Emotional Saturation as a Threshold State in Organizational Contexts: Integrating Resource-Based and Relational Approaches

Abstract

Contemporary research in organizational behavior has devoted considerable attention to the role of emotions in professional life, particularly through the constructs of emotional intelligence and psychological capital as drivers of employee performance (Manafi, Hojabri & Rostomyan, 2025). Yet existing approaches focus primarily on adaptive resources and pay far less attention to the limits of emotional processing capacity. This article proposes a conceptualization of emotional saturation as a distinct threshold state that arises when an individual’s capacity to process and regulate incoming emotional demands is exceeded. Drawing on qualitative analysis, four interrelated dimensions are identified: affective overload, emotional blunting, cognitive impairment, and regulatory breakdown. A relational and configurational interpretation of this state is proposed, distinguishing it from adjacent constructs such as stress, burnout, and emotional exhaustion. The article contributes to the theory of emotions in organizations by arguing for a shift from resource-based to threshold-based models of emotional functioning.