This book advocates the emancipation of emotion by enabling workers to regulate their emotions differently given emotional repression at work. Drawing on Critical Theory and Emotion Regulation, this book articulates two pathways to social control currently under-explored in management; one where the social functions of emotion are exploited, and one where the talk about emotion overrides its social function. While conducive to organizational control, workers may face adverse consequences as result of these pathways. The author illustrates the processes through which workers can start ‘seeing through’ the repression, and enlist specific emotion regulation strategies to emancipate themselves from it. Workers may use these strategies to buffer the adverse consequences of emotional repression in the short to medium-term. Yet, this book proposes that workers eventually may decide to change jobs in an attempt to remove themselves from the repression. If turnover frequency becomes unsustainable for organizations, it can potentially change the social structures that Critical Theory and its aim to emancipate is concerned with.

NOTE: Yiannis Gabriel has written a book review for Organization, which can be found here. Likewise, Paul Harvey wrote a book review for the Academy of Management Learning and Education. It will be online soon.