Summaries for lecture 9 (David Goss)
Affect theory of social exchange: intents to explain how and when emotions, produced by social
exchange, generate stronger or weaker ties to relations, groups or networks. Emotions are a
central feature of social exchange product of successful or unsuccessful efforts and explicate the
causal process through which the emotions generate order and solidarity at the relational, group
or network level.
Social exchange is a joint activity of 2 or more actor in which each actor has something the other
values. The task in exchange is to generate benefits for each individual that actor cannot achieve
alone. It assumes that actors face important degree of ambiguity and uncertainty and theorizes on
how they deal with and respond. Key dimensions are: (1) Non-separability. Individual contributions
are not easily identifiable or separable from others (2) share credit / blame (3) socially mediated
self-efficacy. Individual’s self-efficacy is tied to collective efficacy via group.
 Emotions are transitory feelings, positive or negative as a response to an event or object.
Primitive and ambiguous sources
 Sentiments are enduring affective states or feeling about one or more social objects
(relationships, groups, networks).
1. Individual actors as emoting as well as cognizing, feeling as well as
thinking
2. Emotions as internal reinforcements or punishments
Social Exchange is a typical joint activity and its outcomes – reward and punishment – are
construed as having emotional effects that vary in form and intensity. Actors respond have
backward and forward looking into rewards, cost and punishments but because of information
deficits they enhance emotional reactions to good or fail opportunities.
 Global emotions are produce by exchange process, involuntary, immediate and internal.
They are self-reinforcing and motivating.
Successful exchanges > ‘uplift’ (pleasure, pride, gratitude)
Not successful > ‘downs’ (sadness, shame and anger)
When does social exchange lead actors to associate global emotions with specific social objects?
3. Individuals’ relational and group attachments are connected to their
emotional experiences in social exchange.
Emotions of feelings from exchange influence how actor perceive and feel about the shared
activity, relation and common group affiliation. Emotions contribute to the ‘objectification’ of
relations and groups. Global emotions are not under the control of the actor; therefore, he
unleash an attribution process to generate more specific,, object-focused emotions. Social units
are potential targets for the interpretations of global emotions because they are stable features of
the situation.
Positive emotions > Strong affective attachments. Increase solidarity and areas of collaboration.
Accepting more ambiguities and rules. Forgiving opportunistic behaviours and staying in the
relationship despite alternatives.
Negative emotions > weaker affective attachments
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Strong affective attachments to social units that give greatest sense of control or choices.
Cohesion and solidarity are stronger in smaller face-to-face social units, this are an
immediate focus of attention. They produce a tendency to be objects of strong affective
attachment than social units in which they are part of.
Positive emotions are attributed to local unit, while negative emotions are attributed to
larger, more distant social unit.
Through the emotional/affective process, networks can develop group properties, they
create common identities.
Exchange structures
Structures increase or decrease perceptions of shared responsibility and individual Contribution:
1. Productive exchange: single socially produced event. Provides an actor with the greates
individual benefits and the main issue is coordination. High interdependence than others
and have the strongest emotional consequences for cohesion and solidarity. Partnership.
2. Negotiated exchange. Explicit agreement. Jointness is highly salient and shared
responsibility. Can create conflictive emotions (pride-shame).
3. Reciprocal exchange. Is sequential, no-negotiated and provided without explicit
expectation of reciprocity. Tacit and informal understanding. Invitation for dinner.
4. Generalized exchange. Indirect, unilateral benefits. Creates great solidarity and trust.
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The strength of relational/group attributions for global emotions is: 1>2>3>4
Networks of negotiated and reciprocal exchange tent to promote stronger relational ties.
Productive or generalized exchange will promote stronger network ties.
Enterprise ritual: entrepreneurial emotion and exchange (Goss, 08)
Few studies of entrepreneurship have referred to emotions as a component of enterprising
behaviour.
According to Lawler’s model of social exchange: global emotions act as rewards of punishments
and stimulate process of appraisal and attributions towards the social units they interact with. But,
to comprehend the entrepreneurial behaviour we need to add:
1. Exchange is also likely to involve interactions that are motivated by other interests or
where immediate concerns about benefits can be regarded as inappropriate.
2. Exchange relations frequently need to be established afresh with different actor under
changing conditions. Membership can be potentially problematic.
This issues draw upon the interaction ritual, its components are:
1. Situational co-presence. Need to be assemble in the same place.
2. Interactional focus. Need to create a mutual focus of attention to hold joint interactions
3. Social solidarity. Greater sense of obligation > greater solidarity and membership
4. Symbolism. Solidarity encourages members to construct symbols.
5. Emotional energy. Sense of collective effervescence that translates into individual EE.
Entrepreneurship. Process by which individuals discover, create and exploit opportunities without
regardless to alienable resources they currently control. Business entrep. > founding new business.
Core dimensions of entrepreneurship:
1. Being active rather than passive, particularly in opportunity of exploitation. Take risk
2. Being confident to stand out, assert you own ideas rather than others. being different
3. Being persistent in such action even in the face of opposition or scepticism.
4. Secure other’s support for new enterprise and maintain relationships.
Entrepreneurial motivation is not to be regarded as fixed power of individuals but as a flow in
response to changes in emotional energy and attributions towards particular actions. Conditions
and process (emotions and interactional dynamics) are likely to produce different levels of
entrepreneurial behaviour:
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Interaction rituals, emotions and cognition can be implicated in the generation of
entrepreneurial behaviour. The strongest entrepreneurial effect is to be expected where
an individual participate in recurrent and effective rituals.
The career, is likely to be committed to a business-owing career from early stage and focus
on this direction
The more dispersed in time and social space these types of motivating experiences are,
the weaker their entrepreneurial impact is.
Moderated levels of each dimension should produce an opportunistic entrepreneurial
motivation.
Without strong negative sentiments to employment and positive to entrepreneurship,
business formation will be contingent upon available economic opportunities.
Individuals might participate in enterprise rituals only if safe conditions. Employee
organization.
The lowest levels see business formation as potential emotional drain and risk.
Entrepreneurship and ‘social’: deference- emotion theory (Goss, 05)
Theories of entrepreneurship have a dominant individualistic orientation. This theory places social
interaction at the center, focusing on the tension between innovation and social sanction.
Schumpeter’s original formulation points towards the centrality of social rather than individual
processes. (1) Concerns social conformity and deviance (2) emphasis on the interplay of social
circumstances and individual motivation. Social order rest upon constraints of routine, habits and
social sanction, limiting individuals to engage in innovative actions.
Emotions of pride and shame produced by the giving and withholding of deference can motivate
actions that resist social sanction against innovation.
Individuals have a modulating effect: ability to balance, acknowledge and discharge shame and
pride. Pride evokes pleasure and are desired, displays of pride are held in check by the awareness
that immodesty will be a source of shame. Thus: deviance is sanctioned-against by the withdrawal
of deference, thereby inducing shame; acknowledged shame is repaired by pride-inducing
deference; pride is held in check by sensitivity to shame; the result is social order.
Shame-inhibited modes push individuals away from conventional employment and pull them
towards business ownership. Additionally, explains volatile and unpredictable nature of
entrepreneurial conduct, rapid switches between pride-shame modes of interaction by shifting
deference dynamics of social situations.
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Bypassing shame: when shame is denied, repressed or resisted by the individual. Energy is
diverted into actions designed to demonstrate superiority and put beyond criticism.
Results in aggressive competitiveness. Creates spirals of social conflict and attract those
who share the sense of wrongly shamed.
Pride-imbalance: individuals that fail to acknowledge the socially acceptable limits on
pride displays. Because shame’s modulating effect is reduced thy scale show pride displays
and beak conventions, no restrains for personal ambition and shame. Constantly seeking
new impressionable audiences. Potential disruptive effects and spirals proselytization and
demand of deference. Can trigger a reversion bypassed shame and outburst of anger.
Entrepreneurship and achievement orientation is explained not by individual’s essential power but
reference to social context. i.e. being recognized by some elite, escape from humiliation (dyslexic),
winning without submitting to anyone’s rules, not wishing to be perceived as weak or afraid.
Understanding the social biography of entrepreneurial is not sufficient, is necessary to detail the
influence of other actors and encounters that constitute ongoing business activity.