Journal of Management Research

Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Subscription Access
Open Access Open Access Open Access  Restricted Access Restricted Access Subscription Access

Emotional Labor and Emotional Exhaustion. Does Co-worker Support Matter?


Affiliations
1 Labuan School of International Business and Finance, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Labuan-87000, F.T. (Malaysia)
     

   Subscribe/Renew Journal


This study examines the emotional labor process, operationalized as surface acting and deep acting, as performed by hotel employees in Sabah, Malaysia. It also investigates the influence of emotional labor on emotional exhaustion, and the potential role of co-worker support in moderating the proposed relationship. Using a self-administered survey questionnaire, data were obtained from a total of 137 hotel workers. Findings on the consequences of emotional labor were consistent with expectations: surface acting positively influenced emotional exhaustion, whereas deep acting was negatively related to emotional exhaustion. Interestingly, co-worker support had reverse buffering effect on the relationship between deep acting and emotional exhaustion. The implications of the findings for the training of Malaysian hotel workers in terms of effective emotion management are also discussed in this paper.

Keywords

Emotional Labor, Emotional Exhaustion, Co-worker Support, Hotel Workers
User
Notifications

  • Abraham, R. (1998), Emotional Dissonance in Organizations: Antecedents, Consequences, and Moderators, Generic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 124: 229–246.

  • Abraham, R. (1999), The Impact of Emotional Dissonance on Organizational Commitment and Intention to Turnover, Journal of Psychology, 133(4): 441–455.

  • Adelmann, P. K. (1995), Emotional Labor as a Potential Source of Job Stress, in Sauter, S. L. and Murphy, L. R. (Eds.),Organizational Risk Factors for Job Stress, pp. 371–381, American Psychological Association, Washington, DC.

  • Baruch-Feldman, C., Brondolo, E., Ben-Dayan, D. and Schwartz, J. (2002), Sources of Social Support and Burnout, Job Satisfaction and Productivity, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 7(1): 84–93.

  • Beehr, T. A. (1995), Psychological Stress in the Workplace, Routledge, New York.

  • Bird, S. R. and Sapp, S. G. (2004), Understanding the Gender Gap in Small Business Success: Urban and Rural Comparisons, Gender and Society, 18: 5–28.

  • Bowen, D. E., Siehl, C. and Schneider, B. (1989), A Framework for Analyzing Customer Service Orientations in Manufacturing, Academy of Management Review, 14(1): 75–95.

  • Brotheridge, C. M. and Grandey, A. A. (2002), Emotional Labour and Burnout: Comparing Two Perspectives of People Work, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60: 17–39.

  • Brotheridge, C. M. and Lee, R. T. (1998), On the Dimensionality of Emotional Labour: Development and Validation of the Emotional Scale, paper presented at the First Conference on Emotions in Organizational Life, San Diego.

  • Brotheridge, C. M. and Lee, R. T. (2003), Development and Validation of the Emotional Labour Scale, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 76: 365–379.

  • Caplan, R. D., Cobb, S., French, J. R. P., Van Harrison, R. and Pinneau, S. R. (1980), Job Demands and Worker Health, Institute of Social Research, University of Michigan, Michigan, Ann Arbor.

  • Chu, K. H. (2002), The Effects of Emotional Labour on Employee Work Outcome, unpublished doctoral dissertation, Faculty of the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Blacksburg, Virginia.

  • Cohen, S. and Wills, T.A. (1985), Stress, Social Support, and the Buffering Hypothesis, Psychological Bulletin, 98: 310–357.

  • Daily Express (2008), Sabah Hospitality Sector Losing Skilled Workers. Assessed on September 10, 2009, from http://www.dailyexpress.com.my/news.cfm?NewsID=60202.

  • Diefendorff, J. M., Croyle, M. H. and Gosserand, R. H. (2005), The Dimensionality and Antecedents of Emotional Labour Strategies, Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66: 339–357.

  • Erickson, R. J. (1991), When Emotion is the Product: Self Society, and Inauthenticity in a Postmodern World, Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Washington State University, Pullman.

  • Grandey, A. A. (2000), Emotion Regulation in the Workplace: A New Way to Conceptualize Emotional Labour, Journal of

  • Occupational Health Psychology, 5: 95–110.

  • Grandey, A. A. (2003), When “The Show Must Go On”: Surface Acting and Deep Acting as Determinants of Emotional Exhaustion and Peer-rated Service Delivery, Academy of Management Journal, 46: 86–96.

  • Gross, J. (1998), Antecedent-and response-focused Emotion Regulation: Divergent Consequences for Experience, Expression, and Physiology, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74: 224–237.

  • Grove, S. J. and Fisk, R. P. (1989), Impression Management in Services Marketing: A Dramaturgical Perspective, in Giacalone, R. A. and Rosenfeld, P. (Eds.), Impression Management in the Organization, pp. 427–438, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NJ.

  • Heskett, J. L., Schlesinger, L. A. and Sasser, W. E. (1997), The Service Profit Chain: How Leading Companies Link Profit and Growth to Loyalty, Satisfaction and Value, The Free Press, New York.

  • Hochschild, A. R. (1983), The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling, University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.

  • Jackson, S. E., Schwab, R. L. and Schuler, R. S. (1986), Toward an Understanding of the Burnout Phenomenon, Journal of Applied Psychology, 71: 630–640.

  • Johnson, H. A. (2004), The Story Behind Service with A Smile: The Effects of Emotional Labour on Job Satisfaction, Emotional Exhaustion, and Affective Well-Being, unpublished Master of Arts thesis, Department of Psychology, University of South Florida, US.

  • Johnson, H. A. and Spector, P. E. (2007), Service with a Smile: Do Emotional Intelligence, Gender, and Autonomy Moderate the Emotional Labour Process?, Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12: 319–333.

  • Jones, J. R. (1998), An Examination of the Emotional Labour Construct and its Effects on Employee Outcomes, ETD Collection for University of Nebraska, University of Nebraska, US.

  • Jordan, F. (1997), An Occupational Hazard? Sex Segregation in Tourism Employment, Tourism Management, 18: 525–534.

  • Kahn, R. L. (1964), Role Conflict and Ambiguity in Organizations, Personnel Administrator, 9: 8–13.

  • Kim, H. J. (2008), Hotel Service Providers’ Emotional Labour: The Antecedents and Effects on Burnout, International Journal of Hospitality Management, 27: 151–161.

  • Kruml, S. and Geddes, D. (2000), Catching Fire without Burning Out: Is There an Ideal Way to Perform Emotional Labour?, in Askanasy, N. M., Haertel, C. E. J. and Zerbe, W. J. (Eds.), Emotions in the Workplace: Research, Theory and Practice, pp. 177–188, Quorum Books, Westport, CT.

  • Mann, S. (1997), Emotional Labour in Organizations, Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 18: 4–12.

  • Maslach, C. (1982), Burnout: The Cost of Caring, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.

  • Maslach, C. and Jackson, S. (1986), Maslach Burnout Inventory Manual (2nd Ed.), Consulting Psychologists Press, Palo Alto, CA.

  • Meier, K. J., Mastracci, S. H. and Wilson, K. (2006), Gender and Emotional Labour in Public Organizations: An Empirical Examination of the Link to Performance, Public Administration Review, 66: 899–909.

  • MICE Business Asia (2008), Sabah Development Corridor Announced to Transform Sabah into a Major Tourist Hub. Assessed on November 8, 2011, from http://www.micebusinessasia.com/?cat=1.

  • Netto, A. (2007), Minimum Wage Row Flares in Malaysia, Asia Times, 18 July.

  • Page, S. and Connell, J. (2006), Tourism: A Modern Synthesis. Thomson, Toronto.

  • Rafaeli, A. and Sutton, R. I. (1987), Expression of Emotion as Part of the Work Role, Academy of Management Review, 12: 23–37.

  • Repeti, R. L. and Cosmas, K. A. (1991), The Quality of the Social Environment at Work and Job Satisfaction, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 21: 840–854.

  • Richter, L. K. (1995), Gender and Race: Neglected Variables in Tourism Research, in Buffer, R. and Pearce, D. (Eds.), Change in Tourism: People, Places, and Processes. Routledge, London.

  • Robbins, S. P. and Judge, T. A. (2009), Organizational Behavior (13th Ed.), Pearson, Upper Saddle River, NJ.

  • Schneider, B. and Bowen, D. E. (1985), Employee and Customer Perceptions of Service in the Banks: Replication and Extension, Journal of Applied Psychology, 70: 423–433.

  • Seery, B. L., Corrigall, E. A. and Harpel, T. (2008), Job-related Emotional Labour and its Relationship to Work-family Conflict and Facilitation, Journal of Family and Economic Issues, 29: 461–477.

  • Smith, T. W. (1992), Hostility and Health: Current Status of a Psychosomatic Hypothesis, Health Psychology, 11: 130–150.

  • Teoh, S. (2011), Minimum Wage Bill Passed. Downloaded on July 20, 2011, from http://thestar.com.my/.

  • Van Dijk, P. and Kirk, A. (2006), Emotional Labour and Negative Job Outcomes: An Evaluation of the Mediating Role of

  • Emotional Dissonance, Journal of Management and Organization, 12: 101–115.

  • Wharton, A. S. (1993), The Affective Consequences of Service Work, Work and Occupations, 20: 205–232.

  • Wharton, A. S. (2009), The Sociology of Emotional Labour, Annual Review of Sociology, 35: 147–165.

  • Yang, F. H. and Chang, C. C. (2008), Emotional Labour, Job Satisfaction, and Organizational Commitment amongst Clinical Nurses: A Questionnaire Survey, International Journal of Nursing Studies, 45: 879–887.

  • Zajonc, R. B. (1985), Emotion and Facial Efference: An Ignored Theory Reclaimed, Science, 228: 15–21.

  • Zapf, D. (2002), Emotion Work and Psychological Well-being: A Review of the Literature and Some Conceptual Considerations, Human Resources Management Review, 12: 237–268.


Abstract Views: 1212

PDF Views: 4




  • Emotional Labor and Emotional Exhaustion. Does Co-worker Support Matter?

Abstract Views: 1212  |  PDF Views: 4

Authors

Hwa Magdalene Ang Chooi
Labuan School of International Business and Finance, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Labuan-87000, F.T. (Malaysia)

Abstract


This study examines the emotional labor process, operationalized as surface acting and deep acting, as performed by hotel employees in Sabah, Malaysia. It also investigates the influence of emotional labor on emotional exhaustion, and the potential role of co-worker support in moderating the proposed relationship. Using a self-administered survey questionnaire, data were obtained from a total of 137 hotel workers. Findings on the consequences of emotional labor were consistent with expectations: surface acting positively influenced emotional exhaustion, whereas deep acting was negatively related to emotional exhaustion. Interestingly, co-worker support had reverse buffering effect on the relationship between deep acting and emotional exhaustion. The implications of the findings for the training of Malaysian hotel workers in terms of effective emotion management are also discussed in this paper.

Keywords


Emotional Labor, Emotional Exhaustion, Co-worker Support, Hotel Workers

References