Emotional Labor and Organized Emotional Care

Based on qualitative comparison of three nursing home facilities, the idea of organized emotional care is proposed as a complement to the concept of emotional labor for understanding care work. It is argued that emotional labor and organized emotional care are distinguished primarily by the presence or absence of organizational feeling rules and affective requirements. Care organizations can be plotted on a continuum with emotional labor at the coercive end and organized emotional care at the other. The proposed distinction restores a positive vision of organizational management of emotion to the sociology of work.