Organizational culture profoundly influences how employees think and behave. Established research suggests that the content, intensity, consensus, and fit of cultural norms act as a social control system for attitudes and behavior. We adopt the norms model of organizational culture to elucidate whether organizational culture can influence how employees experience emotions. We focus on a pervasive emotion, anxiety. We propose four important pathways that link organizational culture with anxiety. First, we propose that when norm content is result-oriented, employees must strive for challenging goals with specific targets under time pressure, and are more likely to experience anxiety. Second, when norm intensity is weak, employees do not internalize norms and they engage in deviant behaviors that increase uncertainty and promote anxiety. Third, a lack of consensus about norms commonly creates conflict between factions within an organization and increases anxiety. Fourth, when there is a mismatch between employees’ values and organizational norms and values, the misfit engenders anxiety. Taken together, different features of organizational cultural norms can independently and multiplicatively influence the magnitude of anxiety, which has constructive or destructive effects on performance.

组织文化深刻影响员工的思维和行为方式。既定研究表明，文化规范的内容、强度、共识和契合度是对态度和行为的社会控制系统。我们采用组织文化的规范模型来阐明组织文化是否会影响员工的情绪体验。我们专注于一种普遍的情绪，焦虑。我们提出了四种将组织文化与焦虑联系起来的重要途径。首先，我们提出，当规范内容以结果为导向时，员工必须在时间压力下为具有特定目标的挑战性目标而奋斗，更容易产生焦虑。其次，当规范强度较弱时，员工不会内化规范，他们会从事增加不确定性和促进焦虑的越轨行为。第三，对规范缺乏共识通常会造成组织内派系之间的冲突并增加焦虑。第四，当员工的价值观与组织规范和价值观不匹配时，不匹配就会产生焦虑。总之，组织文化规范的不同特征可以独立地和成倍地影响焦虑的程度，这对绩效具有建设性或破坏性的影响。