본고에서는 작업집단 구성원의 정서가 서로 수렴하여 집단속성으로 정의될 수 있는지, 그리고 집단속성으로 정의된 집단정서의 다양한 유형에 팀장의 변혁적 리더십, 구성원의 감정지능, 집단의 응집성 등이 어떤 영향을 미치는지를 연구하였다. 이를 위해 4개 기업의 41팀으로부터 팀장을 포함한 320명의 설문을 분석에 이용하였다. 주요 연구 변수로 우선 정서원형구조(affect circumplex)에 의거한 8가지 정서들이 집단수준에서 수렴되는지를 검증하였다. 검증 결과 8가지 정서유형 모두에서 유의한 결과를 얻었다. 즉, 모든 정서는 집단 상황에서 집단정서로 정의될 수 있음을 확인할 수 있었다. 집단정서의 영향요인에 대한 검증에서 변혁적 리더십은 긍정적 집단정서인 열정과 기쁨의 정도를 높여주고 부정적 정서인 불쾌와 피로를 감소시키는 것으로 나타났다. 두 번째 영향요인으로서 집단구성원의 감정지능은 하위 구성요소별로 차별화된 영향관계가 나타났으나 전반적으로 볼 때 다소 약한 영향관계를 보여주었다. 마지막으로 집단응집성은 저활성화 정서인 안정을 제외한 모든 집단정서 유형에 광범위한 영향을 미치고 있었다. 본 연구를 통해 한국기업 작업집단에서도 정서의 수렴현상이 나타남을 확인할 수 있었으며, 집단정서에 영향을 미치는 주요 선행요인의 영향관계를 실증적으로 규명하였다. 이러한 발견에 기초하여 향후 집단내 정서의 암묵적 공유과정과 명시적 공유과정에 대한 심층적 연구를 위한 제언을 하였다.
This study investigates the affect convergence and the key antecedents of group affect in organizational contexts. Recent research has shown collective properties of affect in various work group settings. Group affect develops from implicit and explicit sharing processes of affective experiences among group members. Traditionally Korean work groups have been considered a field of sharing intense emotions among group members, partly because of collectivist and confucianist values. Nonetheless, the collective properties of group affect have not been examined yet in Korean work groups. To examine this, affect is categorized into eight types as suggested by the affect circumplex model: activated pleasantness, pleasantness, unactivated pleasantness, activated unpleasantness, unpleasantness, unactivated unpleasantness, and high and low activation. The hypothesis for testing affect convergence is as follows. H1 : Affective experiences among group members will converge for all of the eight distinct affect categories. Three key variables are adopted as the antecedents which strongly influence implicit and explicit sharing processes of affective experiences in Korean work groups : transformational leadership of team manager, average emotional intelligence of group members, and group cohesiveness. Below are the hypotheses developed for this study. H2 : Transformational leadership will be positively associated with all three types of positive group affect, i.e. activated pleasantness, pleasantness, and unactivated pleasantness, while negatively with all three types of negative affect, i.e., activated unpleasantness, unpleasantness, and unactivated unpleasantness. In addition, transformational leadership will be positively associated with high activation, while negatively with low activation. H3 : Average emotional intelligence of group members will be positively associated with all three types of positive group affect, i.e. activated pleasantness, pleasantness, and unactivated pleasantness, while negatively with all three types of negative affect, i.e., activated unpleasantness, unpleasantness, and unactivated unpleasantness). In addition, it will be positively associated with high activation, while negatively with low activation. H4 : Group cohesiveness will be positively associated with all three types of positive group affect, i.e. activated pleasantness, pleasantness, and unactivated pleasantness, while negatively with all three types of negative affect, i.e., activated unpleasantness, unpleasantness, and unactivated unpleasantness. The survey data are collected from 320 employees in 41 teams of four organizations, representing printing, construction, and rental service industries. Hypothesis 1 is tested by two complimentary measures: intraclass correlation coefficient(ICC) and within-group agreement measure(rwg). As predicted, work groups have converged for all of the eight distinct affect categories. Affect convergence appears to be stronger than in the findings by Bartel and Saavedra(2002), suggesting the collective nature of Korean work groups. In order to test subsequent hypotheses, individual level data are aggregated to group level data, resulting sample of 41 teams. Regression analyses of the group level data indicates that transformational leadership exerts significantly positive influence on pleasantness and activated pleasantness and negative influence on unpleasantness and unactivated unpleasantness. Emotional intelligence is operationalized in terms of the four branch ability model. Unfortunately, emotional intelligence shows only the marginal influence on the group level affect. Overall, the dimension of perceiving others’ emotion exerts stronger influence than the other dimensions of emotional intelligence. On the other hand, group cohesiveness shows strong influence on group affect as hypothesized, except for the case of only one affect type, low activation.