Collective Emotions in Institutional Creation Work

In this paper, we explain how and why collective emotions enable institutional creation work. Based on an ethnography in Limonade, a Haitian community affected by the 2010 earthquake, we identify social practices that elicit collective emotions through the creation of new institutions across the three disaster recovery phases. Our study’s key insight is that new institutions converge collective emotions such that they in turn justify ongoing, as well as motivate engagement in new, institutional creation work practices. Theorizing from our findings, we develop a generative model that describes the justifying and motivating function of collective emotions in the establishment of embedded institutions. In conclusion, our paper advances theory on collective emotions in institutional work and generates implications for post-disaster management practice.