Showing papers on "Emotional labor published in 2003"

When 'the show must go on': surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery

Abstract: Affective delivery, or expressing positive emotions in service interactions, helps satisfy customers. But employees cannot always feel positive and, to avoid breaking display rules, may act. Surfac...

Emotion regulation in customer service roles: testing a model of emotional labor.

Abstract: The study used a time-sampling method to test aspects of A. Grandey’s (2000) emotion regulationmodel of emotional labor. Eighteen customer service employees from a call center recorded dataon pocket computers every 2 hr at work for 2 weeks. Participants completed ratings of emotionregulation, events, expressed and felt emotions, well-being, and performance on 537 occasionsand completed questionnaires containing individual and organizational measures. Multilevelanalyses supported many aspects of the model but indicated that it has to be implementedprecisely in terms of regulating emotion for organizational goals. Results also showed that deepand surface acting had different consequences for employees. Overall, the study found thatemotion regulation is a viable platform for understanding emotional labor.

Antecedents and consequences of emotional display rule perceptions.

Abstract: Central to all theories of emotional labor is the idea that individuals follow emotional display rules that specify the appropriate expression of emotions on the job. This investigation examined antecedents and consequences of emotional display rule perceptions. Full-time working adults (N = 152) from a variety of occupations provided self-report data, and supervisors and coworkers completed measures pertaining to the focal employees. Results using structural equation modeling revealed that job-based interpersonal requirements, supervisor display rule perceptions, and employee extraversion and neuroticism were predictive of employee display rule perceptions. Employee display rule perceptions, in turn, were related to self-reported job satisfaction and coworker ratings of employees' emotional displays on the job. Finally, neuroticism had direct negative relationships with job satisfaction and coworker ratings of employees' emotional displays.

Trolley Dolly or Skilled Emotion Manager? Moving on from Hochschild's Managed Heart:

Abstract: This article examines emotion in organizations and the emotion management skills organizational actors possess. While Hochschild's (1983) seminal work on emotional labour is perhaps one of the greatest contributions to our understanding of emotion in organizations, this article challenges key tenets of Hochschild's thesis and goes on to offer an evolved analysis of emotional labour and alternative conceptualizations of organizational emotionality. Using comparable data, this article depicts airline cabin crews as skilled emotion managers who are able to juggle and synthesize different types of emotion work dependent on situational demands. In addition, the capacity for cabin crews to resist and modify the demands of management and customers acts to further contradict Hochschild's claim regarding the `transmutation' of feelings.

Understanding the emotional labor process: A control theory perspective.

Abstract: A dynamic, process-oriented approach to understanding emotional labor is presented, utilizing concepts from control theory models of behavioral self-regulation. Emotional labor is characterized as involving a discrepancy monitoring and reduction process, whereby perceptions of emotional displays and emotional display rules are continuously compared. If a discrepancy between emotional displays and display rules is detected, individuals are proposed to use emotion regulation strategies to reduce the discrepancy. The goal hierarchy aspect of control theory is used to describe emotional labor in the broader context of job performance and explain how positive and negative outcomes can result from the emotional labor process. Propositions are developed throughout the paper. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Emotional dissonance, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction in call centre workers

Abstract: The rapid rise of the service sector, and in particular the call centre industry has made the study of emotional labour increasingly important within the area of occupational stress research. Given high levels of turnover and absenteeism in the industry this article examines the emotional demands (emotional labour) of call centre work and their relationship to the job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion in a sample of South Australian call centre workers (N = 98) within the theoretical frameworks of the job demand – control model, the effort – reward imbalance model, and the job demands – resources model. Qualitatively the research confirmed the central role of emotional labour variables in the experience of emotional exhaustion and satisfaction at work. Specifically the research confirmed the pre-eminence of emotional dissonance compared to a range of emotional demand variables in its potency to account for variance in emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. Specifically, emotional dissonance mediat...

Communities of Coping: Collective Emotional Labour in Service Work:

Abstract: This article argues that communities of coping among frontline service workers are an important part of what Hochschild has called `collective emotional labour' in service work. The analysis is framed in a sociological understanding of the customer as a key source of both pleasure and pain for service workers. Irate and abusive customers, who are systematically part of the social relations of the service workplace, may occasion real pain to service workers. The structure of workers' social situation means that they are likely to turn to each other to cope with this pain, forming informal communities of coping. Drawing on extensive research in four call centres in Australia and the USA, the article highlights this process in action. The communities of coping were an important social process in these workplaces, creating informal, dense cultures among the workforce. These cultures had important implications for how far the social relations of the workplace were open to management control.

"Race Doesn't Matter, But...": The Effect of Race on Professors' Experiences and Emotion Management in the Undergraduate College Classroom.

Abstract: Research has shown how black scholars' experiences differ from those of their white counterparts in regard to research and service, but few studies have addressed the influence of race on professors' teaching experiences. In this paper I examine how and to what degree race shapes professors' perceptions and experiences in the undergraduate college classroom. I analyze how students' social and cultural expectations about race affect professors' emotional labor and management, shaping the overall nature of their jobs. The findings suggest that black professors' work in the classroom is different and more complex than that of their white colleagues because negotiating a devalued racial status requires extensive emotion management. Social constraints affect the negotiation of self and identity in the classroom, influencing the emotional demands of teaching and increasing the amount of work required to be effective.

What is typical for call centre jobs? Job characteristics, and service interactions in different call centres

Abstract: Call centres have been one of the few booming branches in recent years. The main task of call centre operators is to interact with customers by telephone, usually supported by computer systems. It has been argued that call centre work is a modern form of “Taylorism”, because it is characterized by routine tasks, and low level of control for the employees. Moreover, it has been suggested that there is a high level of stress at work, both with regard to the work tasks and to the interactions with customers. In the present study a sample of 375 call centre employees from eight different call centres was compared with a sample of noncall centre workers (N = 405) in terms of job characteristics, job stressors, and emotional labour (emotion work). The results showed that call centre workers had worse job characteristics, but were better off with regard to most job stressors compared to representative comparison groups of no-service workers, service workers, and workers in human services respectively. Moreover, ...

The Managed Hand The Commercialization of Bodies and Emotions in Korean Immigrant–Owned Nail Salons

Abstract: This ethnographic study of service interactions in Korean immigrant women–owned nailsalons in New York City introduces the concept “body labor” to designate a type of gendered work that involves the management of emotions in body-related service provision. The author explores variation in the performance of body labor caused by the intersection of the gendered processes of beauty service work with the racialized and class-specific service expectations of diverse customers. The study examines three distinct patterns of service provision that are shaped by racial and class inequalities between women: (1) high-service body labor, (2) expressive body labor, and (3) routinized body labor. These patterns demonstrate that a caring, attentive style of emotional display is dominant in workplaces governed by white, middle-class “feeling rules” but that different racial and class locations call forth other forms of gendered emotionalmanagement that focus on displaying respect, reciprocity, fairness, competence, and ...

Sky Service: The Demands of Emotional Labour in the Airline Industry

Abstract: Following Hochschild's The Managed Heart, which emphasized the problematic features that emotional labour had for women flight attendants, a critical literature emerged which focused on the more enjoyable aspects of emotional labour in service employee experience. This article draws on this literature and analyses emotional labour as a gendered cultural performance but takes issue with the individualizing and pluralistic tenor in the post-Hochschild discussions. Using a qualitative and quantitative study of nearly 3000 Australian flight attendants, it focuses on organizational and occupational health and safety variables, as well as sexual harass-ment and passenger abuse — factors barely discussed by Hochschild's critics. The qualitative data indicate that emotional labour is both pleasurable and difficult at different times for the same individual. Gender is still pivotal, as Hochschild suggested, linking emotional labour with sexual harassment. At the same time, the most significant predictors from the quantitative study of whether emotional labour would be costly were organizational. Variables such as whether flight attendants felt valued by the company show that the airline management context is highly influential in the way in which emotional labour is experienced. As a means of understanding the complex relations in this important and eroticized area of service work where flight attendants, airline crews, airline management and passengers have convergent and conflicting interests, the article also deploys a new concept: ‘demanding publics’, to refer to trangressions of the legitimate boundaries of the service worker.

Emotional support and the role of Clinical Nurse Specialists in palliative care

Abstract: Background. Clinical Nurse Specialists (CNS) play a major role in the delivery of specialist palliative care services to patients with advanced cancer, in hospital, hospice and community settings across the United Kingdom. A major component of their work focuses on the delivery of emotional care and support to patients and their families. Aim. This paper critically examines the literature on emotional care and support for patients with advanced cancer requiring palliative care. The aim is to increase understanding of how CNSs and patients interact and work together to produce emotionally supportive relationships. Methods. A literature search was performed using the CINAHL, MEDLINE and ASSIA CD-ROM databases and combinations of the key words: 'emotional support', 'emotional care', 'end of life', 'palliative', 'terminal illness', 'advanced cancer', 'Clinical Nurse Specialist', 'emotional labour'. Additional relevant articles were identified from the reference lists of papers identified by the literature search. Findings. The literature revealed a lack of clarity about the terms used to describe emotional care and support. However, at the same time, there is a taken for granted assumption that a shared understanding of these terms exists. Developing supportive nurse–patient relationships involves a complex process, one that consists of getting to 'know the patient' through the effective use of communication skills, in a variety of health care contexts. The costs of engaging in 'emotion work' are highlighted. Conclusions. Existing research fails to recognize that emotional care and support as a concept is not a fixed, stable entity learnt through experience and socialization, but is moulded by the process of social interaction and by specific contexts and theoretical perspectives. Further methodologically sound research is needed to explore what happens when emotional care and support are delivered in different care settings, obtaining the views of both parties involved. Implications for the practice of CNSs are discussed.

Work at Leisure and Leisure at Work: A Study of the Emotional Labour of Tour Reps

Abstract: This article explores the work of one particular type of leisure worker: the overseas tour rep. Drawing on theoretical debates, it analyses qualitative observation and interview data collected from tour reps working in Mallorca, Spain for a British budget tour operator. We explore the paradoxes of delivering emotional labour in a job where the boundaries between work and leisure are blurred, and which is both explicitly about delivering fun and also about the ‘dirty work’ of managing holidaymakers’ complaints and excesses. We argue that reps actively seek spaces where they are able to buy into a lifestyle that they see as reflecting their authentic selves. This enables them to accept the negative part of their work and they become disciplined workers.

The impact of display rules and emotional labor on psychological well-being at work

Abstract: Display rules are formal and informal norms that regulate the expression of workplace emotion. Organizations impose display rules to meet at least three objectives: please customers, maintain internal harmony, and promote employee well-being. Despite these valid intentions, display rules can engender emotional labor, a potentially deleterious phenomenon. We review three mechanisms by which emotional labor can create worker alienation, burnout, stress, and low performance. Though not as widely discussed, emotional labor sometimes has propitious consequences. We discuss the potential benefits of emotional labor as well.

Innovative leadership through emotional intelligence.

Abstract: Explore the relatively new concepts of emotional labor and emotional intelligence, and review leadership strategies that draw from these elements.

Establishing worker identity: a study of people in craft work.

Abstract: Having a work-related identity is central to being an adult in America. Going to work and engaging in prescribed work behaviors in the workplace is the usual or typical way that adults achieve worker identities. The purpose of this study, developed from an ethnography of people who make crafts at home and sell their work at craft fairs, was to examine how worker identity is constructed when individuals do not have the external markers of a socially identified job and workplace. I used participant observation of craft fairs and other craft venues, and interviews of people who do this work, as major sources of data. Results of the analysis of the data related to worker identity demonstrated that these crafters followed basic steps, or rules, to achieve such a worker identity. These rules, some for work at home and some for other social contexts, encompassed complex behaviors learned through the process of doing the work as well as from other crafters. The conclusions of the study are first, that individual and social identity formation as a worker involves complex processes for which rules and guidelines do exist. Second, these rules are often discovered through the process of doing the work. Third, the meaning of work and the individual and social identities of being a worker are individual, and finally, knowledge of worker identity formation is gained through the study of both those who successfully achieve such an identity and those who do not.

The emotionality of information and communication technology implementation

Abstract: While there is extensive research on emotion in the workplace and on information and communication technology (ICT) implementation, largely ignored is the emotionality of ICT implementation and change management more generally, even though the emotional experience of such processes is critical to their success. The current paper integrates insights from research on emotion at work and the social construction of technology to demonstrate the role of emotion in ICT‐based organisational change through a case study of a not‐for‐profit organisation’s implementation of a Webbased case management system. In particular, it is argued that emotions and new ICT systems are experienced as ambiguous phenomena, which makes people susceptible to influence through interaction. Furthermore, such interaction to negotiate meanings for the emotional experience of ICT implementation is critical to its success.

Regulation of Emotions in the Helping Professions: Nature, Antecedents and Consequences

Abstract: Do hospital employees regulate their emotions so they are in line with their job requirements? What effects do such regulation processes have on workers' psychophysical wellbeing? What variables mediate their frequency, nature, and effects? To answer these questions, Italian men and women (N=180) working at a hospital as nurses, doctors, or in other technical roles, were administered a questionnaire comprising several scales, plus questions on socio-demographic and work-related variables. Results showed the regulation of felt emotions, that is, Emotional Labor (Hochschild, 1983) is a relevant variable of such jobs. Workers performed both (a) Surface Acting, that is, controlling expressed emotions so they are contextually adequate, and (b) Deep Acting, that is, trying to actually feel the required emotion; plus (c) Emotional Consonance, that is, effortlessly feeling the job-required emotions, was also a frequent experience for employees. Further, results showed the nature and frequency of such regulation processes have significant relations with both objective job-related features, such as the time spent in listening to patients, and with psychological variables such as burnout, and pleasurable emotions.

Balancing Mysterium and Onus: Doing Spiritual Work within an Emotion-Laden Organizational Context:

Abstract: This study uses the neo-Durkheimian conceptual framework of Mysterium and Onus to illustrate how spiritual work is used to accomplish emotional balance within emotion-laden organizational contexts. The constant emotional oscillations experienced by paramedics within an emergency services organization show how spiritual work is accomplished at the level of paramedic-patient interaction, emotional equilibrium within the self, and degrees of connectedness to the organization itself. We contend that in heavily emotion-laden organizational contexts where life-changing events are occurring, spiritual work is an important part of the emotional labor process. In turn, balancing emotions is a major part of `balancing' Mysterium (the sacred) and Onus (the profane). We conclude that emotion-laden organizations need to approach the practice of spirituality as an extremely sophisticated and complex phenomenon. While current trends towards `spiritualizing' the workplace through the legitimizing of corporate spiritualit...

Ideal nurses: the social construction of emotional labour

Abstract: This paper summarizes briefly the findings of my doctoral research study, which identified a range of types of emotional labour as a social construction of caring (Mazhindu 2002). Emotional labour ...

Stress and social support in health care organizations.

Abstract: Since 1987 research on communication and job stress has developed in several ways. Perhaps most noteworthy is the expansion of populations studied to include mental health professionals social workers occupational therapists and physical therapists as well as continuing studies of physicians and nurses. Second while broad categories of stressors are similar the specifics that comprise them have changed. In this chapter we first examine job stress due to 1) structural changes brought about by managed care; 2) role changes at interorganizational and interpersonal levels; 3) emotional labor; and 4) home/work conflict. We then discuss social support and how supportive communication may impact job stress in healthcare organizations. Finally we consider implications for future research examining the relationship between job stress and social support. (excerpt)

Aboriginal Workers and Managers: History, Emotional and Community Labour and Occupational Health and Safety in South Australia

Abstract: This publication examines Aboriginal employment in South Australia and is based on the evidence of 133 Aboriginal men and women. It examines a range of issues associated with the employment of Aboriginal people in Australia and, in particular, South Australia. These include racism, patterns of occupational illness and injuries, and the extent of emotional exhaustion in human service work. The authors use the concepts of ‘emotional labour’ and ‘obligatory community labour’ to help understand the ways in which Aboriginal workers and managers uphold their family and community commitments while maintaining full-time employment. It is also the first published study to address occupational health and safety (OHS) issues in Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal workplaces where Aboriginal people are employed. The first two chapters provide historically-oriented overviews of relations between Aboriginal and other Australians as a backdrop to understanding contemporary Aboriginal situations. Chapters three to seven report the findings of this contemporary study of the working lives of Aboriginal workers and managers, especially in the main human service areas of health, education and the criminal justice system. The chapters are: Australian and Aboriginal historical contexts; South Australian history, Aboriginal populations, family formations, official policies, and employment; Aboriginal health workers, emotional labour, and obligatory community labour; The education workplace; Aboriginal managers; Aboriginal community constables and Aboriginal police; Aboriginal workers in the criminal justice system.

Dial 'B' for burnout?: the experience of job burnout in a telephone call centre

Abstract: High rates of labour turnover in the call centre sector are, in the view of some commentators, indicative of widespread employee 'burnout'. However, few studies have formally investigated the frequency or antecedents of job burnout for this particular group of workers. This paper presents the results of a case study, undertaken within the call centre of a large Australian public-sector utility firm, which explores workers' experiences of job burnout using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods. Our results support earlier claims that call centre workers are at least as susceptible to burnout as workers in other occupations that have previously been considered the most 'burnout-prone'. We argue that the experience of job burnout for call centre workers can be largely attributed to the repetitive nature of the work itself, the variability of customer demands, the pervasiveness of managerial surveillance, the remoteness (that is, telephone-based delivery) of customer-employee exchanges, and the performance of 'emotional labour' by workers in the call centre. We discuss the implications of our findings for the literature on job burnout and the future of call centre research.

Learning from the Past Emotional Labour and Learning Disability Nursing

Abstract: This article explores learning disability nursing by examining evidence for emotional labour from the past. As such it offers insights into both methodological and political issues connected to emotional labour in nursing and explores issues within learning disability nursing. In particular it addresses the development of learning disability nursing and the way in which its role within institutions was defined in terms of emotional labour. Specific material from textbooks, minutes of curricular development meetings and GNC inspectors' reports are examined. It is suggested that emotional labour provides a shared experience between different branches of nursing as well as different periods of time. Such shared experience is particularly helpful to learning disability nurses in their position on the margins of the nursing profession. It is further suggested that emotional labour as a concept could be used to help develop understanding of work with people with learning disabilities.

Win some, lose some: women’s status in the field of human resources in the 1990s

Abstract: Drawing on a sample of 313 human resource professionals who graduated from a university‐based Master’s degree program in human resources over a 20‐year period, this study examines how the rewards and emotional labour content of jobs varied by gender within the field of human resources. After controlling for experience, results indicated no significant gender differences in either the intrinsic or extrinsic rewards available to human resource professionals. However, the emotional labor content of jobs differed significantly. Women were more likely to engage in emotional labor behaviors that conform with stereotypical “feminine” forms of emotional expression, while men were more likely to adopt a stereotypical “masculine” form of emotional expression.

The politics of care - emotional labour and trainee FE lecturers

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Introducing a typology of workplace emotion

Abstract: Recently, the debate centred on emotion in the workplace has stagnated around various interpretations of Hochschild's term 'emotional labour', with all of the negative connotations her analysis brings. This paper introduces a typology of workplace emotion that offers a multi-dimensional conceptualisation of emotion in organisations that is better able to capture not only the frustration, dissatisfaction and exhaustion so often associated with emotion work but also the humour, the compassion and the pleasure

'Intelligent Hearts': Emotional Intelligence, Emotional Labour and Informalization

Abstract: This paper was published as Working Paper 43 by the Centre for Labour Market Studies, University of Leicester. It is available from http://www.clms.le.ac.uk/research/wpapers.lasso