Understanding hotel frontline employees’ emotional intelligence, emotional labor, job stress, coping strategies and burnout

Abstract

This study aims to examine (1) the singular mediation effects of surface acting (SA), deep acting (DA), and job stress (JST) between EI and burnout, (2) the sequential mediation effects of SA–JST and DA–JST between emotional labor and burnout, and (3) the moderation effects of coping strategies in mitigating the effect of JST on burnout. The authors employed a mail survey and collected valid data from 344 hotel frontline employees to examine the theoretical model. One of the significant findings is that the link between EI and burnout is mediated by a singular mediator of JST, as well as by both sequential mediators of SA–JST and DA–JST. The findings also reveal that the strategies of active coping and seeking support alleviate the undesirable phenomenon of burnout resulting from emotional labor stress, while avoidant coping strategy does not have any significant moderation effect.