Abstract
Previous studies have used various external variables and parameters as well as moderator variables such as emotional intelligence have been to understand emotional labor and its related problems. However, a comprehensive model to study such variables’ correlations with each other and their overall effect on emotional labor has not yet been established. This study used a structural equation model to understand the relationship between employees’ expression of emotional labor and perception of customer feedbacks. The study also looked at how the perception of customer feedback affects emotional exhaustion in order to understand how emotional exhaustion affects job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Further, in order to fully understand the effects of emotion on emotional labor at the service contact points, this study developed and tested a model of emotional labor with four factors of emotional intelligence as moderating factors. Five hundred and seventy nine emotional labor workers in service industries in the United States were collected and 577 valid survey results have been analyzed. The result shows that there exists moderating effects of emotional intelligence on how employees’ Deep Acting and Surface Acting recognize customers’ reactions, both positive and negative, that would affect employees’ Emotional Exhaustion and Job Satisfaction, and hence, Turnover Intention. The result suggests that employees with better understanding of their own emotions, although they are more likely to recover from emotional exhaustion, experience a greater negative effect when there is a discrepancy between what they feel and how they should act.
Highlights
The growth of the service industry has prompted the importance of employees’ emotional labor, and it has received increased attention from various fields including organizational behavior and organizational psychology (Grandey and Gabriel, 2015)
Test results showed that Deep Acting (Estimate = 0.22, t-value = 3.95, p-value = 0.00) and Non-Verbal Communication (Estimate = 0.66, t-value = 3.11, p-value = 0.00) have statistically significant effects on Perception of Customer Feedback (Positive) while Surface Acting and Verbal Expression failed to show significant effects
The analysis on Managing Emotion suggests a similar result. It shows that the effect of Deep Acting on Perception of Customer Feedback (Negative) and the effect of Job Satisfaction on Turnover Intention vary depending on the employees’ Emotional Intelligence. This result could be interpreted as that an employee with a high Emotional Intelligence is more likely to recover from psychological frustration and emotional depletion and would have lower Turnover Intention
Summary
The growth of the service industry has prompted the importance of employees’ emotional labor, and it has received increased attention from various fields including organizational behavior and organizational psychology (Grandey and Gabriel, 2015). Grandey (2000) stated that emotional labor can negatively affect workers’ job satisfaction, and the job satisfaction has strong implications for attendance, turnover, sabotage, job performance, and the mental and physical health of employees (Miao et al, 2017). Emotional labor indirectly affects employees by negatively affecting the performance of the organization. Departures of skilled labor workers would cause additional expenses in recruiting, hiring, and training of new employees. It will have negative effects on the service quality of the organization. Higher turnover rate would negatively affect the organizations business performances It will negatively affect the job stability of the remaining employees. In order to improve corporate performance, increase employee motivation and enhance employee’s job satisfaction, it is important to address employees’ emotional labor issues
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