Abstract
Emotional dissonance, i.e., a discrepancy between required and felt emotions, has been established as a predictor of sickness absence in studies, but little is known about mechanisms that can explain this association. In order to prevent and reduce the impact of emotional dissonance on sickness absence, there is a need for greater attention to variables explaining when and how emotional dissonance is related to sickness absence. The overarching aim of this study was to examine whether emotional dissonance has an indirect association with sickness absence through exhaustion. In addition, we examined whether human resource primacy (HRP), which is the employer’s degree of concern for human resources, moderates this indirect effect. A sample of 7758 employees, all working with customers and clients, were recruited from 96 Norwegian organizations. Emotional dissonance, exhaustion, and HRP were measured through surveys and then linked to registry data on medically certified sickness absence for the year following the survey assessment. Results showed that exhaustion is a mediator for the relationship between emotional dissonance and sickness absence. Furthermore, higher levels of HRP were found to reduce the positive association between emotional dissonance and exhaustion, and the indirect effect of emotional dissonance on sickness absence through exhaustion is found to be weaker when HRP is high. By testing this moderated mediation model, the current study contributes to the literature on emotion work by clarifying mechanisms that are crucial for the development of targeted interventions that aim to reduce and prevent sickness absence in client-driven work environments.
Highlights
Since the early 1970s, there has been a major redistribution of employment from industry into the service sector (Dolphin, 2015), and service jobs have become the major form of employment in European countries (Paoli and Merllié, 2012)
We tested whether human resource primacy (HRP) moderated the association between emotional dissonance and exhaustion (H2)
The results show that the indirect effect from emotional dissonance to sickness absence through exhaustion decreases with higher levels of HRP
Summary
Since the early 1970s, there has been a major redistribution of employment from industry into the service sector (Dolphin, 2015), and service jobs have become the major form of employment in European countries (Paoli and Merllié, 2012). Through their direct contact with customers and clients, service employees are expected to display emotions according to the organization’s. Accumulated evidence suggests that regulation of feelings at the workplace increases the risk of feeling exhausted (Zapf, 2002; Hülsheger and Schewe, 2011) and being absent from work (Nguyen et al, 2013; Indregard et al, 2016)
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