Antecedents of Emotion Work in Customer Service Work

Understanding the role of emotional regulation in customer service occupations where employees are required to interact with their clients frequently as a part of their job, is an essential and often neglected area of organizational health research in India. People engaged in such businesses become emotionally drained in the process of attracting the customers and promoting the organizational goals. This study examines the role of temperament, self monitoring and psychological wellbeing on emotional work and identifies its antecedents among customer service employees. Using Stratified random sampling technique one hundred and fifty seven county employees were sampled using a cross-sectional survey design. The participants were administered on Emotionality Activity Sociability (EAS) temperament survey, self monitoring scale, psychological well being scale and Frankfurt emotion work scale. Hierarchical multiple regressions was used to analyze the data and the results shows sociability, emotionality and psychological wellbeing emerged as strong antecedents of emotion work. The results of this study highlighted the role of emotion work as an important potential interpersonal variable for the growth of an organization. On this basis, structured training modules can be designed in order to enhance self control and psychological wellbeing of the employees. Further implications of the study are discussed in the paper.