This special issue revisits Affective Events Theory three decades after its original formulation, examining how it applies to contemporary work environments characterized by digitalization, datafication, and AI-mediated interactions. The issue seeks to extend AET's core propositions to explain how employees experience and respond to affective micro-events in modern organizational contexts, incorporating theoretical advancements and methodological innovations developed over the past 30 years.
The special issue welcomes original empirical research, theoretical contributions, and review articles that advance AET's boundaries across diverse contexts. Contributions should engage with emerging themes such as digital and hybrid work, multilevel dynamics of emotions, knowledge-intensive work environments, cross-cultural perspectives, and novel methodological approaches including experience sampling and emotion sensing technologies. Scholars are encouraged to challenge AET's assumptions, extend its mechanisms, and explore how affective processes operate within complex socio-technical work landscapes.