Abstract

This article aims to reveal the ideological dimension of emotion in the management of informal cosmetics sellers working for a multinational company located in Curitiba, Brazil, using situational analysis. Emotion is understood as essential to human subjectivity, associated to thought, activities and culturally shared language, as a valuable social situation. Analysis from in-depth interviews, participant observation and document analysis were carried out using the technique of discourse ‘nuclei of meanings’. Results show that emotions are social and cultural products, used as a manageable tool in the organization, through ideological symbols that constitute the subjects. Emotion is the result of the individual experience of the activity (historical, processual and complex) with sense and meaning that serves as a sophisticated instrument of reproduction of the company’s ideology. The ideology is supported by the identification of the sellers with social practices and their relations with the world, and it is constituted by their activity.

Keywords:
Emotion; Ideology; Management; Activity