Contemporary political and social tensions have intensified polarization, intergroup division, and even hostility, raising important questions around how to sustain constructive relationships across challenging differences. These dynamics are evident in organizations, where demographic, ideological, and value-based differences can undermine trust, collaboration, and the relational foundations of work. Yet organizational scholarship has largely sidestepped one of the most powerful relational constructs for addressing such challenges: love. Often treated as private, sentimental, or inappropriate for work, love has been marginalized in organizational theory despite its centrality to human connection. This Professional Development Workshop advances love as a serious theoretical lens for rethinking conflict, difference, and relational repair in organizational life. We consider love not as emotion alone, but as a constellation of practices and orientations-such as care, compassion, and recognition of shared humanity-that can reshape how individuals and groups engage disagreement and sustain relationships under strain. Drawing inspiration from Philadelphia as the "City of Brotherly Love," the workshop will serve as a generative space for scholars to collectively explore the boundaries, tensions, and possibilities of theorizing love at work. Through structured dialogue and collaborative sensemaking, the PDW aims to generate novel research questions, conceptual frameworks, and pedagogical and practical insights. Further, we intend our PDW to be a forum for continuing to build and cultivate a community of scholars passionate about positive relationships at work.
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Jordan Nye, PhD Candidate
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI
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