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Showing papers on "Emotional labor published in 2001"


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Research on emotion work, organizational as well as social variables as predictors of job burnout showed that for service professionals, the coincidence of these stressors led to exaggerated levels of emotional exhaustion and depersonalization.
Abstract: This article reports research on emotion work, organizational as well as social variables as predictors of job burnout. In burnout research, high emotional demands resulting from interactions with clients are seen as a core characteristic of service jobs. However, these emotional demands were seldom measured in a direct manner. It was only recently that emotional demands were included in studies on burnout referring to the concept of emotion work (emotional labor). Emotion work is defined as the requirement to display organizationally desired emotions. A multi-dimensional concept of emotion work was used to analyze the relations of emotion work variables with organizational and social variables and their joint effect on burnout in five samples including employees working in children's homes, kindergartens, hotels, banks and call centers. Emotion work variables correlated with organizational stressors and resources. However, hierarchical multiple regression showed a unique contribution of emotion ...

512 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that managing feelings of agitation increases burnout and inauthenticity and that inauthentity is most pronounced among those experiencing the highest levels of agitation, and that this negative effect on well-being should be more common among women.
Abstract: A number of researchers have examined the conditions under which individuals perform emotional labor and the effects of such labor on psychological well-being. Much of this research has been limited to the experiences of service-sector workers in highly gender-segregated jobs. Prior survey research also tended to focus on dimensions of interactive work rather than on the actual management of feeling that is the foundation of the emotional labor process. Addressing each of these issues, we examine the experience and management of positive, negative, and agitated emotions Building on prior theory and research, we argue that the management of agitation is the form of emotional labor most likely to be associated with increased feelings of burnout and inauthenticity, and that this negative effect on well-being should be more common among women. We find that managing feelings of agitation increases burnout and inauthenticity and that inauthenticity is most pronounced among those experiencing the highest levels of agitation. These effects do not differ by gender, however.

439 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The circumplex framework is offered as a potentially useful taxonomy for researchers interested in better understanding and promoting a happy and productive workforce as discussed by the authors, however, despite years of research, support for the happy-productive worker thesis remains equivocal.
Abstract: For decades, organizational scientists and practitioners alike have been fascinated by the happyproductive worker thesis. According to this hypothesis, happy employees exhibit higher levels of job-related performance behaviors than do unhappy employees. However, despite years of research, support for the happy-productive worker thesis remains equivocal. These ambiguous findings result from the variety of ways in which happiness has been operationalized. Researchers have operationalized happiness as job satisfaction, as the presence of positive affect, as the absence of negative affect, as the lack of emotional exhaustion, and as psychological well-being. Some of these measures exhibit appreciable associations with job performance, others do not. The circumplex framework is offered as a potentially useful taxonomy for researchers interested in better understanding and promoting a happy and productive workforce.

423 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Nurses' high degree of satisfaction in the emotional rewards of their work with clients is described and contrasted with their dissatisfaction in relation to nursing education and their views of the lack of valuing of nurses' work by others within the healthcare system are contrasted.
Abstract: This paper describes one component of the findings of a larger research study entitled 'Nurses' social construction of self: Implications for work with abused women'. One of the most consistent themes arising from that study involved nurses' views regarding the relevance of emotional engagement/detachment in pursuit of excellence in their practice. In this article this theme is examined in the light of work on emotional labor and the emotional work of nursing. Nurses' high degree of satisfaction in the emotional rewards of their work with clients is described and contrasted with their dissatisfaction in relation to nursing education and their views of the lack of valuing of nurses' work by others within the healthcare system. The importance of supporting them in relation to the emotional aspects of their work is explored.

260 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that management has developed a new form of structural control, which is combined with bureaucratic control to influence the social structure of the workplace, and explore confrontation between workers and managers and worker agency more generally.
Abstract: Call centres represent a new strategy by capital to reduce unit labour costs. While this strategy has been applied to many different types of work, it is particularly successful in cutting costs in routine interactive service encounters. Telebank, the case study research site, is one of four integrated call centres throughout the UK. Data collection includes taped semi-structured interviews with customer service representatives and managers as well as non-participant observation of recruitment, training and the labour process. This article argues that management has developed a new form of structural control. Theoretically this draws heavily on Edwards's concept of technical control, but not only is this shown to be extended and modified, it is also combined with bureaucratic control, which influences the social structure of the workplace. Contrary to Edwards such systems are not distinct; rather they are blended together in the process of institutionalizing control. Part of the rationale for this is to camouflage control, to contain conflict by making control a product of the system rather than involving direct confrontation between management and workers. Despite such attempts the struggle for transforming labour power into profitable labour remains, and the article ends by exploring confrontation between workers and managers and worker agency more generally.

247 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors found that therapists saw their work less in terms of what it does to make women look better, rather than what it did to make them feel better, and that they focused more on making women feel better.
Abstract: This article is based on research among beauty therapists in two cities. Therapists saw their work less in terms of what it does to make women look better, more in terms of what it does to make wom...

134 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors define the term emotional labour and consider the way staff handle their emotions and how feelings are taken into account in order to react to situations, and look at the types of role which involve emotional labor and the human cost which can be paid by the individual.
Abstract: Defines the term emotional labour and considers the way staff handle their emotions and how feelings are taken into account in order to react to situations. Looks at the types of role which involve emotional labour and the human cost which can be paid by the individual. Considers the way companies sell such aspects of their service and the difficulties faced by employees who are asked to carry out such roles.

132 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
Billie Hunter1
TL;DR: It is essential that midwives develop their understanding of emotion at work in order to improve their own working lives, and to meet the needs of childbearing women and their families.
Abstract: Aim of the paper. To review the literature relating to emotional labour in the workplace and identify potential sources of emotion within midwifery work. Rationale. There is substantial evidence to indicate that the quality of the relationship between midwife and woman is significant in determining the quality of the childbirth experience for women. Despite this, there is a notable lack of research regarding midwives’ experiences of participating in this relationship, and even less regarding the emotional issues involved. Method. Literature review of relevant midwifery, nursing and sociological literature. Discussion of the theoretical perspectives provided by sociological and nursing research relating to the management of emotion at work and critical consideration of their application to an analysis of midwifery work. Findings. Although these theoretical perspectives may offer significant insights of relevance to midwifery, there is much more that needs to be uncovered. Midwifery work has the potential for creating high levels of emotion work and current changes in the organization of United Kingdom (UK) maternity care may further increase this. Conclusion. It is essential that midwives develop their understanding of emotion at work in order to improve their own working lives, and to meet the needs of childbearing women and their families. More research is needed in this field to develop a body of knowledge to inform midwifery education and practice.

127 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The article addresses recent changes in nursing and nurse education as a means of exploring new patterns of learning to care in nursing.

96 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, a model is developed that identifies individual and dyadic antecedents and outcomes for a construct called service encounter emotional value (SEEVal), defined as the net emotional value the customer experiences added to the net emotion value the service provider experiences.
Abstract: A model is developed that identifies individual and dyadic antecedents and outcomes for a construct we have named service encounter emotional value (SEEVal). Service encounter emotional value is defined as the net emotional value the customer experiences added to the net emotional value the service provider employee experiences. Individual cognitive and affective antecedents are identified. Emotional dyadic antecedents are identified and include rapport, emotional contagion, co-production of emotional labor, and relationship quality. The customer outcomes associated with SEEVal broadly include satisfaction, loyalty, and customer voluntary performance. Service employee outcomes include satisfaction, organizational loyalty, and organizational citizenship behaviors. We use existing research to logically support the model and the relationships therein. Fourteen propositions are developed and additional suggestions for future research are provided.

83 citations


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors bring together the sociological fields of work, consumption, and physical culture, suggesting how the structure and organization of personal training impacts upon how fitness is sold.
Abstract: The contemporary United States fitness industry, in conjunction with the medical endorsement of exercise and the marketing of lifestyle consumption, has made possible the emergence and rapid growth of health and fitness services. This paper brings together the sociological fields of work, consumption, and physical culture, suggesting how the structure and organization of personal training impacts upon how fitness is sold. Drawing from interviews with personal trainers, the occupation is discussed as a combination of frontline service work, emotional labor, and flexible work strategies, resulting in a variety of job roles: the representation of the fitness club, the brokering of clients’ consumer relationships with the fitness industry, the motivation of clients through service relationships, and the entrepreneurial cultivation of a client base and semi-professional authority.

Journal ArticleDOI
01 May 2001-Geoforum
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a more nuanced understanding of the complex and contradictory ways that men interact with other men in the workplace (e.g., peers, subordinates, and superiors), unpicking the dominant or hegemonic view of male managers as rational.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Gunaratnam and Lewis as mentioned in this paper argued that the irrational and unconscious aspects of racial dynamics cannot simply be countered by appeals to the rational, and that there is a need to recognise and integrate rather than'split' positive and negative emotions about the self and 'others'.
Abstract: This paper brings together the empirical work of Yasmin Gunaratnam with hospice social workers and that of Gail Lewis with local authority social workers. It uses a conceptually expanded notion of 'emotional labour' to explore and theorise links between different forms of emotion management and racialised subject positions and practices in social care for both those categorised as 'ethnic minorities' and as 'white'. The analytic framework draws upon the political scholarship of Audre Lorde and Thandeka and the psychoanalytic work of Melanie Klein to explore talk about the production of anger, fear and shame. A common focus in the writing of these different authors is the self/other relation and the attention given to personal, interpersonal, inter-group and intra-group dynamics. The paper argues that the irrational and unconscious aspects of racial dynamics cannot simply be countered by appeals to the rational. There is a need to recognise and integrate rather than 'split' positive and negative emotions about the self and 'others'. Such integration is seen as a source of internal strength and psychic health making for the possibility of caring and constructive relationships in social care organisations through which the complexities of difference can be recognised and valued.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors draw upon empirical research into the image consultancy industry in the United Kingdom and conclude that the new profession of image consultancy is more about gender than image, and argue that this group is equally implicated in societal pressures to conform to conventional heterosexual images of femininity and masculinity.
Abstract: This paper draws upon empirical research into the image consultancy industry in the United Kingdom. This industry is becoming increasingly important as a provider of knowledge and expertise to employers and individuals. We suggest that the literature on new forms of service employment (emotional labour and hybrid forms of work) has neglected to explore well-paid professional employees. We argue that this group is equally implicated in societal pressures to conform to conventional heterosexual images of femininity and masculinity. Pressures to conform do not have to come from management, but from professional bodies, the media and clients. Image consultancy provides one way of encouraging employees to alter their image as the advice can be packaged as independent of the employer and professional. We conclude that the new profession of image consultancy is more about gender than image. Consultants are selling codified knowledge for the construction of particularly socially accepted or preferred forms of bodily identity.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors explored the nature of the emotional labour that teachers perform in their daily professional lives and argued that the Object Relations psychoanalytic tradition offers a richer account of emotional life in general, and emotional labour in particular.
Abstract: This article explores the nature of the emotional labour that teachers perform in their daily professional lives. It reviews the work of the sociologist Arlie Hochschild in order to assess how applicable her account of the nature of emotional labour is to the world of the classroom. It suggests that her account focuses on emotional labour as exploitative, and therefore ignores its rewarding dimensions. It argues that the Object Relations psychoanalytic tradition offers a richer account of emotional life in general, and emotional labour in particular. Object Relations theory is applied to describe the emotional labour of the teacher. Four observations of teachers at work in their classrooms are presented and analysed. The article aims to show how the unconscious dynamics of recognition and mis-recognition underpin success or failure at effective teaching and learning in the classroom.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Hochschild (1983) suggests that emotional labour involves the induction or suppression of feeling in order to sustain in others a sense of being cared for in a convivial safe place.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The lack of a significant change in students' inferences of pain and the analysis of their interviews suggest that their experiences are more varied than these theories suggest and have important implications for both nurse education and the mechanisms to support student nurses in clinical practice.


Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examine two potential negative outcomes: sexual harassment by customers and the dysfunctional psychological effects of asking employees to display unfelt emotions, and suggest that this service with a smile emphasis has positive benefits; few suggest that it can also result in negative consequences.

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article argued that traditional analytic models of work, while useful, overlook defining features of labor by deemphasizing the cultural meaning of work for participants, and applied a cultural models approach to the case of Brazilian non-governmental teachers.
Abstract: Introduction This paper argues that traditional analytic models of work, while useful, overlook defining features of labor by deemphasizing the cultural meaning of work for participants. Applying a cultural models approach to the case of Brazilian non-governmental (NGO) teachers, the article explains why emotional labor has become a central feature in teachers' educational work. The teachers of Freirean, popular education programs promote conscientization and the revolution of hierarchical class relations through the enactment of friendship and egalitarian speech interaction in the classroom. This analytic framework allows us to see more fully the positional aspects of labor in relation to social structures of gender, race, and class; it ensures the representation of cultural as well as economic perspectives; and it permits a more grounded explanation of social change. To expound upon this argument, I first outline the concept of cultural models and details its benefits. I then examine the Brazilian cultural model of the educated person and provide some background on Freirean, non-governmental literacy organizations. Finally, I show how teachers attempted to cultivate friendship and sociability in the classroom and suggest how this might influence the learning that occurs in the classroom.


01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: Hort et al. as discussed by the authors explored the gendered nature of managerial work in the university context and found that high levels of self-monitoring in this context entail endless self-questioning of how we might be doing the job, at least doubling the work requirements, time and energy invested.
Abstract: This paper explores, from the authors' experiences, emotional labour as gendered experience in the area of university management in Australia. University work (teaching and research) clearly involves high levels of emotional labour. Commitment, passion and curiosity in the self and created in others are keys to developing and transmitting knowledge. But what of the managerial roles within universities? To explore the gendered nature of managerial work in the university context, the authors related to each other three critical incidents associated with their work as senior managers. These narratives were explored to determine themes within our experiences. Some of the new forms of emotional labour found in our critical incidents suggest a need for further research and theorising. For example, our stories revealed a common theme of high levels of selfmonitoring. We found that high levels of self-monitoring in this context entail endless self-questioning of how we might be doing the job, at least doubling the work requirements, time and energy invested. This selfmonitoring often leads to self-punishment and selfdeprecation and the conduct of 'repair work' when perceiving that one has behaved 'badly'. We found it also led to self-justification and deficits in credits or the let offs given for perceived transgressions. Other similar experiences are explored in the paper. We conclude by analysing these experiences as a part of the identity construction of women as managers and raise the inherent contradiction that this identity formation presents. A final discussion of our methodology raises issues of selfdisclosure and authenticity and concludes by noting that many of the issues we have raised remain unresolved but are deeply embedded in our everyday experiences as women managers in academia. Disciplines Business | Social and Behavioral Sciences Publication Details Hort, L., Barrett, M. & Fulop, L (2001). Doing hard labour gendered emotional labour in academic management. Conference on Critical Management Studies, UMIST, Manchester, UK, 11-13 July, 2001 (pp. 1-18). This conference paper is available at Research Online: http://ro.uow.edu.au/commpapers/755 Doing Hard Labour: Gendered Emotional Labour in Academic Management Linda Hort, Mary Barrett, Liz Fulop School of Marketing and Management Griffith University PMB 50 Gold Coast Mail Centre Queensland, 9726 Australia. Phone: +61 755528757 Fax: +61 7 55528085 E-mail: L.Hort@mailbox.gu.edu.au

01 Jan 2001
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors distinguish between two types of emotional work: emotional demand and hiding of emotions, i.e., emotional demand refers to the perception that work requires high commitment and burdens the emotional resources of the worker.
Abstract: While working, people experience and express emotions. Emotional work is work that puts a strain on the emotional resources of a worker. In this study, we distinguish between two types of emotional work: emotional demand and hiding of emotions. Emotional demand refers to the perception that work requires high commitment and burdens the emotional resources of the worker. For example, nurses may perceive their work as emotionally demanding. A nurse has to interact with patients who may be suffering, distressed, or even dying. This may lead to uncertainty about how to act and feel, to awkward interactions with patients and coworkers, and eventually to burnout. Hiding of emotions is an aspect of “emotional labour”, which refers to having to regulate the expression of emotions at work. For example, waiters are expected to smile and be kind to customers, so when they feel depressed or irritated with a customer they cannot show these feelings. This study examines potential antecedents and consequences of emotional work (i.e., emotional demand and hiding of emotions). We first examine to what extent occupations differ in emotional work, and whether perceptions of emotional work depend on gender and age. After considering these antecedents of emotional work, we examine the relationship of emotional work with two traditional outcome measures of work: job satisfaction and burnout. Although no causal conclusions can be drawn from this study, we consider job satisfaction and burnout as potential consequences of emotional work. Finally, we examine whether social support from supervisor and from coworkers can buffer adverse effects of emotional work.


22 Mar 2001
TL;DR: The authors of as discussed by the authors summarized the opinions of managers and service workers in the tourism/hospitality industry in the Adelaide metropolitan area during the Christmas holiday season, and identified strategies developed by managers and staff to sustain each other in their front-line service work.
Abstract: The Christmas holiday season brings particular challenges to managers and front-line service workers in the accommodation and hospitality sectors. These staff, while striving to provide their normal high standards of service, must maintain their welcoming demeanour in the face of an increasing tide of patrons, some of whom are endowed with more social graces than others and many who are fuelled by various degrees of intoxication. The following paper summarises the opinions of managers and service workers in the tourism/ hospitality industry in the Adelaide metropolitan area. Their views were solicited during the course of a series of interviews that addressed a number of issues associated with the performance of emotional labour. As one hospitality manager observed: `Christmas time is a tough time ... there's a different variety of people coming into your restaurant -- different backgrounds ... normally, it's one person that's made the booking but there might be thirty people in the party ... they might be from an office or a factory or a solicitor's office ... sometimes they bring along their partners and the waiter becomes the battering ram for dissatisfaction at the table between arguments between spouses ... extended families on Christmas Day are often difficult ... they're high on emotion ... people are thrown together once a year and you actually bearing the brunt of the strained relationships at the table.' The nature of frontline service work is succinctly described by Albrecht and Zemke as follows: `The service person must deliberately involve his or her feelings in the situation. He or she may not particularly feel like being cordial and becoming a one-minute friend to the next customer who approaches, but that is indeed what frontline work entails.' (1985, pp.114-15). In the process of becoming these `one minute friends', managers and service workers are performing emotional labour, which is defined by Morris and Feldman as `the effort, planning and control needed to express organisationally desired emotion during interpersonal transactions' (1996, p.987). One particular negative consequence of the performance of emotional labour is known as burnout. Maslach and Jackson (1981, p.99) indicate that `burnout is a syndrome of emotional exhaustion and cynicism that occurs frequently among individuals who do `people-work' of some kind.' As a result of the emotional exhaustion experienced, workers feel that they cannot give of themselves any longer (Maslach and Jackson 1981). The comments of a front office worker in a large hotel draw attention not only the emotional exhaustion experienced as a result of frontline service work, but also the challenges of working during the Christmas season: `... one of the hardest times would have to be Christmas and New Year ... ... you walk off the desk after eight hours, just feeling like you could just go home and not talk to anyone ever again ... some days I just don't want to talk to anyone ... my mum will call me and I'll just snap at her and you get to that stage where you just don't want to do it anymore.' These interviews identified strategies developed by managers and service workers to sustain each other in their front-line service work. Managers would intervene on behalf of their staff when necessary as indicated by the following comment: `I just go and see the table ... become a bit of a buffer between the difficult customer and my staff.' An accommodation service worker acknowledged the importance of such intervention: `If a manager hears an employee getting torn apart by a customer and getting really stressed and upset about it, I don't think the manager should wait for the employee.... to go up to him and say `Can you help me out here? `I think that managers should automatically step in. …