Relationship between Emotional Labor and Job Satisfaction: Testing Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence on South Korean Public Service Employees

Abstract

Nearly half of public sector jobs involve emotional labor and the studies on emotional labor in the public service have been growing nowadays. However, prior studies on the consequences of the dimensions of emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) have revealed the mixed findings, especially relations with job satisfaction in the public service. To clarify inconsistent results of the relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction, this study incorporates emotional intelligence as the mediator in a sample of public service employees in South Korea. Theoretically, those who perform emotional labor are more highly satisfied with their jobs when they possess higher levels of emotional intelligence skills. The findings revealed that only deep acting and job satisfaction was significantly and positively related and only emotional-self regulation was partially mediated among the dimensions of emotional intelligence between deep acting and job satisfaction. While this study focuses on the South Korean context, findings also raise awareness to Western culture context.