What We Know and Don’t Know About Passion at Work

This chapter addresses the question: What do we know, and what don’t we know about passion at work? One key objective of this final chapter is to provide a brief synopsis of the key findings reported by the various authors in this volume. The chapter summarizes the consensual definitions that have emerged regarding passion and its two major forms—obsessive passion and harmonious passion. It highlights factors that produce passion as well as those that result from passion. Especially, the differences associated with obsessive passion and harmonious passion are highlighted. Different predictors and different outcomes are associated with each form of passion. In addition, findings associated with individual, organizational, and macro levels of analysis are summarized. Different relationships with these two forms of passion are manifest across different levels of analysis. A second objective is to articulate some of what we do not yet know about passion. The chapter highlights some of the important research questions that can help guide research on passion in the future. This discussion includes issues regarding the development of passion, causal relationships between passion and certain outcomes, forms and manifestations of passion, and individual and contextual differences associated with passion.