The role of emotion in supporting independent professionals

This chapter looks at how work on emotions, particularly positive emotional states and perceptions of work, has provided the basis for gleaning new insights and understanding the work the engagement of independent professionals. We present the first set of results of the Entity Solutions 1 IPro Index (ESII), the leading benchmark survey for identifying trends, issues and attitudes of IPros in Australia. Prior research indicates the important role that personality traits such as positive affectivity, self-efficacy and internal locus of control can have in determining a positive emotional state at work. These findings lead to the identification of five key areas of lifestyle (overall job satisfaction), wellbeing (engagement, psychological and emotional aspects), commitment to current client (workplace), perceived support from current client (workplace) and trends (current issues) which underlie the ESII. We use this research as a foundation for developing further understanding of the emotional experiences of those working outside of the traditional employer-employee relationship and in doing so, focus specifically on four of the key areas: job satisfaction, well-being, commitment and perceived organizational support. The descriptive results are derived from 365 responses gathered in an online survey conducted during June and July 2010 from IPros working in Australian organizations. Copyright © 2011 by Emerald Group Publishing Limited.