Gratitude in the Workplace: Moving Toward New Frontiers

A growing body of organizational research has begun to explore the role played by gratitude in employees’ attitudes, perceptions, relationships, and behaviors. However, the literature remains limited in important ways. For instance, the literature has largely focused on gratitude within dyads, and has assumed that all gratitude expressions are equal regardless of the source or motivation behind these expressions. Our symposium aims to contribute to the organizational literature by addressing these limitations. The collection of papers we have assembled discuss how gratitude manifests in organizations and how third-party coworkers perceive the authenticity and effectiveness of gratitude expression. These papers adopt a multi-method approach to studying gratitude in a range of diverse organizational contexts. Taken together, this set of papers has implications for important organizational outcomes such as leadership, employee psychological empowerment, prosocial behaviors, and task performance. Gratitude as Positive Feedback in Organizations Presenter: Lauren Rachel Locklear; Texas Tech U. Presenter: Sharon Sheridan; College of Business, Clemson U. Presenter: Maureen L. Ambrose; U. of Central Florida How Upward Counterfactual Thoughts Impact Followers’ Gratitude for Leaders’ Emotion Helping Presenter: Jiaqing Sun; The London School of Economics and Political Science Presenter: Ryan Fehr; U. of Washington, Seattle I Don’t Appreciate Your Appreciation: Third Party Reactions to Leader-Directed Gratitude Expression Presenter: Ryan Fehr; U. of Washington, Seattle Presenter: Yue Wang; Renmin U. of China Presenter: Yirong Guo; Xiamen U. A Further Exploration of Factors Influencing the Perceived Authenticity of Gratitude Presenter: Ayana N. Younge; U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill