Shaping benign and malicious envy in organizations

In this chapter we review the key features of envy, with special focus on the distinction between two types of envy, benign or malicious. We examine how organizations can shape the type of envy most likely to emerge, largely by influencing perceptions of deservingness and control, so that the resulting emotion has more salutary, benign features. We also emphasize the challenges associating with this shaping process, given how threatening it can be for people to admit to their envy, malicious envy especially, and therefore how envy can so often go misreported, repressed, or transmuted. Our analysis is in keeping with appraisal theories of emotion and also with the general notion that emotions can have positive or negative effects separate from their valence.