Does perceived manager support reduce hotel supervisors' emotional exhaustion? The mediating role of control over time and negative emotions

Han Chen,Kim Williams,Yvette Green

doi:10.1108/ihr-03-2021-0024

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https://doi.org/10.1108/ihr-03-2021-0024

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Abstract

PurposeSupervisory employees in the hotel industry experience high levels of emotional exhaustion. The current study aims to examine the impact of perceived manager support, perceived control over time and negative emotions at others on hotel supervisors' emotional exhaustion. It further investigates the mediating role of perceived control over time and negative emotions at others on the relationship between perceived manager support and hotel supervisors' emotional exhaustion.Design/methodology/approachPaper questionnaires were distributed at a hotel supervisor training seminar. A total of 155 usable responses were collected from hotel supervisors. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used for hypotheses testing.FindingsResults showed that perceived manager support and perceived control over time both were negatively associated with hotel supervisors' emotional exhaustion. Negative emotions at others were positively related to hotel supervisors' emotional exhaustion. Both perceived control over time and negative emotions at others were found to mediate the relationship between perceived manager support and hotel supervisors' emotional exhaustion.Originality/valueThe study applied the job demand–resources model and the affective event theory to examine hotel supervisors' emotional exhaustion. The mediating role of perceived control over time and negative emotions at others added to the current knowledge of factors that are associated with hotel supervisory employees' emotional exhaustion.

Highlights

Supervisory employees within the hotel industry often face stressful demands, resulting in adverse effects on their emotional health as well as both physical and mental health issues (Khamisa et al, 2015), such as emotional exhaustion
Based on the Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), two items of the emotional exhaustion “Working with guests is really a strain for me” (0.42) and “I feel I am working hard for my guests because they’re too demanding” (0.46) and two items of the perceived control over time “I underestimate the time that it would take to accomplish tasks” (0.33) and “I find myself procrastinating on tasks that I do not like but that must be done” (0.44) were removed from the final analysis due to low standardized item loading value
The results showed that perceived manager support was negatively associated with hotel supervisors’ emotional exhaustion (À0.41, p < 0.01) and negative emotions toward others (À0.27, p < 0.05) and was positively related to their perceived control over time (0.39, p < 0.05)

Summary

Introduction

Supervisory employees within the hotel industry often face stressful demands, resulting in adverse effects on their emotional health as well as both physical and mental health issues (Khamisa et al, 2015), such as emotional exhaustion. Employee emotional exhaustion has been shown to negatively impact job satisfaction (Lewig and Dollard, 2003), performance (Halbesleben and Bowler, 2007), and employee turnover (Karatepe and Aleshinloye, 2009). © Han Chen, Yvette Green and Kim Williams. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

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