Surface acting has a significant positive impact on employees' turnover intention

Flight attendants often feign emotions (surface acting) to meet role expectations, which is linked to increased exhaustion. This reduces their involvement in workplace social exchanges (Leader–Member Exchange (LMX), Team–Member Exchange (TMX)). These patterns appear more pronounced among those with higher turnover intentions. The study explored these dynamics using Cognitive Dissonance, Conservation of Resources and Social Exchange theories, testing understudied relationships and the connection between quitting intentions and workplace social dynamics. Using non-probability sampling, survey data from 200 flight attendants of five airlines registered in Pakistan were analysed, revealing a 14.8% higher level of exhaustion among those who reported greater use of surface acting. This exhaustion was linked to reduced LMX (75.1%) and TMX (47.7%). The analysis also suggested emotional exhaustion’s possible mediating role in both LMX and TMX pathways, with noteworthy moderated-mediation effects in the model emphasising the importance of supporting employee well-being and addressing turnover intentions.

No abstract available

Turnover Intention is a condition obtained by employees to switch from one company to another. One of the factors that can influence turnover intention is surface acting. This study aims to determine the effect of surface acting on turnover intention in debt collector employees. This study uses a simple quantitative regression approach. Respondents in this study were 153 debt collector employees who were obtained using the snowball sampling technique. The results showed that there was a positive and significant effect of surface acting on the turnover intention of debt collectors (b = 0.685, p = 0.00 <0.05) indicating that the higher the surface acting score, the higher the turnover intention of debt collectors. Additional test results show that recent education and age have no significant effect on surface acting on turnover intention among debt collectors (P = 0.00 > 0.05). This research can be a reference for finance companies to provide training regarding better emotional labor strategies. The next researcher’s suggestion is to use a qualitative approach method to describe conditions in more detail and conduct research on two emotional labor strategy variables (surface acting and deep acting) on turnover intention in debt collector employees.

No abstract available

This study explores through the lens of the banking service sector the relationship between customer orientation and job burnout through emotional labor (deep acting and surface acting), and its impact on reducing turnover intention. This research also examines the moderating role of perceived organizational support (POS). Surveying 688 frontline employees working in commercial banks in Vietnam, the authors deployed a research framework based on the conservation of resources theory, job-demand resource model, and social exchange theory and used the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to test the research hypotheses. The findings indicated that the two types of emotional labor mediated the association between customer orientation and job burnout. POS also dampened the relationship between job burnout and turnover intention. Finally, the study suggested implications for bank managers to reduce job burnout and employee turnover intention.

The hospitality industry is vulnerable to various forms of customer incivility, leading frontline employees to perform emotional labor. This study, grounded in the Job Demands–Resources (JD‐R) model and the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, aims to elucidate the mechanisms through which emotional labor leads to emotional exhaustion and ultimately increases turnover intention among casino dealers. Health promotion behaviors are examined as a coping strategy within this pathway. A quantitative survey was conducted with 325 casino dealers in South Korea, and the data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings show that customer incivility exerts a partially significant impact on emotional labor, with physical incivility exerting a stronger influence. Surface acting significantly affects emotional exhaustion, whereas deep acting does not demonstrate a significant effect. Emotional exhaustion was identified as a strong predictor of turnover intention. Furthermore, health promotion behaviors did not show a significant direct effect on turnover intention.

Synthesizing the conservation of resource theory, proximal withdrawal state theory, and job demands-resources theory, the present study examined the relationships between two dimensions of emotional labor (i.e., surface and deep acting) and turnover intention, as well as the moderating role of perceived organizational support in these relationships, such as the context of Korean firefighters. Using survey data drawn from fire organizations in Gyeonggi-do, the largest province of South Korea, we found that both surface and deep acting are positively related to firefighter turnover intentions. Further analysis indicates that the perceived organizational support of firefighters, vital for public health and safety, attenuates the positive relationship between surface acting and turnover intention but has no significant moderating effect on the relationship between deep acting and turnover intention. Our results suggest that perceived organizational support acts through essential psychological resources to recover the loss of emotional resources and contributes to the retention of firefighter personnel who primarily perform challenging and stressful work, including firefighting and offering emergency medical services. Thus, this study examines a crucial tool to ensure firefighters’ public mental health.

Turnover is a costly and time-consuming expense, especially for service industry businesses. To date, little is known about whether and how emotional labor may activate employee turnover intention in the service industry. In order to solve the above problems and fill the gaps, this study aimed to verify how emotional labor can trigger turnover intention during the COVID-19 pandemic. Based on job characteristics theory and job demands–resources theory, this study examined whether emotional display rules and emotional labor strategies affect turnover intention brought on by emotional exhaustion and job dissatisfaction, with fear of COVID-19 as a moderator. After testing our hypotheses using a sample of 623 individuals from China’s service industry, this study found that emotional display rules (positive and negative display rules) are significantly related to emotional labor strategies (deep acting, expression of naturally felt emotions, and surface acting). In particular, positive display rules have a positive impact on deep acting and the expression of naturally felt emotions and are more closely related to the expression of naturally felt emotions. Negative display rules negatively affect surface acting. Moreover, emotional labor strategies correlate significantly with emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction/dissatisfaction, and subsequent turnover intention. Thus, deep acting and the expression of naturally felt emotions are related to low emotional exhaustion and high job satisfaction, while surface acting is related to high emotional exhaustion and low job satisfaction. Emotional exhaustion has a negative effect on job satisfaction and a positive effect on turnover intention. Job satisfaction significantly weakens turnover intention. In addition, fear of COVID-19 has a moderating effect on the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover intention. The group with a high fear of COVID-19 has higher turnover intention even in job satisfaction situations than the group with a low fear of COVID-19. This work advances emotional labor research by combining two dimensions of emotional display rules and three dimensions of emotional labor strategies into a framework, investigating the mechanism through which emotional labor influences turnover intention, and revealing the moderating effect of fear of COVID-19 in the process.

ABSTRACT This study aimed to elaborate on the mechanism by which workplace ostracism influences turnover intention through exploring the sequential mediation effects of emotional labour and nurse-patient relationship. Using a sample of 379 nurses collected from a time-lag survey in a tertiary public hospital in China, we applied structural equation modelling techniques to test our hypothesized model. Our findings revealed that workplace ostracism positively influenced surface acting and deep acting. Workplace ostracism influenced turnover intention through the sequential mediation of surface acting and nurse-patient relationship. The findings of this study imply that nurses should receive education and training in emotional management skills to deal with workplace ostracism. Besides, fostering positive nurse-patient relationships may help reduce nurses’ turnover intention.

No abstract available

PURPOSE To investigate the effect of nurses' emotional labor on their turnover intention that was mediated by burnout and to examine the moderated mediation effect of authentic leadership. METHODS A total of 227 nurses working at two general hospitals in Seoul were recruited from March 21 to May 6 in 2016. Emotional labor including surface acting and deep acting; burnout factors such as emotional exhaustion and personal accomplishment; and turnover intention were assessed. The data were analyzed using SPSS 22.0 and SPSS PROCESS macro. RESULTS Surface acting significantly increased emotional exhaustion and reduced personal accomplishment. Deep acting significantly increased personal accomplishment. Emotional exhaustion significantly increased turnover intention. Conversely, personal accomplishment significantly reduced turnover intention. Surface acting had an indirect effect on turnover intention that was mediated by emotional exhaustion. Deep acting had an indirect effect on turnover intention that was mediated by personal accomplishment. Authentic leadership had a moderated mediation effect on the relationship between surface acting and turnover intention that was mediated by emotional exhaustion. CONCLUSION The findings of this study indicate that the establishment of strong authentic leadership by head nurses would help nurses reduce their burnout and turnover intention. Conducting intervention studies would be also important to promote better work environments that would enable nurses to fortify the positive aspect of emotional labor and to reduce their burnout levels.

ABSTRACT While the relations of Person-Organization (P-O) fit and Person-Job (P-J) fit with its influences on organisations have been widely examined, there are few studies focusing on these fit theories and emotive strategy and the impact on turnover intention in a sample of street-level bureaucrats. This study incorporates person-organisation fit and person-job fit simultaneously and examines the relationship with surface acting and deep acting, and turnover intention in the Korean government sector. The findings reveal that person-organisation fit emerges as the sole influence on surface acting and deep acting; person-organisation fit is negatively associated with surface acting and positively with deep acting. By contrast with our expectation, person-job fit does not affect surface acting and deep acting. In addition, engaging surface acting causes turnover intention and yet, deep acting reduces turnover intention. These findings may have several theoretical and practical implications.

With the improvement of customer requirements for service quality, organizations of hospitality industry focus on the implementation frequency of employees' prosocial behaviors. This study attempts to explore the influence mechanism of emotional labor on prosocial behaviors, and then provides theoretical support for organizations to promote employees' prosocial behaviors. Based on SPSS software, this study adopts multiple linear regression method to investigated the impact of emotional labor on turnover intention of hotel front-line employee, as well as the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and the moderating role of prosocial behavior. The results indicate that: (1) Surface acting plays a positive effect on emotional exhaustion, and deep acting plays a negative effect on emotional exhaustion. (2) Surface acting plays a positive effect on turnover intention, and deep acting plays a negative effect on turnover intention. (3) Emotional exhaustion has a positive effect on turnover intention. (4) Emotional exhaustion plays a mediating role between emotional labor and turnover intention. (5) Prosocial behavior plays a moderating role between emotional labor and emotional exhaustion.

Emotional exhaustion is inherently tied to the occupation of flight attendants. This often leads to their turnover which incurs significant cost related to their rehiring and training. Existing literature extensively investigates the causes of flight attendants' turnover; however, it has not thoroughly explored how their workplace exchange relationships unfold during the critical period between their decision to leave and their eventual departure from the company. This study addresses this gap by leveraging social exchange and resource conservation theories. Data was collected from 200 flight attendants employed across five airlines registered in Pakistan. Benefiting from Smart PLS 4.0, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability, validity, and predictive relevance were established prior to conducting the mediation and moderation analyses. The results indicate a significant inclination (64%) among emotionally exhausted flight attendants to consider leaving their jobs, with surface acting intensifying this effect even further (71%). Consequently, their contributions to Team Member Exchange (TMX) and Leader Member Exchange (LMX) were found to decrease sharply by 36% and 41% respectively. These findings provide critical insights for flight services managers in the airline industry, underscoring the need to closely monitor exchange relationships among flight attendants and address declines in LMX and TMX. While turnover intentions may not always be overtly expressed, this research provides the empirical evidence suggesting that the observable decline in TMX and LMX can act as early warning signs. Recognizing and addressing these declines in a timely manner could enable these managers to proactively intervene, mitigate these potential challenges, and possibly prevent employee turnover, thereby fostering a more sustainable workforce.

No abstract available

With organizational commitment acting as an intermediary variable in the study's analysis of the relationship between burnout and job satisfaction and intention to leave, employees. Nonprobability sampling methods with saturated sampling types are used in this sampling methodology. Using a Likert scale with five categories, the questionnaire asks for information. The data analysis method employed in this inquiry is the route analysis method. The analysis used in this study includes a validity test, a reliability test, a normality test, a coefficient of determination test, an f-test, a t-test, and a Sobel test to determine the mediating effect. The study's results show that burnout affects organizational commitment, job satisfaction affects organizational commitment, burnout and job satisfaction both affect organizational commitment, burnout affects turnover intention, job satisfaction affects turnover intention, organizational commitment affects turnover intention, and burnout toward work affects organizational commitment.

Leaders often accompany negative feedback with emotional displays of anger and frustration during organizational crises. These emotional displays can have detrimental effects on the followers’ emotional well-being. Our study examines the effect of such emotional outbursts through the construct of follower-inferred negative intention. We examine the relation between follower-inferred negative emotion and emotional exhaustion through surface acting and whether co-worker emotional support moderates the relationships. Survey data was collected from 367 Indian employees, all of whom were essential workers during the COVID-19 crisis. The authors found that follower-inferred negative intention from the leader’s emotional outbursts increased the follower’s emotional exhaustion both directly and indirectly through surface acting. The association between surface acting and emotional exhaustion was weaker for increased values of co-worker emotional support. Integrating Emotion-As-Social-Influence and Conservation of Resource theories, the present study investigates the inferred and received intention by the followers from the leader’s emotional displays.

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available

Background The purpose of this study is to examine the combined effects of organizational climate (OC) with emotional labor (EL) on turnover intention in Korean firefighters. Methods The data were obtained from the study Firefighters Research: Enhancement of Safety and Health. A total of 4,860 firefighters whose main duty was providing “emergency medical aid” were included. To examine the effects of OC on the relationships between five subscales of EL and turnover intention, four groups were created using various combinations of OC (“good” vs. “bad”) and EL (“normal” vs. “risk”): (1) “good” and “normal” (Group I), (2) “bad” and “normal” (Group II), (3) “good” and “risk” (Group III), and (4) “bad” and “risk” (Group IV). Multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed to estimate the risk of turnover intention for the combinations of OC and EL. Results The results showed turnover intention was significantly higher in the group with “bad” OC (17.7%) than in that with “good” OC (7.6%). Combined effects of OC and EL on turnover intention were found in all five subscales with the exception of Group I for emotional demands and regulation. Groups II, III, and IV were more likely to experience risks of turnover intention than Group I (p for trend <0.001). Conclusions A positive and cooperative OC plays a role in decreasing the risk of turnover intention and in attenuating the negative effects of EL on turnover intention in firefighters.

No abstract available

Purpose: This study explored how Generation Z characteristics—specifically work–life balance, growth needs, and individualism—along with work environment, emotional labor, and interpersonal skills, affect job embeddedness among newly graduated nurses. It also examined whether job embeddedness mediates the relationship between these factors and turnover intention. Methods: A correlational descriptive study was conducted by analyzing survey data collected from 131 clinical nurses born between 1995 and 2000, who had less than three years of nursing work experience in South Korea. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was employed to identify the independent effects of Generation Z characteristics on job embeddedness, over and above the effects of work environment, emotional labor, and interpersonal skills. Path analysis using bootstrapping method was conducted to examine the mediating role of job embeddedness in turnover intention. Results: Needs for growth and work environment were significant predictors of job embeddedness among newly graduated nurses. Furthermore, the effects of needs for growth and work environment on turnover intention were significantly mediated by job embeddedness. Conclusion: Understanding the characteristics of Generation Z, particularly their needs for growth, along with the work environment, is essential for enhancing job embeddedness among newly graduated nurses. Strengthening job embeddedness can effectively reduce their turnover intention.

The purpose of this paper is to examine how perceived ability-job fit and commitment to display rules relate to emotional labor in business-to-business salespeople and the influence emotional labor has on important sales outcomes. This study develops a conceptual model and uses structural equation modeling to test hypotheses. The sample consists of 312 business-to-business salespeople from various sales organizations. Results show the importance of understanding how perceived ability-job fit and commitment to display rules influence the three types of emotional labor, as the type of emotional labor a salesperson engages in relates differently to sales outcomes. This research highlights important practical implications as perceived ability-job fit and commitment to display rules can be influenced by managers. Further, the three types of emotional labor are examined as they relate to turnover intention and behavioral performance. Research on emotional labor in business-to-business salespeople is scant. This work introduces new antecedents of emotional labor and expands the limited existing research on the third component of emotional labor; the display of naturally felt emotions.

Human resources are critical assets in the hotel industry, and retaining employees is crucial for the sustainable development of hotels. To reduce employee turnover, the study aims to explore the role of psychological contract and emotional labor on turnover intention. Data from an online survey of 743 employees of luxury hotels in China were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that employer relational psychological contracts (p &lt; 0.001), employee relational psychological contracts (p &lt; 0.001), and employer transactional psychological contracts (p &lt; 0.01) have an impact on turnover intentions. The study also finds that employee transactional psychological contracts (p &gt; 0.05) do not affect turnover intentions. Furthermore, employee-employer relational psychological contracts (p &lt; 0.01) significantly influence emotional labor, whereas employer transactional psychological contracts (p &gt; 0.05) do not. Emotional labor (p &lt; 0.01) significantly affects turnover intentions. The connection between psychological contracts and turnover intentions is also mediated by emotional labor. These results imply that luxury hotels should prioritize employees’ emotional well-being, create a harmonious work environment, and enhance employee loyalty. This paper provides valuable insights that may reduce turnover and foster sustainable development within the hospitality sector.

Since 2003, South Korea has been ranked first in suicide rates among OECD countries, leading to various mental health problems and causing social and national crises. Mental health welfare centers are required to respond to the crisis, but the turnover rate of workers is high. The purpose of this study is to identify the influencing factors on turnover intentions among professionals working in mental health welfare centers in order to prevent turnover and provide foundational data for performing specialized tasks. The subjects were 161 employees from mental health welfare centers in Busan, Ulsan, and Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea. In this study, emotional labor, burnout, and job insecurity were had to significant positive (+) correlation to turnover intention. The explanatory power was turnover intention associated with these factors accounted for 35.3%. Therefore, interventions such as improvement of working environment, providing psychological counseling and intervention programs for efficient coping with emotional labor, and developing and implementing policies for employment stability are necessary to reduce turnover rates among workers.

Employee management is crucial in the service industry, and efficient human resource management is essential because the competence and competitiveness of employees directly impact service quality. This study analyzes the impact of emotional labor and job stress faced by workers in the service industry on their intention to leave and be hired, and proposes strategies for employee retention. As a result of a study conducted on 200 service industry workers, it was confirmed that job autonomy and job culture have a quantitative interaction with emotional labor factors and a positive correlation with the intention to leave. Additionally, this study suggests that Employment the intention to hire and the intention to turnover as separate concepts, rather than conflicting, requires a separate study.

No abstract available

This study investigates the mediating role of absenteeism on the relationship between burnout and turnover intention, and the moderated mediating role of emotional intelligence on the relationship between burnout and absenteeism among Korean flight attendants, utilizing a structural equation modeling approach. Empirical data were collected from 183 flight attendants with over 1 year of experience in the airline industry. Initial responses were analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis, revealing that burnout symptoms are driven by four factors: physical, emotional, socio‐relational, and attitudinal. Subsequent data analysis indicated that all four factors significantly impact absenteeism and turnover intentions. Furthermore, emotional intelligence was found to play a significant moderating role in the relationship between burnout symptoms and absenteeism. As burnout symptoms increase, absenteeism levels rise, leading to higher turnover intentions. Finally, absenteeism was found to lead to turnover intentions. Possible interpretations and managerial implications are discussed.

No abstract available

Emotional exhaustion, a central dimension of burnout, is widely recognized as a critical antecedent of employee turnover intention, particularly in high-pressure service sectors such as hospitality. This study investigates the effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention among employees of Pangeran Beach Hotel Padang, Indonesia. Adopting a quantitative research design with total sampling, data were collected from 65 employees using a structured questionnaire and analyzed through Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM). The results reveal that emotional exhaustion has a positive and significant impact on turnover intention, indicating that higher levels of emotional depletion substantially increase employees’ propensity to leave the organization. Theoretically, the findings extend burnout and turnover literature by providing empirical evidence from the underexplored Indonesian hospitality context. Practically, this study offers insights for hotel managers to implement targeted interventions—such as workload optimization, emotional support programs, and employee engagement initiatives—to reduce burnout and enhance retention. Limitations include the single-hotel focus and cross-sectional design, suggesting that future research should employ longitudinal and multi-site approaches to improve generalizability.

Introduction Destructive leadership is conceptualized as a social job demand that depletes employees’ psychological resources. Drawing on the Job Demands–Resources (JD–R) theory, we tested the mediating role of job burnout in the link between destructive leadership and turnover intention, and the moderating effect of regulatory emotional self-efficacy (RESE) on the direct path from destructive leadership to turnover intention. Methods We analyzed survey data from 403 Chinese technology professionals using validated scales. Further, we tested whether job burnout mediates the link between destructive leadership and turnover intention, and whether RESE weakens the direct association between destructive leadership and turnover intention. Results Destructive leadership and turnover intention were positively associated. Job burnout partially mediated this link (significant indirect effect), and RESE attenuated it; simple-slope tests revealed a weaker association for employees with higher RESE. Conclusion The findings position destructive leadership as a resource-depleting social demand within JD–R, confirming burnout as a proximal mechanism linking it to turnover intention, and identifying RESE as a psychological buffer of the direct pathway. Organizations should deter destructive leadership and strengthen employees’ RESE to sustain wellbeing and mitigate talent loss in high-pressure technology settings.

No abstract available

Purpose The purpose of this study is to investigate whether the emotional labor of service employees affects customer service misbehavior and repurchase intention and to explore the mechanism and boundary conditions. Methods We collected a total of 252 pairs of employee–customer valid matching data and used SPSS 24.0 and Mplus7.0 statistical analysis tools to perform statistical analysis and hypothesis testing. Results The results showed that employees’ surface acting has a significant positive impact on customer misbehavior and negative impact on repurchase intention via perceived face threat, while deep acting has a significant negative impact on customer misbehavior and positive impact on repurchase intention via perceived face threat. And customer face threat sensitivity not only moderates the relationship between service employee emotional labor and customer perceived face threat but also moderates the indirect effect of surface acting on customer misbehavior and repurchase intention via customer perceived face threat. Conclusion Based on face theory, this study explained how and when emotional labor of service employees may affect customer service misbehavior and repurchase intention. These results contribute to the emotional labor and customer service misbehavior literature by introducing perceived face threat as an underlying mechanism and face threat sensitivity as a boundary condition. In addition, this study suggests that service-oriented enterprises should pay attention to the management and guidance of employees’ emotional labor and try their best to let employees show deep acting rather than surface acting.

This study aims to address three significant research gaps by examining how customers’ negative emotions (anger and anxiety) impact frontline employees’ (FLEs) empathy, emotional labor, empathic concern and prosocial service behaviors during service recovery. The EmpaToM procedure from social neuroscience was replicated in a multimethod experimental approach, incorporating self-report measures, facial electromyography (EMG) and skin conductance responses (SCRs) to evaluate FLEs’ empathic responses to customers’ emotions. The results confirm that customers’ anger and anxiety transfer to FLEs through empathy at subjective (self-reports), behavioral (facial EMG) and physiological (SCRs) levels. FLEs’ empathy remained consistent across communication channels, except for increased SCRs when interacting with anxious customers via technology. Customers’ emotions influenced surface acting intention but not deep acting, with anger leading to more surface acting. Deep acting improved empathic concern, particularly in face-to-face interactions, while surface acting reduced empathic concern but increased extra-role behaviors. Empathic concern mediated the relationship between surface acting and extra-role behavior, but did not mediate between deep acting and extra-role behavior. Future studies should investigate generational differences in FLEs’ responses, variations in service failure characteristics and the influence of perspective-taking in social cognition. Organizations should prioritize deep-acting training to cultivate genuine empathy and use targeted strategies for managing digital service interactions. Emotional intelligence programs and performance incentives that balance empathy with compensatory behaviors can improve service recovery outcomes. This study integrates social neuroscience methods into service research, providing a multimodal assessment (self-report, facial EMG, SCRs) of how customers’ negative emotions affect FLEs’ empathy and emotional labor. It reveals that anger and anxiety influence FLEs’ behaviors differently, with surface acting increasing extra-role behaviors while decreasing empathic concern. The findings emphasize the importance of deep acting in fostering genuine empathy, particularly in face-to-face interactions. These insights advance service recovery research and provide practical guidance for training programs to enhance emotional intelligence and digital service management.

In this study, it was aimed to examine the effect of nurses’ emotional labor levels on their intention to leave and to determine whether employee performance plays a mediating role in this relationship. The study is of descriptive cross-sectional type, which was conducted through a questionnaire on nurses. The surface acting has positive effect on the intent to leave among nurses, whereas deep acting has negative effect; employee performance has partial mediating role on the relationship between the surface acting and intent to leave, and the relationship between deep acting and intent to leave. The study is considered to provide significant tips in the identification of nurses with higher risk to leave the work, and in deciding managerial interventions that would be realised against such circumstances. It is suggested that it may be beneficial for nurse managers to organise training in their units, to evaluate the performance of nurses at regular intervals and thus to determine the reason for the increase and decrease, to plan activities that will reduce emotional burden.

Although ingratiation is a tactic widely adopted by subordinates to influence supervisors, findings on its effectiveness are mixed at best. Drawing upon advancements in attribution theory, we propose a dual-pathway model to explicate the supervisor attributional processes triggered by newcomer ingratiation. On the one hand, supervisors engage in surface-level correspondent inference, taking newcomer ingratiation at face value and associating more ingratiation with greater relationship-building motives, rendering a positive linear relationship between newcomer ingratiation and relationship-building motive attribution. On the other hand, as newcomer ingratiation becomes more blatant, it prompts supervisors to engage in deep-level ulterior inference to more closely scrutinize hidden motives, rendering an increasing curvilinear relationship (i.e., a positive effect that gradually emerges) between newcomer ingratiation and self-serving motive attribution. These two attributions, in turn, have opposite effects on leader-member exchange (LMX). Taken together, we proposed an overall curvilinear relationship between newcomer ingratiation and LMX. We tested our hypotheses with three field studies. Study 1 revealed an inverted U-shaped relationship between newcomer ingratiation and LMX. Studies 2 and 3 further substantiated the mediation effects of the two attributions linking newcomer ingratiation to LMX. Additionally, Study 3 showed that via the sequential mediation of attributions and LMX, newcomer ingratiation had indirect effects on newcomer task performance and intention to quit. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

PurposeAlthough service researchers have long suggested that customer mistreatment adversely impacts service employees' outcomes, statistical integration of current empirical findings has been lacking. This meta-analysis aims to review and statistically synthesize the state of research on the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes.Design/methodology/approachThe authors included 221 effect sizes of 135 independent samples from 119 primary studies (N = 47,964). The authors used a meta-analytic approach to quantitatively review the relationship between customer mistreatment and service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-analysis structural equation modeling was used to explore the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. Meta-regression was applied to explore the impact of contextual-level moderators (i.e. service provider type and service delivery mode) on these relationships. Furthermore, we compared the effects of customer mistreatment with the effects of other organizational-related factors on some commonly measured employee outcomes.FindingsThe results show that customer mistreatment has a significant negative impact on service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. negative emotions), attitudinal outcomes (i.e. job satisfaction, organizational commitment, work engagement and turnover intention) and behavioral outcomes (i.e. job performance, surface acting and emotional labor). Additionally, service employees' negative emotions mediate the association between customer mistreatment and employees' job satisfaction, turnover intention, surface acting and emotional labor. Furthermore, the relationships between customer mistreatment and service employees' negative emotions and job performance are influenced by a contextual-level moderator (i.e. service delivery mode).Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the literature by providing robust meta-analytic estimates of the effects of customer mistreatment on a variety of service employees' affective, attitudinal and behavioral outcomes, as well as the different magnitudes of the effect sizes between customer mistreatment and other job-related and personality-related factors by quantifying the true variability of the effect sizes. The authors draw on current theories underpinning customer mistreatment to test a theoretical model of the mediation mechanism of service employees' affective outcomes (i.e. service employees' negative emotions) on the relationships between customer mistreatment and employees' attitudinal and behavioral outcomes. The authors explore the effects of two contextual-level factors (i.e. service provider types and service delivery mode) related to the service delivery context that may account for the variability of effect sizes across empirical studies.

The Food and Beverage (F&B) sector of the hospitality industry is characterized by high levels of guest interaction and performance-driven emotional expression. This research paper explores the phenomenon of emotional labor—defined as the regulation of emotional expressions to meet organizational expectations—as a central but underexamined component of F&B service roles. Drawing upon Arlie Hochschild’s foundational framework, the study investigates how surface acting, deep acting, and genuine expression affect employee mental health. Findings indicate that surface acting, the most prevalent form in fast-paced environments, is strongly correlated with emotional exhaustion, burnout, anxiety, depression, and reduced job satisfaction. The paper further examines how emotional labor contributes to high turnover rates and diminished employee retention. Through a review of empirical studies and industry case analyses, the research proposes evidence-based organizational interventions such as Emotional Intelligence training, empathetic leadership, supportive workplace culture, fair compensation, and mental health initiatives. The study concludes that recognizing and managing emotional labor is vital for sustaining employee well-being and enhancing the overall quality of service in the hospitality sector. These insights offer a strategic roadmap for organizations aiming to balance guest satisfaction with long-term workforce sustainability.

This paper develops and tests a process model examining the sequential mediating roles of emotional exhaustion and surface acting on the relationships between employee perceptions of unfair treatment from customers and three forms of employee performance: in-role performance, customer-oriented organizational citizenship behavior (OCBC), and customer-oriented counterproductive work behavior (CWBC). In Study 1, we found support for our model demonstrating that the relationships between customer injustice and supervisor ratings of employees’ in-role performance and OCBC are each sequentially mediated first by emotional exhaustion and then by surface acting. In Study 2, using time-lagged data, we found additional support for our sequential mediation process when predicting CWBC. Moreover, we found that emotional demands–abilities fit moderated the sequential indirect effect of customer injustice on CWBC. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Abstract This study adopted a process-oriented approach to explore the mediating and moderating mechanisms surrounding the association between surface acting at work and sleep quality. Drawing on the stressor-detachment and transactional stress models, the current study proposed a moderated mediation model to examine whether surface acting would be associated indirectly with employee insomnia via lack of psychological detachment, and whether this indirect linkage is moderated by dispositional mindfulness. The study was conducted among 516 full-time employed hospital nurses in China over a one-year period. Results revealed that suppressed negative emotions, but not faked positive emotions, had a significant influence on employee insomnia over time, and lack of psychological detachment mediated the effect of suppressing negative emotions on insomnia. Tests of moderated mediation indicated that the mediated path was weaker for employees with higher levels of dispositional mindfulness. These findings advance our understanding of how and when surface acting negatively influences employee sleep, as well as point to implications for individual and organizational interventions.

Using the conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory as our conceptual frameworks, the current study examined how employee surface acting relates to their sabotage to customers through the mediating role of emotional exhaustion and explored the moderating roles of coworker exchange (CWX) and leader-member exchange (LMX). We collected two-wave time-lagged data from 540 clinical nurses and found that emotional exhaustion mediated the positive relationship between surface acting and employee sabotage to customers. In addition, we found that CWX buffered the positive effect of surface acting on emotional exhaustion, while LMX buffered the positive effect of emotional exhaustion on employee sabotage to customers, such that the effects were weaker when CWX and LMX were higher, respectively. These findings shed light on the effect of surface acting on employee harmful behaviors, the potential underlying mechanism, and boundary conditions to mitigate the negative consequences of surface acting.

ABSTRACT Research on emotional labour has primarily focused on two emotional labour strategies that employees may use when confronted with organizational display rules: deep acting and surface acting. Initial evidence suggests that these two strategies do not fully cover the range of strategies that employees engage in when responding to display rules in interactions with customers. Yet, a systematic overview of the full range of such strategies is missing. Across two studies, we used a bottom-up approach to develop a taxonomy of strategies used in response to display rules. In Study 1, we conducted interviews in the Netherlands and in Turkey to collect a comprehensive list of employee-generated strategy statements. We found that deep and surface acting only partially accounted for the strategy statements (Netherlands: 47.6%; Turkey: 53.3%). In Study 2, we asked a new sample of participants to sort the strategy statements into categories based on their similarity. Hierarchical cluster analysis showed that employees engage in deep and surface acting in response to display rule requirements. However, employees also engage in additional strategies: changing customers’ cognitions or affect, solution-oriented, waiting, and avoidance strategies. These results reveal that employees rely on a wide range of strategies to deal with display rules.

In service work, emotional labor is primarily performed by surface acting (modifying expressions) and deep acting (modifying moods). Deep acting is clearly more effective for performance and less costly to health, raising the question—why do employees use the less effective strategy of surface acting? Conservation of resources theory suggests that when employees lack sufficient energy resources, they are more likely to conserve resources and rely on less effective surface acting, which creates future resource loss (i.e., a loss spiral). We test this spiral prediction, while also integrating the effort‐recovery model to propose after‐work activities as a means of slowing resource loss spirals. Across two experience sampling studies of full‐time service workers, we find support for a resource loss spiral through surface acting in Study 1 and partial support in Study 2. Further, low‐effort activities like relaxing after work allowed employees to slow the loss spirals from surface acting in both studies. We conclude that the “poor get poorer” (maintaining surface acting) over time, whereas recovery after work effectively breaks the loss spiral of surface acting. Our study expands theoretical understanding of the resource‐based view of emotional labor and practical advice for how to replenish workers' resources over time.

ABSTRACT Drawing on the self-regulatory resource depletion theory, we unmask the process of surface acting and emotional exhaustion that takes place in the fine dining sector. We test a hypothesis and respond to three research questions using data with closed and open-ended questions from a purposive sample of frontline employees in the UK (N = 134). The findings offer a novel five-stage well-being model that explains how specific work conditions (Stage 1) trigger emotions that frontline fine dining employees regulate with surface acting (Stage 2), a phenomenon that gains momentum and magnitude as it continues, requiring employees to use resources (stage 3) which are limited and quickly depleted leading to emotional exhaustion (Stage 4), a negative work outcome that front-line employees in fine-dining use various strategies to cope with (Stage 5). Implications for practitioners are discussed and future directions for workplace wellness programmes are proposed.

No abstract available

As work–life boundaries continue to blur, family interruptions have become an unavoidable aspect of the modern workplace. Drawing on affective events theory, this study examines how family interruptions at work – a growing challenge in today’s hyperconnected, always-on culture – elicit negative emotions that, in turn, influence surface acting in coworker interactions. Additionally, it examines how career values (authenticity, balance and challenge) moderate these relationships. Using an experience sampling methodology, we conducted a 10-day daily diary study with 116 full-time employees (n = 892 observations), capturing real-time fluctuations in family interruptions, negative emotions and surface acting toward coworkers. Family interruptions are positively associated with negative emotions, which, in turn, positively influence surface acting toward coworkers. Authenticity attenuates this indirect effect, whereas balance and challenge exacerbate it. This study extends affective events theory by conceptualizing family interruptions as nonwork affective events and highlighting surface acting as a critical yet understudied emotional labor strategy in coworker interactions. By identifying career values as boundary conditions, we provide practical implications for organizations seeking to help employees manage work–family tensions more effectively.

By and large, research in organizational behavior and psychology has emphasized that mindfulness should have positive implications for employee well-being and performance, largely through benefits to self-control. Although some have noted that mindfulness could also have a "dark side," researchers have yet to examine the potential costs of being mindful at work. Building on prior studies that have found that mindfulness leads to lower levels of surface acting, we investigate the possibility that when mindful employees engage in surface acting, it may contribute to greater self-control depletion, which in turn, results in undesirable performance outcomes. Using six field studies, we collected data at multiple points in time from both employees and their supervisors to test our theoretical model. In two Study 1 samples, we found that mindfulness moderated the relationship between surface acting and self-control depletion, such that this relationship was stronger for more mindful individuals. In four Study 2 samples, we replicated our Study 1 results and found that the mediated relationship between surface acting and five dimensions of employee performance via self-control depletion is moderated by mindfulness at the first stage, such that this mediated relationship is stronger for more mindful individuals. We discuss the implications of this work for future investigations of mindfulness, self-control, emotional labor, and performance outcomes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

No abstract available

This study contributes to the constantly accumulating evidence on the effects of customer incivility (CI) on service employee exhaustion. Previous research has demonstrated that surface acting (SA) acts as a mediating variable in the relationship between CI and exhaustion. This study extended prior findings in two ways. The results of Study 1 (315 retail sales employees, 62.2% female) demonstrated that SA mediates the positive relationship between CI and exhaustion while controlling for employees’ trait positive and negative affectivity (NA). The results of Study 2 (292 customer service representatives, 51% female) supported a moderated mediation model demonstrating that trait emotional intelligence (EI) buffers the direct and indirect (through SA) effects of CI on exhaustion. Specifically, it was found that employees exposed to many uncivil customer behaviors but high in trait EI reported using less SA and, thus, experienced fewer exhaustion symptoms than their low in trait EI counterparts. These results highlight EI as an important personal resource that mitigates the adverse effects of CI on service employees’ exhaustion, and suggest that organizations should consider implementing EI training programmes for their frontline service employees.

Work-related burnout (WBO) is prevalent in the global economy, culminating in profit loss, productivity declination, and employee absenteeism. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened the preceding threats in human resource management within the manufacturing industry. The ongoing discussions on WBO highlight the significance and value of this issue. Additionally, empirical proof regarding the association among emotional intelligence (EQ), emotional labour strategies, and WBO, particularly within the human resource division of the manufacturing industry, is scarce. Thus, the current study aims to identify the relationships and models with emotional contagion theory as a foundation using the PLS-SEM technique. The responses from 311 questionnaires were collected among HR managers in selected ISO 9001 Malaysian manufacturing companies using an online survey. The study found a negative relationship between EQ and emotional labour-deep acting (ELSA) and a positive relationship with emotional labour-surface acting (ELSA). Besides, ELSA is also negatively correlated with WBO, while ELDA has a positive relationship with WBO. The study also proved that emotional labour strategies (deep-acting and surface-acting) operated as an intermediary factor in the connection between EQ and WBO. Past research on WBO has been inconclusive, and there has yet to be a comprehensive exploration of the direct or indirect connections between EQ, ELSA, ELDA, and WBO. Furthermore, previous studies often overlooked the viewpoint of HR managers in WBO investigations. The results of this research contribute to the literature concerning this issue, particularly in the post-COVID-19 context, and help policy developers of human resource management bring in the elements of psychological factors while forming human resource policies and practices. 

— This study explores the relationship between customer orientation attitude, surface acting and employee exhaustion in the restaurant industry. The research method uses laboratory experiments, which are data collection techniques using a questionnaire with a case scenario of emotional exhaustion employes. A questionnaire was distributed to 190 economics faculty students department of management. The structural equation model (SEM) is then applied for data analysis. The results showed that customer orientation attitude was significantly related to surface acting in the restaurant industry. Surface acting variables cannot mediate the relationship between customer orientation attitude and emotional exhaustion. and surface acting has a significant impact on emotional exhaustion. Based on these findings, theoretical and practical implications are provided, as well as limitations and research recommendations for future studies.

This research examines the relationship between metadehumanization, that is, perceiving dehumanizing treatments, and self-dehumanization, that is, perceiving oneself as less than human. We argue that, in work settings, this relationship can be explained through a behavioral mechanism. Specifically, organizational metadehumanization would drive employees to engage in more emotional labor (i.e., surface acting), which, in turn, would generate mechanistic self-dehumanizing perceptions. Our hypothesized mediation model is tested across three studies. First, a cross-sectional field study shows that organizational metadehumanization is positively related to surface acting, which is in turn positively associated with mechanistic self-dehumanizing perceptions. Second, an experimental study, manipulating the level of organizational metadehumanization through vignettes, confirms that the more employees feel dehumanized by their organization, the more they engage in surface acting, which, in turn, leads to mechanistic self-dehumanizing perceptions. Third, a longitudinal field study with repeated measures corroborates that the use of surface acting conducts employees to perceive mechanistic self-dehumanization. Overall, these findings highlight that metadehumanization in the workplace is critical in the way employees manage their emotions, which is determinant in the development of mechanistic self-dehumanizing perceptions.

The relationship between emotional labor strategies (i.e., deep acting and surface acting) and employee outcomes has been often studied. Yet, although the impact of surface acting on employee well-being is clear, findings regarding deep acting have been inconsistent. In the present study, we propose that this may be explained by the multidimensional nature of deep acting, which subsumes different specific emotion regulation strategies. With a 5-day diary study, we investigated the links between subtypes of deep acting (i.e., cognitive change and attentional deployment) and key employee outcomes (i.e., mental fatigue, self-authenticity, and rewarding interactions) in a sample of 244 employees. Multilevel analyses confirmed that different emotion regulation strategies underlying deep acting were differentially related to employee outcomes, which may explain the mixed results of previous research examining deep acting as a uniform construct. Theoretical and practical implications of considering specific emotion regulation strategies underlying deep acting are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

No abstract available

Previous research has shown that surface acting—displaying an emotion that is dissonant with inner feelings—negatively impacts employees’ well-being. However, most studies have neglected the meaning that employees develop around emotional demands requiring surface acting. This study examined how employees’ responsibility attributions of client behavior demanding surface acting influence employees’ emotional exhaustion, and the mediational role of distributive justice in this relationship. Relying on Fairness Theory, it was expected that employees’ responsibility attributions of client behavior demanding emotion regulation would be related to their perceptions of distributive injustice during the service encounter, which in turn would mediate the effects of responsibility attribution on emotional exhaustion. In addition, drawing on the conservation of resources model, we contended that leader support would moderate the impact of distributive injustice on emotional exhaustion. Two scenario-based experiments were conducted. Study 1 (N = 187) manipulated the attribution of responsibility for emotional demands. The findings showed that distributive injustice and emotional exhaustion were higher when responsibility for the surface acting demands was attributed to the client. A bootstrapping mediational analysis confirmed employees’ attributions have an indirect effect on emotional exhaustion through distributive justice. Study 2 (N = 227) manipulated responsibility attribution and leader support. The leader support moderation effect was confirmed.

The consensus in the emotional labor literature is that surface acting is "bad" for employees. However, the evidence on which this consensus is based has been derived from contexts emphasizing the display of positive emotions, such as customer service. Despite the acknowledgment that many contexts also require the display of negative emotions, scholarly work has proceeded under the assumption that surface acting is harmful regardless of the valence of the emotion being displayed. In this study, we take a hedonic approach to well-being and challenge the consensus that surface acting is bad for employees by examining its effects on changes in emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction, through changes in positive and negative affect, for both positive and negative emotional displays. Using a within-person approach, we focus on managers, whose occupation calls for displays of both positive and negative emotions. Our 3-week, experience-sampling study of 79 managers revealed that faking positive emotions decreases positive affect, which harms well-being more than authentically displaying such emotions. In contrast and counter to what the extant literature would suggest, faking negative emotions decreases negative affect and increases positive affect, which benefits well-being more than authentically displaying such emotions. We further integrate construal level theory with hedonic approaches of emotion to identify trait construal level as an important boundary condition to explain for whom surface acting is harmful versus beneficial. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

No abstract available

This study investigates the relationship between emotional labor and occupational burnout among bank employees, focusing on the mediating role of emotional exhaustion. Against the backdrop of financial technology development and the proliferation of intelligent equipment, counter services in banks have become increasingly complex and time-consuming. Heightened customer dissatisfaction has led to a significant surge in tellers' emotional labor load, making occupational burnout a prominent issue. The research finds that emotional labor, particularly surface acting, influences occupational burnout through the complete mediation of emotional exhaustion: the prolonged emotion regulation (surface/deep acting) progressively depletes employees' emotional resources, triggering emotional exhaustion. This exhaustion, in turn, activates the defense mechanism of depersonalization. Depersonalization, combined with emotional exhaustion, subsequently erodes personal accomplishment, culminating in full burnout. The conclusions provide insights for bank management: to prevent and alleviate emotional exhaustion, thereby safeguarding employee mental health and enhancing organizational effectiveness, strategies should include recognizing the value of emotional labor, constructing emotional buffer mechanisms, empowering employees, and cultivating a supportive organizational culture.

Objective: This study investigates the complex interplay among emotional labor strategies, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction, with a specific focus on examining the mediating role of emotional exhaustion. The primary objective of the research is to empirically evaluate the mediating influence of emotional exhaustion on the relationships between pharmacists' emotional labor behaviors (surface acting and deep acting) and their job satisfaction. Material and Method: The data for the study was collected through a survey of 186 pharmacists employed in various organizations in Karabük, Türkiye. The research hypotheses were tested using Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), a robust analytical technique suited for examining complex multivariate relationships. Result and Discussion: The findings of the study reveal that deep acting, whereby pharmacists genuinely express their true emotions, has a direct negative effect on emotional exhaustion and a direct positive effect on job satisfaction. In contrast, the results indicate that surface acting, in which pharmacists suppress their authentic emotions and display artificial emotional responses, has a significant positive effect on emotional exhaustion, while its direct impact on job satisfaction is insignificant. Importantly, the study demonstrates that emotional exhaustion plays a partial mediating role in the relationships between both surface acting and job satisfaction, as well as between deep acting and job satisfaction. This suggests that the depletion of pharmacists' emotional resources is a crucial mechanism through which their emotional labor strategies influence their job satisfaction levels.

Background: Within the scope of the organization, performance is an important topic to be researched because of the facts that are crucial for the future and sustainability of the organization. To salesperson task performance are considered the most important and influential aspect in assessing their performance. In addition, emotional labor is known to be a display rule that is often found in front-line workers such as salesperson. So this study seeks to examine the relationship between emotional labor and task performance, through the mediating role of emotional exhaustion. Method: This study collected data from 58 participants who work as salesperson in the retail industry. The three instruments used in this study were the Emotional Labor Scale (ELS), the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), and the Individual Work Performance Scale (IWPS). Result: The results showed that emotional exhaustion did not mediate the relationship between emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) and task performance. Conclusion: However, the use of surface acting strategy is able to make retail salesperson experience higher exhaustion due to significant and positive relations. Novelty/Originality in this article:  This study offers a new perspective in understanding the complex dynamics between emotional labor, emotional exhaustion, and task performance among retail salespeople. This study provides important insights into how psychological factors may influence job effectiveness in an industry that relies heavily on customer interactions.

Abstract Current study drew on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) with differentiated job demand approach to explain the emotional labor strategies with burnout and work engagement. Besides, this study argued that emotional intelligence as personal resource in the JD-R model and could moderate the relationship between job demands and individuals’ well-being. Data were collected from 183 employees working in the hotels in Macau. Results revealed that (1) surface acting correlated to emotional exhaustion and cynicism positively; (2) deep acting was positively correlated to professional efficacy, cognitive, emotional, and physical work engagement; (3) the moderation role of emotional intelligence was found in the current study.

Addressing health-related risks for employees in the service sector, we identify emotion regulation (ER) ability-a dimension of emotional intelligence-as a promising resource with potential for facilitating emotional labor. We use an event-sampling design to investigate whether person-level ER ability moderates situation-dependent relationships of three different emotional labor strategies with emotional exhaustion in a beneficial way. Study 1 included data from 861 customer interactions from 187 service employees in the financial sector. All measures were self-ratings. Study 2 included 479 interactions from 101 employees in different service occupations; following a multimethod approach, ER ability was additionally assessed with peer ratings and an objective test. Controlling for age and gender, hierarchical linear modeling analyses indicated main effects of event-level surface acting and automatic regulation on emotional exhaustion in both studies. Multilevel results showed that ER ability-in contrast to the global score of emotional intelligence-moderated relationships of three different emotional labor strategies with exhaustion. In particular, resource loss via surface acting was buffered. Overall, findings contribute to knowledge on emotional abilities in emotional labor processes, and differences in operationalizing and assessing ER ability. Practical implications concerning employee health are given. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

This paper systematically explored the literature to establish the mediating role of emotional labour, surface acting and deep acting in the relationship between workplace incivility from co-workers and superiors and emotional exhaustion. Grounded in Affective Events Theory (AET) and Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory, the paper illustrates how quality control (QC) managers, tasked with precision and compliance, face a dual burden of technical rigour and emotional regulation. The findings from the literature challenge industries to recognize emotional labour not as an individual responsibility but as a structural issue, where uncivil environments undermine well-being and quality outcomes. Surface and deep acting are critical links between incivility and emotional exhaustion. The framework presented in this paper challenges organizations to reconceptualize workplace interactions as behavioural issues and systemic drivers of emotional attrition. Mapping the mediating role of emotional labour offers QC professionals and organizational leaders actionable insights to disrupt the incivility-exhaustion cycle through targeted emotional skills training and cultural interventions. Theoretical and practical implications for quality control management in manufacturing settings are discussed. This paper calls for organizational strategies that mitigate incivility while equipping QC managers with emotional resilience, ensuring product standards and human sustainability.

This study examined how surface acting, or stretch acting, influenced organizational misalignment through the mediating roles of emotional strain and job fatigue. The research aimed to reveal the hidden costs of emotional labor in Indonesian mining corporations, where employees were often required to suppress authentic emotions to meet organizational demands. A quantitative survey was conducted among 291 employees from mining companies in Kalimantan. Data were collected using a five‑point Likert scale and analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling. Reliability and validity were confirmed, ensuring that the measures accurately reflected constructs such as surface acting, emotional exhaustion, job fatigue, and organizational misalignment. The findings indicated that surface acting had a significant positive effect on organizational misalignment. Emotional strain and job fatigue mediated this relationship, showing that employees who consistently repressed emotions experienced higher exhaustion, reduced motivation, and greater tendencies toward absenteeism, presenteeism, and neglect of supervisory instructions. These outcomes demonstrated that unmanaged emotional labor undermined employee commitment and contributed to organizational misalignment.

Emotional labor, particularly in frontline service roles, has traditionally been examined through the lens of performance strategies, such as surface or deep acting. However, emerging research suggests that employees’ subjective interpretations of emotionally demanding situations—especially attributions of responsibility and perceived fairness—play a critical role in shaping their well-being. This study adopts a qualitative phenomenological approach to explore how frontline employees engage in meaning-making regarding the emotional labor demands during customer interaction. Drawing on six group semi-structured interviews, we conducted a thematic analysis to investigate ho<w workers attribute responsibility for emotion regulation demands and how these attributions relate to perceptions of distributive justice and emotional exhaustion. Results indicate that employees differentiate between emotional labor demands based on who they perceive as responsible for the triggering event—whether the client or themselves. Attributions of responsibility for these demands, especially when placed on clients, were associated with a stronger sense of distributive injustice and heightened emotional exhaustion. The evidence extend current emotional labor models by highlighting the centrality of meaning-making processes in employee experience and suggest that responsibility attribution and fairness appraisals are critical mechanisms through which emotional labor impacts occupational well-being. Implications for theory and workplace practices in service contexts are discussed.

Abstract -  The study aims to understand better the connections between emotional labor and emotional exhaustion and the relationship between affective organizational commitment and emotional exhaustion. Also, this study examines the mediating role of emotional exhaustion between emotional labor and affective organizational commitment. Researching how emotional laborers deal with their day-to-day difficulties in managing their emotions and understanding strategies and factors impacting their stress levels will help organizations create policies and practices that support employees in managing their emotions and well-being. This study examines the mediating effect of emotional exhaustion on emotional labor and affective organization commitment. The respondents are heterogeneous and come from a range of industries. The design of this investigation was based on a quantitative methodology. Structural Equation Modelling-Partial Least Squares (SEM-PLS) examined the causal link among variables. The data was collected through Google Forms, and 136 responses were collected. This study revealed that emotional labor positively affects emotional exhaustion, showing that employees who use a surface-acting strategy typically experience higher levels of emotional exhaustion. The relationship between emotional exhaustion and organizational commitment is mediated by emotional exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion negatively affects affective organizational commitment. The researcher learned that surface acting in emotional labor significantly contributes to emotional exhaustion. It is also important for leaders to understand the factors leading to emotional exhaustion and how leaders can mitigate the risk of employees getting emotionally exhausted. Keywords: Affective Organizational Commitment; Emotional Exhaustion; Emotional Labor; Organizational; Commitment

No abstract available

Abstract. Emotional labour (hereinafter EL) is a form of work that involves managing emotions and emotional expressions during social interaction to achieve professional goals and to fulfil the emotional requirements of a job. EL can bring negative psychological consequences for employees such as burnout and exhaustion. Such negative outcomes are determined mostly by the EL strategy that employees implement. This article seeks to expand understanding of the dispositional and situational determinants of EL, and the role played by dispositional variables in determining the outcomes of EL. Drawing on survey data from 29 employees working in the service sector, we find that among EL strategies surface acting has been consistently shown to have the most detrimental effects on employee well-being. On the other hand, deep acting can be viewed as a healthier way to perform EL, and the expression of genuine emotions can even reduce the negative outcomes of EL. Understanding the antecedents of EL strategies would therefore enable more effective interventions to be developed aimed at reducing burnout by influencing the way in which employees perform EL. Keywords: emotional labour, burnout, antecedents of emotional labour

The main purpose of this study is to consider individuals in teams and to reexamine how emotional labor affects the performance of front-line service team and team members through emotional exhaustion. Multi-source data collection and a time-lagged research design was adopted to collect data from matched team members and customers nested in 82 front-line service teams in a large electronics provider based in China. The findings show that surface acting increases emotional exhaustion which reduces customer loyalty at the team level and individual task performance at the individual level, supporting a full mediation model. While, deep acting is not associated with emotional exhaustion, it is positively linked with team member’s task performance. This study provides evidence for the nested nature of emotional labor and exhaustion in teams.

Research on emotional labor focuses on how employees utilize 2 main regulation strategies-surface acting (i.e., faking one's felt emotions) and deep acting (i.e., attempting to feel required emotions)-to adhere to emotional expectations of their jobs. To date, researchers largely have considered how each strategy functions to predict outcomes in isolation. However, this variable-centered perspective ignores the possibility that there are subpopulations of employees who may differ in their combined use of surface and deep acting. To address this issue, we conducted 2 studies that examined surface acting and deep acting from a person-centered perspective. Using latent profile analysis, we identified 5 emotional labor profiles-non-actors, low actors, surface actors, deep actors, and regulators-and found that these actor profiles were distinguished by several emotional labor antecedents (positive affectivity, negative affectivity, display rules, customer orientation, and emotion demands-abilities fit) and differentially predicted employee outcomes (emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and felt inauthenticity). Our results reveal new insights into the nature of emotion regulation in emotional labor contexts and how different employees may characteristically use distinct combinations of emotion regulation strategies to manage their emotional expressions at work.

No abstract available

No abstract available

Research on emotional labor-the process through which employees enact emotion regulation (i.e., surface and deep acting) to alter their emotional displays-has predominately focused on service-based exchanges between employees and customers where emotions are commoditized for wage. Yet, recent research has begun to focus on the outcomes of employees engaging in emotion regulation, and surface acting in particular, with coworkers. Given that coworker interactions are qualitatively distinct from those with customers, we build on the emotional labor and emotion regulation literatures to understand why such acts of emotion regulation occur in coworker-based exchanges, and whether there are well-being and social capital costs and/or benefits for doing so. Across 3 complementary studies spanning over 2,500 full-time employees, we adopt a person-centered approach and demonstrate that four distinct profiles of emotion regulation emerge in coworker exchanges: deep actors, nonactors, low actors, and regulators. Further, our results suggest that certain employees are driven to regulate their emotions with coworkers for prosocial reasons (deep actors), whereas others are more driven by impression management motives (regulators). Our results also suggest that while nonactors and deep actors similarly incur well-being benefits (i.e., lower emotional exhaustion and felt inauthenticity), deep actors alone experience social capital gains in the form of higher receipt of help from coworkers, as well as increased goal progress and trust in their coworkers. Combined, our research delineates the motives that drive emotion regulation with coworkers and identifies when such regulatory efforts yield social capital gains for employees. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

No abstract available

ABSTRACT This study, based on the Conservation of Resources theory, investigates the use of micro-breaks as a resource conservation strategy in the hospitality industry. It examines how emotional labour influences deviant behaviours among frontline staff, with ego depletion serving as a mediator, and evaluates how micro-break activities can moderate the effects of ego depletion on these behaviours. Data from 573 online surveys and 30 semi-structured interviews indicate that surface acting is positively linked to deviant behaviour through emotional ego depletion, while deep acting reduces such behaviour. Importantly, short breaks at work assist in alleviating the detrimental effects of emotional labour on deviant behaviour, providing practical strategies for managing the pressures of emotional labour in the service sector.

No abstract available

In order to survive the fiercer competition, more and more service firms emphasize front-line employees’ role of creating excellent customer experience by displaying positive emotions during the service interactions. However, the underlying mechanisms for the relationship between transformational leadership and front-line employees’ emotional labor remain unclear. Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study develops a conceptual model in which transformational leadership influences front-line employees’ emotional labor through the mediator of psychological empowerment. By collecting data from 436 employees in five call centers, we tested our model and hypotheses through PROCESS 3.3 macro for SPSS developed by Hayes. The results show that transformational leadership shows positive and negative effects on deep acting and surface acting, respectively. The positive effect on deep acting is partially mediated by psychological empowerment, while the negative effect on surface acting is fully mediated by psychological empowerment. Specifically, two dimensions of psychological empowerment (impact, self-efficacy) play negative mediating roles between transformational leadership and surface acting, while impact, self-determination, and self-efficacy play positive mediating roles of transformational leadership and deep acting. The findings advance our understanding about how transformational leadership influences front-line employees’ emotional labor by introducing psychological empowerment as a mediator.

Abstract Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study investigates the impact of service-sales ambidexterity on employee behavior and customer outcomes in retail. Using a sample of 518 employees and 3,533 customers in 37 business units, we find that greater service-sales ambidexterity leads to increased use of surface acting tactics by employees. However, this is associated with reduced employee vigor and lower customer-oriented citizenship behavior ratings at both individual and store levels. We also find that higher levels of surface acting at the store level negatively affect customer delight and spending behavior. Additionally, the frequency of customer visits moderates the relationship between surface acting climate and customer outcomes, with a negative impact on customer delight and a positive impact on customer spending behavior.

ABSTRACT Using an interactionist perspective and conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study examined the interactive effects of resilience and role overload on family-work enrichment and the outcomes of surface acting, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction. The model was tested using a sample of 156 full time employees who completed surveys at two time periods. As expected, resilience was positively related to family-work enrichment and family-work enrichment was negatively related to surface acting and emotional exhaustion and positively related to job satisfaction demonstrating mediating effects for family-work enrichment. Role overload moderated the positive relationship between resilience and family-work enrichment such that the relationship was weaker when role overload was high indicating a boundary condition for the favorable effects of resilience. Finally, support was found for the conditional indirect effects of resilience on surface acting, emotional exhaustion, and job satisfaction through family-work enrichment such that the relationships were weaker when role overload was high.

Red tape denotes valid rules or procedures that contribute nothing to achieving an organization’s goals. How red tape affects corporate employees’ emotional labor has received little attention. Therefore, this study recruited retail staff from Beijing after the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing the roles of negative emotions and customer orientation. Red tape negatively affected surface and deep acting among retail employees. Negative emotions mediated the relationships between red tape and surface and deep acting. Customer orientation moderated the relationship between negative emotions and surface acting as well as deep acting. Lastly, implications are provided for companies to promote employee emotional labor.While these measures were operationally necessary, their prolonged enforcement and administrative burden led employees to perceive them as bureaucratic obstacles rather than supportive regulations. Employees with high customer orientation may adopt alternative regulation strategies, such as cognitive reappraisal, instead of surface acting.

Instruction In order to deliver superior service experience to customers, frontline employees must regulate their emotional expressions during service encounters. This study examines how empowering leadership influences emotional labor (deep acting and surface acting) through the mediating role of job passion. Methods Using data of 1,040 frontline employees across three service industries, the proposed mediating model was tested. Results The findings revealed that: empowering leadership predicted deep acting and reduced surface acting. Job passion mediated the relationship between empowering leadership and emotional labor. Specifically, empowering leadership influenced surface acting only through obsessive passion. Empowering leadership had a “double-edged” effect on deep acting, operating through both harmonious and obsessive passion simultaneously. Discussion This study highlights the mediating role of job passion in translating empowering leadership into emotional labor strategies. The findings help service organizations refine leadership strategies to enhance emotional regulation in frontline service roles.

PurposeThe purpose of the present study is to examine the influence of innovative work behavior (IWB) on service recovery performance (SRP) with the intervention of emotional labor (EL) among frontline employees of Pakistan’s telecommunications sector.Design/methodology/approachBased on a positivist philosophy, the quantitative research design was considered suitable for attaining the intended research objectives. Data were collected purposively from 412 frontline employees from four mobile cellular companies in Pakistan using structured questionnaires. The hypothesized model was tested using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) 25 with an extension of Process Model 4 and Smart PLS 4.FindingsThe results showed a significant positive relation between IWB and SRP. In addition, IWB positively influences the first dimension of EL, which is deep acting (DA), whereas it negatively relates to surface acting (SA) in another dimension. Furthermore, SA was also found to be negatively associated with SRP. On the contrary, the study found no significant relation between DA and SRP. The mediating results show that the relationship of DA was significant between IWB and SRP, whereas SA is insignificant between IWB and SRP.Originality/valueThe study focused on the intervening role of EL among IWB and SRP in Pakistan’s telecom sector. The use of IWB as an influencer on EL to predict SRP is relatively less studied. The research critically examines the influence of IWB on EL and how IWB regulates frontline employees’ emotions and vice versa. The study provides a new perspective and challenges existing assumptions to the management and authorities to revisit their work roles, settings and performance indicators for frontline employees in the telecom sector.

PurposeThis study investigates how organizational control systems induce emotional labor in frontline service employees (FLEs). Drawing on the stimulus–organism–response (S-O-R) theory, we hypothesized that two control systems, an outcome-based control system (OBCS) and a behavior-based control system (BBCS), trigger work engagement rather than organizational dehumanization in FLEs, leading them to choose deep acting rather than surface acting as an emotional labor strategy.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed three-wave online surveys conducted 3–4 months apart to assess the time-lagged effects of S-O-R. We measured OBCS, BBCS (stimuli) and control variables at Time 1 (T1); work engagement and organizational dehumanization (organisms) at Time 2 (T2) and emotional labor strategies (responses) at Time 3 (T3). A total of 218 employees completed the T1, T2 and T3 surveys.FindingsOBCS increased work engagement, leading to increased deep acting. BBCS enhanced organizational dehumanization, leading to increased surface acting. Post-hoc analysis confirmed that the indirect effect of OBCS on deep acting through work engagement and the mediation effect of BBCS on surface acting through organizational dehumanization were statistically significant.Originality/valueThis study collected three-wave data to reveal how organizational control systems affect FLEs’ emotional labor in the S-O-R framework. It illustrated how organizations induce FLEs to perform effective emotional strategies by investigating the effects of organizational control systems on their internal states.

Frontline employees can generate tremendous value for both the customer and the organization through innovation. While prior research has revealed that frontline employees’ emotional labor significantly affects their own creativity, it is unclear whether it has a spillover effect on other frontline employees (i.e., co-workers) and how it shapes their behaviors, especially proactive innovation behavior. Based on emotion-as-social-information (EASI) theory, we construct a mechanism model to illustrate this aforementioned spillover effect. By analyzing the questionnaires collected from 268 frontline employees in China, we found that (1) deep acting (surface acting) of co-worker influences frontline employee’s proactive innovation behavior positively (negatively); (2) affective commitment plays a mediating role between emotional labor and proactive innovation behavior; and (3) emotional sensitivity reinforces the positive (negative) effect of deep acting (surface acting) on proactive innovation behavior. The conclusions provide valuable insight into understanding the spillover effects of emotional labor among frontline employees.

The phenomenon of customer incivility poses significant challenges for frontline employees whose expression of emotion determines the service experience. Few studies have explored the mediating mechanisms linking customer incivility to frontline employees' emotional labor. Drawing on the dualistic model of job passion theory, we proposed job passion as a feasible mediator of the links from customer incivility to frontline employees' emotional labor. Using data from 1040 frontline employees across the retailing, banking, and hospitality sectors, the results indicate that job passion acts as the psychological mechanism underlying the relationships between customer incivility and frontline employees' emotional labor. Specifically, customer incivility is positively associated with frontline employees' surface acting through both obsessive passion and harmonious passion. Conversely, customer incivility is negatively linked with deep acting only through harmonious passion. Our findings clarify the psychological mechanisms through which customer incivility affects frontline employees' emotional labor from the perspective of job passion. Furthermore, the current study also extends the job passion model to the boundary-spanning context to explain how frontline employees respond to customer incivility. This study sheds light on how service practitioners can support frontline employees in dealing with customer incivility.

Emotional labor is a quality service indicator that demands control of emotions and a display of facial expressions. This study investigated the psychosocial dimensions of emotional labor and burnout among hotel frontline employees in the tourism industry. The participants were frontline employees (n = 302) selected through stratified random sampling technique. To analyze the data, frequency distribution, percentage, means, standard deviation, Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient, and Stepwise Regression were utilized. Results show that there is a significant relationship between emotional labor and burnout. Specifically, it reveals that surface acting, but not deep acting, is significantly related to burnout. Hotel frontline employees’ display of emotion-regulated work can be exasperating, and emotional labor, over time, contributes to burnout. Surface acting is a painstaking effort, leaving the front-liner more tired. Deep acting is a natural tendency among Filipinos to empathize with client’s needs. Nevertheless, managing emotional state is necessary in one-on-one mutual consultation with client service, otherwise, when not appropriately intervened, it will lead to unfavorable mental health concerns, such as burnout. Hence, periodic psychosocial training, cognitive techniques, and reframing of mind are helpful strategies to help front-liners control their emotions.

Drawing on both the organization identification and impression management theories, we propose that perceived external prestige of frontline employees influences their emotional labor through organizational identification and impression management motive. Further, the relative influence of either pathway depends upon perceived organizational support. Using survey data from 377 frontline employees in 104 hotels, the results indicate that perceived external prestige is positively related to deep acting, and negatively related to surface acting. Organizational identification partially mediates the relationship between perceived external prestige and deep acting. However, the relationship between perceived external prestige and surface acting is partially mediated both by organizational identification and impression management motive. In addition, perceived organizational support positively moderates the relationship between perceived external prestige and organizational identification, and negatively moderates the relationship between perceived external prestige and impression management motive, respectively.

Previous discussions on customer injustice and emotional labor have primarily focused on employee–customer dyads, often neglecting the role of service co-workers in shaping emotional labor dynamics. To address this gap, the current study integrates intrapersonal and interpersonal factors to explore their joint effects on employees’ emotional labor strategies when encountering customer injustice. A full-factorial experimental design with 2 (self-construal: independent vs. interdependent) × 3 (service co-workers: alone vs. positive attitudes vs. negative attitudes toward customer injustice) is employed, using data from 179 frontline service employees at high-star hotels in Shanghai, with self-construal and service co-workers operationalized as manipulated conditions. Results reveal that self-construal significantly influences surface acting: interdependent individuals are more inclined to engage in surface acting than independent individuals. By contrast, self-construal has no direct effect on deep acting. While service co-workers do not moderate the relationship between self-construal and surface acting, they play a critical role in the relationship between self-construal and deep acting: for interdependent employees, service co-workers’ attitudes (rather than their mere presence) decisively impact deep acting, with positive attitudes promoting deeper emotional engagement and negative attitudes reducing it. This study advances a dual-path framework highlighting how intrapersonal dispositions (self-construal) and interpersonal impression cues (service co-workers’ attitudes) interact to shape emotional labor. By expanding the traditional employee–customer dyad to a triadic model, the study bridges impression management theory and workplace injustice research, offering theoretical insights into how intrapersonal traits and interpersonal dynamics jointly shape contextualized emotional labor. This thereby provides a theoretical foundation for nuanced management strategies in service organizations.

No abstract available

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.

No abstract available

The recent proliferation of non-face-to-face services and the rise of platform labor have led to a growing social interest in emotional labor. Emotional labor is a core characteristic of the work process, requiring interaction with customers. Workers performing emotional labor are forced to conceal their inner feelings and externally express the emotions required by the organization, placing them in a state of emotional dissonance. Therefore this study investigates how emotional labor's surface acting impacts service workers' psychological well-being, mediated by organization-based self-esteem (OBSE), and moderated by team-member exchange (TMX). Analyzing 336 service workers, findings confirm surface acting negatively affects psychological well-being and OBSE. Higher OBSE, in turn, positively influences psychological well-being. A pivotal discovery is TMX's paradoxical moderating role: high TMX intensifies surface acting's negative effect on OBSE. This suggests strong team cohesion can amplify the perceived cost of emotional dissonance, hurting organizational pride and subsequently psychological well-being. The study underscores surface acting's complex psychological toll beyond individual well-being to organizational identification, advocating for nuanced emotional labor management and a careful approach to team support systems.

This study examines the mental health impacts of emotional labor using an integrated analytical model that considers both job-level emotional labor requirements (negative and positive display rules) and psychological processes of emotion regulation (deep acting and surface acting). Using data from the 2021 Emotions Matter Survey ( n = 854) of mental health and library workers in Ontario, Canada, we explore the conditions under which emotional labor requirements negatively impact mental health. Our findings reveal that negative display rules significantly increase anxiety, and surface acting exacerbates both anxiety and anger. Contrary to expectations, deep acting did not serve as a protective factor for mental health but showed a complex interaction with negative display rules, worsening psychological states under high negative emotional demands. This research underscores the intricate nature of emotional labor’s impact on mental health, highlighting the need for context-specific strategies to support frontline workers in emotionally intensive roles.

Purpose This paper aims to identify types of robot service failure stressors and explores its impact on emotional labor and recovery work engagement from the employees’ standpoint. Design/methodology/approach The research adopted a mixed-method approach in the hospitality industry in China, which included 25 hospitality workers participating in semi-structured interviews and 435 hospitality employees participating in a two-stage questionnaire survey. Findings Three types of robotic service failure stressors – illegitimate tasks, customer mistreatment and robotic instability – were identified. These stressors significantly influence emotional labor strategies in employee subsequently shaping their recovery work engagement through dual pathways. The sequential mediation effect of deep acting and service empathy serves to enhance recovery work engagement, whereas the sequential mediation effect of surface acting and workplace depersonalization diminishes this engagement. Human–robot collaborative climate moderates these effects in this context. Practical implications The findings from this study yield several implications for hospitality managers in managing employees and service robots to perform human–robot collaboration tasks. Originality/value Current research has primarily delved into how robot service failures impact customer experiences, leaving the effects on employees less explored. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first empirical study to explore the relationship between robot service failure and employee emotional responses and behaviors, enriching the literature on service robots in the hospitality industry and also proposing new directions and frameworks for future human–robot interaction research.

Recently, research on service workers’ emotional labor has received considerable attention, both in theory and practice. Emotional labor has been reported to cause both stress and burnout in service workers, eventually leading to a decrease in organizational productivity. In this context, there is also a growing interest in identifying ways to reduce such burnout. This study aimed to examine the influence of emotional labor and job demands–resources (JD–R) on service workers’ burnout. Specifically, we analyzed the direct, indirect, and moderating effects of JD–R on burnout. Data were collected from service workers (N = 1517) in public sectors. Results revealed that three dimensions—emotional labor, intensity/variety, and surface acting—increase burnout, whereas deep acting decreases it. Additionally, job demands were found to increase burnout, while job resources decreased it. Among the job demands, customer contact had the greatest positive impact on burnout, followed by role ambiguity and workload, respectively. Among the job resources, self-efficacy and social support had the greatest negative impact on burnout. Finally, customer contact, role ambiguity, job autonomy, and social support were identified as moderators that worsened or buffered the impact of emotional labor on burnout.

OBJECTIVES Although there have been studies linking personality to selected aspects of functioning at work, Polish literature reports a shortage of detailed analyses considering, e.g., specific professional groups or certain variables. The aim of our study was to explore the links between personality traits and emotional labor, work engagement and job satisfaction among service workers. MATERIAL AND METHODS The study was based on a cross-sectional, self-report survey of 137 workers representing different service industries in Poland. Each participant received a demographic data sheet and a set of questionnaires: NEO Five-Factor Inventory, the Deep Acting and Surface Acting Scale, the Job Satisfaction Scale and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale - all in their Polish versions. RESULTS A correlation analysis revealed numerous relationships between the examined variables. However, results of the regression analysis showed that only some personality traits were related with individual aspects of functioning at work. Neuroticism accounted for the phenomenon of faking emotions. Conscientiousness was significantly related to general work engagement, vigor and dedication. Agreeableness and neuroticism significantly predicted job satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS Individual personality traits account for various aspects of work functioning. Int J Occup Med Environ Health 2016;29(5):767-782.

Some employees tend to drink more alcohol than other employees, with costs to personal and organizational well-being. Based on a self-control framework, we propose that emotional labor with customers-effortfully amplifying, faking, and suppressing emotional expressions (i.e., surface acting)-predicts alcohol consumption, and that this relationship varies depending on job expectations for self-control (i.e., autonomy) and personal self-control traits (i.e., impulsivity). We test these predictions with data drawn from a national probability sample of U.S. workers, focusing on employees with daily contact with outsiders (N = 1,592). The alcohol outcomes included heavy drinking and drinking after work. Overall, surface acting was robustly related to heavy drinking, even after controlling for demographics, job demands, and negative affectivity, consistent with an explanation of impaired self-control. Surface acting predicted drinking after work only for employees with low self-control jobs or traits; this effect was exacerbated for those with service encounters (i.e., customers and the public) and buffered for those with service relationships (i.e., patients, students, and clients). We discuss what these results mean for emotional labor and propose directions for helping the large segment of U.S. employees in public facing occupations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

The recent growth of service industries as well as the rise of e-commerce has increased the number of online customer service workers. Research on face-to-face service work has shown that these workers are expected to display certain emotions in the course of their work, a phenomenon known as emotional labor. However, little is known about emotional communication among online customer service workers. We explored emotional labor in an online context by examining the degree of emotional presence in mediated service interactions and its relationship with workers’ acting strategies (i.e., surface acting, deep acting). Further, we examined if emotional presence and acting strategies predict job satisfaction as well as burnout. Data collected from 130 online customer service workers indicated that they perceive the highest emotional presence in phone conversations, followed by email and chat. Although there was little relationship between emotional presence and acting strategies, those who engage in surface acting are less satisfied with their job and more likely to experience burnout. In addition, those who feel a higher degree of emotional presence over the phone tend to experience higher job satisfaction and less burnout. These findings suggest that online customer service workers also engage in emotional labor.

This study was undertaken to verify the moderated mediating effect of optimism through emotional labor strategy between COVID-19 risk perception and depression, and thus, to identify work maladjustment and mental health problems among service workers caused by COVID-19 and explore interventions. A sample of 646 hotel workers completed COVID-19 risk perception questionnaires, the emotional labor strategy (surface acting, deep acting) scale, the optimism scale, and depression questionnaires. Collected data were analyzed using Hayes`s moderated mediation effect method using the PROCESS Macro program. The results can be summarized as follows. 1) The partial mediating effect of surface acting between COVID-19 risk perception and depression was verified. 2) The moderating effect of optimism between surface acting and depression was verified. 3) The moderated mediating effect of optimism through surface acting between COVID-19 risk perception and depression was verified. Our results showed that optimism (β=-0.54) significantly reduced the influence of surface acting on depression (β=0.66). These results indicate that hotel workers are vulnerable to depression due to COVID-19 and that this vulnerability increases due to maladaptive strategic behaviors in emotional labor situations at work. Furthermore, they suggest that an optimism improvement intervention program be developed that focuses on the mental health and emotional labor problems related to COVID-19 in service workers

The previous two decades of the 20th century has witnessed a dynamic change in the distribution of employment that has shifted from agriculture and industry to the service sector. With the rise of the service sector, more numbers of employees are involved in direct contact with the client and in such occupations, the job demands expression of appropriate emotions during the interaction. Concomitant with this transition a relatively new labour market has been created, which is marked by work roles that focus on direct communication between service workers and customers. Many a times the front-line service workers have to regulate their emotions in jobs so as to appear professional, even when during unpleasant situations. This new type of labour which has emerged from the work demand is termed as ‘Emotional labour’. Emotional labour is not confined tocustomer service workers, it can be challenging for most of us, because it is not easy to hide true emotions and display emotions required in work place. Organizational expectation of emotional expression by employees at work place leads to emotional labour. Arlie Hochschild (1983) was the first sociologist to distinctively point out the management and display of emotions by workers as part of their work role. She defined emotional labour as the management of emotions in order to bring out visible facial and bodily display. Hochschild asserted that emotional labour is a stressor that maybe harmful for the psychological and physical well-being of employees. Her findings suggested that the need to manage emotions in work place may bring in contradiction between the emotions an employee feels and the emotions he/she has to display while working with customers. This discrepancy between required and true emotions is referred to as ‘Emotional dissonance’. The more the conflict between the required and true emotions, the more employees tend to experience stress, job burnout, and psychological alienation from self. Hochschild proposed two different approaches to reduce emotional dissonance, which are surface acting (outward behavior) and deep acting (inner feelings). As the emotional state of employees is directly related to work performance, management of factors causing emotional labor is an important aspect at work environment.

No abstract available

No abstract available

No abstract available