Pride in the Workplace: An Integrative Review, Synthesis, and Future Research Agenda

Research on the role of emotions in organizations has evolved into a major field of study over the past two decades, often referred to as the “Affective Revolution,” (e.g., Barsade, Brief, and Spataro 2003; Elfenbein 2007). Taking note, many scholars have investigated the emotion most proximally associated with workplace achievement, self-efficacy, status and rank, identity, and collective belonging: pride. Pride reflects satisfaction with one's achievements and identity, the achievements of others or groups with whom one is closely associated (e.g., an organization; Helm 2013), or the possession of attributes that are socially valued (Tracy and Robins 2004). Surprisingly, despite the abundant and rapidly growing literature on pride in a work context, a comprehensive review of the literature is notably absent. Our review integrates and distills the current state of the science across this vast and fragmented literature, spread over multiple content domains. We identify emergent themes, offer an integrated process framework of pride in a work context, help to resolve conflicting findings and ongoing debates in this literature, and provide a series of generative and theoretically grounded suggestions for meaningfully extending the literature on pride in a work context.