Energizing through Visuals: How Social Entrepreneurs Use Emotion-Symbolic Work for Social Change - Archive ouverte HAL Access content directly
Journal Articles Academy of Management Journal Year : 2019

Energizing through Visuals: How Social Entrepreneurs Use Emotion-Symbolic Work for Social Change

David Barberá-Tomás
  • Function : Author
Itziar Castelló
  • Function : Author
Frank de Bakker
  • Function : Author
  • PersonId : 1234945
Charlene Zietsma
  • Function : Author

Abstract

Little is known about how social entrepreneurs try to induce enactment of their cause, especially when this cause is difficult to embrace. Through a longitudinal study, we analyze how anti-plastic pollution social entrepreneurs use multimodal (visual and verbal) interactions to influence their targets and promote their cause. Our findings reveal that these social entrepreneurs use what we call “emotion-symbolic work,” which involves using visuals and words to elicit negative emotions through moral shock, and then transforming those emotions into emotional energy for enactment. The emotional transformation process entails connecting target actors to a cause, a collective identity, and the social entrepreneurs themselves. Our exploration of emotion-symbolic work offers new ways of seeing by emphasizing the use of multimodal interactions to affect emotions in efforts to influence target actors to enact a cause.

Dates and versions

hal-02511088 , version 1 (18-03-2020)

Identifiers

Cite

David Barberá-Tomás, Itziar Castelló, Frank de Bakker, Charlene Zietsma. Energizing through Visuals: How Social Entrepreneurs Use Emotion-Symbolic Work for Social Change. Academy of Management Journal, 2019, 62 (6), pp.1789-1817. ⟨10.5465/amj.2017.1488⟩. ⟨hal-02511088⟩
96 View
0 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More