationships. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would have not been successfully completed without the contribution of several individuals to whom I will always feel greatly indebted. First and foremost, I would like to express profound gratitude to my first PhD supervisor, Dr Manuela Nocker, for her sustained encouragement, invaluable guidance, and great patience. Manuela, this thesis represents just a small part of what I have learnt with you over the past four years. Thank you for ‘having my back’ through every up and down of this journey. I am deeply grateful to my colleague at the University who assisted me with gaining access to the field, as well as the manager in the programme team who further paved the way. As much as I would like to thank these individuals more explicitly, I am ethically bound to protect their identities. I would like to thank all the programme team members who willingly ‘let me into their circle’ and gradually confided their innermost thoughts and feelings to me. This research would not have fully matured without their active participation and trust. A special thanks goes to the four individuals who took part in the diary study. Their commitment to this project was exemplary. I hope the empirical chapters in this thesis do justice to the ‘emotionalities’ they shared with me throughout the period of fieldwork. I would also like to thank the conveners and attendees at the 33rd EGOS-Colloquium sub-theme on organisational emotions for their constructive feedback on my work, and for nominating it for the EGOS Best Student Paper Award. Our inspiring discussions have powerfully impacted my reflections and approach to this thesis and beyond. I vi would especially like to thank Professor Yiannis Gabriel for his further encouragement and guidance on ‘crafting’ the programme team’s story. At the University of Essex, I deeply appreciate the feedback from my second PhD Supervisor, Dr Jun Li. Over the completion stages, Jun’s critical viewpoint has significantly enriched my thinking and the outcome of this research. I would also like to thank Dr Kholoud Mohsen for always having her office doors open for a warm and uplifting conversation. I feel especially grateful for having had the chance to be part of the intellectual community in the Annual Ethnographic Symposium. Sharing the turns and twists of our research journeys has been a great reassurance of the light at the end of this tunnel. This thesis is dedicated to mum, dad, and Hesam, my main supports over the peaks and valleys of all these years away from home. They say true love gives freedom; thank you for empowering me to walk this path freely while bearing the pain of distance and separation. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO THE THESIS ............................................... 1 1.1 RESEARCH BACKGROUND ............................................................................................... 2 1.2 THE CHOICE OF (PROJECT) PROGRAMME TEAMS AS THE RESEARCH CONTEXT ................................................................................................................................ 4 1.3 EVOLUTION OF THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS ............................................................. 7 1.4 EXPECTED CONTRIBUTIONS ........................................................................................... 9 1.5 THE THESIS CHAPTERS.................................................................................................... 10 CHAPTER 2: EMOTIONS IN ORGANISATION ................................................ 13 2.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 13 2.1 ON EMOTIONS ..................................................................................................................... 14 2.1.1 Emotions versus other affective constructs ............................................................................... 15 2.1.2 An overview of different philosophical traditions in researching emotions ............................. 17 2.2 EMOTIONS IN THE ORGANISATIONAL AGENDA ..................................................... 32 2.3 DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................... 35 CHAPTER 3: FRAMING EMOTIONS AS SITUATED RELATIONAL PHENOMENA IN (PROJECT) PROGRAMME TEAMS ................................... 38 3.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 38 3.1 ON THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF EMOTIONS .................................................... 38 3.1.1 Emotions as ‘lived experience’ ................................................................................................. 39 3.1.2 Emotions and sense-making...................................................................................................... 40 3.1.3 Emotions and identity work ...................................................................................................... 42 3.1.4 The embodiment of emotions ................................................................................................... 45 3.2 EMOTIONS AS ‘RELATIONAL’ SOCIAL CONSTRUCTS ........................................... 47 3.3 AN INTRODUCTION TO PROJECT-BASED WORK ..................................................... 50 3.3.1 Programmes as a form of project-based work .......................................................................... 52 3.3.2 Towards a critical understanding of project-based work .......................................................... 56 viii 3.3.3 Projects and programmes in cross-sector partnerships ............................................................. 57 3.4 (PROJECT) PROGRAMME TEAMS AND EMOTIONS ................................................. 59 3.5 DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................................... 62 CHAPTER 4: METHODOLOGY ........................................................................... 65 4.0 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................. 65 4.1 AN INTERPRETIVIST PHILOSOPHY.............................................................................. 65 4.2 A QUALITATIVE STUDY ................................................................................................... 66 4.3 METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR STUDYING EMOTIONS: PEARLS OF AN ETHNOGRAPHIC CASE STUDY .......................................................................... 67 4.2.1 Ethnography .............................................................................................................................. 69 4.2.2 Case study ................................................................................................................................. 71 4.4 ACCESS TO THE FIELD ..................................................................................................... 72 4.3.1 Negotiating access..................................................................................................................... 73 4.3.2 Maintaining access: tales of doubt, fear, and guilt .................................................................... 75 4.4 RESEARCH TECHNIQUES ...............................................................................................