Teresa Amabile
Harvard Business School
Inner Work Life, Performance, and Managerial Action

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How are knowledge worker' private thoughts and feelings influenced by the events of the work day, and are there consequences for performance? What is the role of managerial action, and are managers aware of these effects? In this talk, I will report some of the key findings in a longitudinal research program on the psychology of everyday work life. The research analyzes a database collected over several years, consisting primarily of nearly 12,000 daily electronic diary reports from 238 professionals working in 26 creative project teams in 7 companies. The diaries provide quantitative and qualitative data on participants' perceptions, affect, and motivation, as well as the events that they experienced during the work day. We assessed performance on several dimensions, including creativity. This talk will focus on three questions: How does affect influence creativity at work? Which types of everyday events most strongly influence affect at work? Are managers aware of these influences?

Teresa Amabile is the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration in the Entrepreneurial Management Unit at Harvard Business School, as well as a Director of Research. Her research investigates how life inside organizations can influence people and their performance. Teresa's current research program focuses on the psychology of everyday work life: how events in the work environment influence subjective experience ("inner work life") and performance (creativity, productivity, and commitment to the work). She is the author of The Progress Principle, Creativity in Context, and Growing Up Creative, as well as over 150 scholarly papers, chapters, case studies, and presentations. She has presented her theories, research results, and practical implications to various groups in business,government, and education, including Google, Pixar, Intel, TEDx Atlanta, Procter & Gamble, Novartis International AG, and Motorola. Teresa holds a Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University.