Pride and shame in the creation of the ‘appropriate’ professional

This chapter extends the theory of pride and shame in professional practice by considering how pride, shame and other self-conscious emotions are strategically used to regulate the emotions of the social workers to alter not just what they do and how they do it, but also who they are. It develops the idea of organisational control by conceptualising pride and shame as central to this process. It is argued that it is through the regulation of employee emotions, and specifically through self-conscious emotions, that what people do, how they do it and how they define themselves can be shaped, influenced and manipulated. Organisational leaders and managers can be seen to regulate the emotions of the social workers directly, and therefore their identities indirectly, so that they perform the ‘appropriate’ tasks, in the ‘appropriate’ way, at the ‘appropriate’ time. After considering the theory of regulating the emotions of social workers, this chapter returns to the case example used throughout the book to take a deeper look at these processes in practice.