The “feel-how” of the “know-how” Social emotion as disposition to perform for the public employee

Abstract

Problematization: Third stream activities (TSA) is one of the University's relationships with society and are all those ways that researchers inform the public about research knowledge. TSA is a democratic service and can be viewed as part of a researcher´s role as a public employee. Today there is no systematic way that this performance is observed or measured (Kasperowski & Bragesjö, 2011). This means that TSAperformance is not rewarding in terms of financial outcomes or career development for the individual employee. So why do the human resources at the University still perform? And why do some perform but not others? In HRMstudies, we would understand this phenomenon by including the AMOmodel that HRM positively influence individual ability (A), motivation (M) and opportunity(O) to enhance performance (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). However, in the HRMfield there is a scientific problem of the linkage between HRM and performance and there are no conclusive results that show that the AMOmodel links HRM and performance (Boselie & Paauwe, 2005). Purpose: The purpose of this study is to address the scientific problem of the link between HRM and performance, with a focus on the AMOmodel, which is described by the formula Performance = f (Ability, Motivation, Opportunity). By utilizing the alternative approach of an emotionsociological theoretical framework, the study aims to understand what emotions are connected to the University's performance on a microlevel within the performance area of third stream activities (TSA). Methodology: This study has an interpretative approach, which means that the study aims to understand and interpret the event of performance in TSA by discovering the feelings and emotional responses that researchers connect to their performance; thereby an appropriate research design to choose is qualitative research. One of the two main types of qualitative research is to carry out indepth 1 interviews (Hakim, 2009). This is integrated as one part that constructs the method of grounded theory method (GTM) (Charmaz, 2006). GTM starts with data and the data collected in this study are emotions, emotional responses and feelings connected to the ability, motivation and opportunity to perform in TSA. The data has been collected by the process of 11 indepth interviews with researchers at a Swedish university. Results: Social emotion such as selfconfidence are important for, and connected to, the motivation, ability and opportunity to perform in media TSA for public employees of researchers. The social emotions and emotional responses tied to the context of TSA performance are presented in this study as a model called e motional performance process. Within this emotional performance process the individual employee feels both emotionally rewarded and emotionally drained. This study shows that media TSA performance is not only a matter of knowing how to perform. It is also a matter of how the employee feels about performing. This emotional experience also plays a role for future performances.