Showing papers on "Emotional labor published in 2014"

Emotional rescue: the role of emotional intelligence and emotional labour on well-being and job-stress among community nurses

Abstract: Aims To investigate the extent to which emotional labour and emotional intelligence are associated with well-being and job-stress among a group of Australian community nurses. The moderating role of emotional intelligence was evaluated as a key factor in the rescue of healthcare workers from job-stress, thus increasing job retention. Background Although emotional labour has been broadly investigated in the literature, the contribution of emotional labour and emotional intelligence to the well-being and experience of job-stress in a community nursing setting requires further exploration. Design This study used a cross-sectional quantitative research design with data collected from Australian community nurses. Methods Australian community nurses (n = 312) reported on their perceived emotional labour, emotional intelligence and their levels of well-being and job-stress using a paper and pencil survey in 2010. Results/Findings Results from structural equation modelling support the hypothesis that both emotional labour and emotional intelligence have significant effects on nurses' well-being and perceived job-stress. Emotional intelligence plays a moderating role in the experience of job-stress. Conclusion These findings provide additional evidence for the important effects that emotional labour and emotional intelligence can have on well-being and job-stress among community nurses. The potential benefits of emotional intelligence in the nurses' emotional work have been explored.

Emotions and Social Relations

Abstract: Introduction: Feeling and Emotion as Patterns of Relationship Emotions in Historical and Cultural Relations Emotions and the Body Emotions, the Body and Neuroscience Emotion, Reason and Self-Reflection Emotional Labour and Feeling Rules Emotions and Power Relations

Teachers' emotional experiences and exhaustion as predictors of emotional labor in the classroom : an experience sampling study

Abstract: Emotional exhaustion (EE) is the core component in the study of teacher burnout, with significant impact on teachers’ professional lives Yet, its relation to teachers’ emotional experiences and emotional labor (EL) during instruction remains unclear Thirty-nine German secondary teachers were surveyed about their EE (trait), and via the experience sampling method on their momentary (state; N = 794) emotional experiences (enjoyment, anxiety, anger) and momentary EL (suppression, faking) Teachers reported that in 99 and 39% of all lessons, they experienced enjoyment and anger, respectively, whereas they experienced anxiety less frequently Teachers reported suppressing or faking their emotions during roughly a third of all lessons Furthermore, EE was reflected in teachers’ decreased experiences of enjoyment and increased experiences of anger On an intra-individual level, all three emotions predict EL, whereas on an inter-individual level, only anger evokes EL Explained variances in EL (within: 39%, between: 67%) stress the relevance of emotions in teaching and within the context of teacher burnout Beyond implying the importance of reducing anger, our findings suggest the potential of enjoyment lessening EL and thereby reducing teacher burnout

Driving it home: how workplace emotional labor harms employee home life

Abstract: To date, the majority of research on emotional labor has focused on outcomes that occur in the workplace. However, research has yet to consider the possibility that the daily effects of emotional labor spill over to life outside of work, even though a large body of literature examining the spillover from work life to home life indicates that work experiences influence employees after they leave the workplace. Accordingly, we examined the influence of day-to-day surface acting on 3 types of theoretically derived stress outcomes experienced at home: emotional exhaustion, work-to-family conflict, and insomnia. In an experience sampling field study of 78 bus drivers, we found that daily surface acting was connected to increases in each of the outcomes noted above. Moreover, surface acting had an indirect effect on emotional exhaustion and insomnia via state anxiety.

Buffering the negative effects of employee surface acting: the moderating role of employee-customer relationship strength and personalized services.

Abstract: The impact of emotional labor on customer outcomes is gaining considerable attention in the literature, with research suggesting that the authenticity of emotional displays may positively impact customer outcomes. However, research investigating the impact of more inauthentic emotions on service delivery outcomes is mixed (see Chi, Grandey, Diamond, & Krimmel, 2011). This study explores 2 potential reasons for why the service outcomes of inauthentic emotions are largely inconsistent: the impact of distinct surface acting strategies and the role of service delivery context. Drawing on social-functional theories of emotions, we surveyed 243 dyads of employees and customers from a wide variety of services to examine the links between employee surface acting and customer service satisfaction, and whether this relationship is moderated by relationship strength and service personalization. Our findings suggest that faking positive emotions has no bearing on service satisfaction, but suppressing negative emotions interacts with contextual factors to predict customers' service satisfaction, in line with social-functional theories of emotions. Specifically, customers who know the employee well are less sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions, and customers in highly personalized service encounters are more sensitive to the negative effects of suppressed negative emotions. We conclude with a discussion of theoretical and practical implications.

Differences in Emotional Labor Across Cultures: A Comparison of Chinese and U.S. Service Workers

Abstract: In the global economy, the need for understanding cross-cultural differences and the customer service-related processes involved in emotional labor is evident. The current study attempts to examine this issue by developing and testing hypotheses pertaining to cross-cultural differences between U.S. and Chinese service workers on the levels of display rule perceptions, emotion regulation, and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization) as well as the relationships among these variables. Data was collected from service workers in the U.S. (n = 280) and China (n = 231). We tested for measurement differences, mean differences, and differences in the relationships among emotional labor variables between the two samples using a variety of analyses. It was found that the relatively robust sequence of display rules to surface acting to burnout was observed in a U.S. sample but was not observed in a Chinese sample, with some relationships being significantly weaker in the Chinese sample (e.g., surface acting to burnout dimensions) and others exhibiting relationships with the opposite sign (e.g., display rules were negatively related to surface acting in the Chinese sample). The results of this study suggest that many of the relationships among emotional labor variables vary as a function of the cultural context under consideration. This is the first study to directly compare emotional labor across samples from Eastern and Western cultures. Additionally, this study begins to answer questions concerning why models of emotional labor generated in a Western culture may not apply in other cultures.

The impact of management on the engagement and well-being of high emotional labour employees

Abstract: Australia, like many other countries, suffers high turnover of nurses and police officers. Contributions to effectively manage the turnover challenge have been called for, and there are few Australian studies of nursing/policing turnover intentions. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of supervisor–subordinate relationships and perceived organisational support (POS) upon engagement, well-being, organisational commitment and turnover intentions. Second, we examined the similarities and differences between nursing and policing work contexts. The retention of nurses/police has been investigated from traditional management perspectives; however, we used a different theoretical approach – social exchange theory – and evaluated its utility as a framework. Findings are from Australian data collected during 2010–2011 from 510 nurses and 193 police officers, using a survey-based, self-report strategy. Partial least squares path modelling was used to analyse these data. Results indicated that for bo...

Aesthetic Labor for the Sociologies of Work, Gender, and Beauty

Abstract: Amid the growing literature on the costs and rewards of physical appearance for labor market outcomes, an economistic emphasis on looks as an investment strategy has gained prominence. The concept of aesthetic labor is a useful sociological intervention for understanding how the value of certain looks is constructed, and how looks matter for social stratification. Aesthetic labor is the practice of screening, managing, and controlling workers on the basis of their physical appearance. The concept advances research on the service economy by moving beyond a focus on emotions to emphasize worker corporeality. This article first untangles aesthetic labor from related concepts, including body work, emotional labor, and embodied cultural capital. Next is a review of three contexts in which scholars have applied aesthetic labor to the workplace: the organization, freelance labor, and the market. Because it situates the value of beauty in context, aesthetic labor foregrounds those power relations that define aesthetics, such as class, race, and gender. The concept incorporates insights from field theories of bodily capital, such that aesthetic labor denaturalizes beauty and seeks to explain the processes through which looks translate into economic and symbolic rewards.

‘Why would you want to do that?’: Defining emotional dirty work

Abstract: This article considers how and why people work with difficult emotions. Extending Hughes’ typology of the physical, social and moral taints that constitute ‘dirty work’, the article explores the nature of a previously neglected and undefined concept, emotional dirt. Drawing on data from a situated ethnographic study of Samaritans, we consider how the handling of difficult and burdensome emotions, which are often written out of rational accounts of work, is outsourced to others who act as society’s agents in the containment of emotional dirt. We provide the first explicit definition of emotional dirt, and contribute an extension to the existing tripartite classification of occupational taint. Moreover, in naming emotional dirt we seek to open up a sphere of research dedicated to understanding its emergence, nature and relational effects. To this end, we demonstrate how taint emerges as a sociological consequence of the performance of emotional labour as emotional dirty work, while considering how managemen...

How Emotional Labor and Ethical Leadership Affect Job Engagement for Chinese Public Servants

Abstract: Responsiveness is important in public-service delivery. This study explores three elements that contribute to responsiveness—emotional labor, job engagement, and ethical leadership. Three findings emerge: First, in terms of workers and their expression of work-related emotion, authentic emotive expression relates positively with job engagement while pretending to feel the emotion being displayed has a negative relationship. Second, ethical leadership moderates the relationship between pretending and job engagement, in that higher levels of ethical leadership lessen the negative influence of pretense in emotive expression. This means that when employees must mask how they feel, ethical leadership compensates for the deleterious effect of expressing an emotion other than what one is feeling. This, in turn, helps to prevent decreased job engagement. Third, ethical leadership does not affect the relationship between authentic emotive expression and job engagement. The sample surveyed are government employees ...

Effects of Emotional Labor and Communication Competence on Turnover Intention in Nurses

Abstract: Purpose: The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among turnover intention, emotional labor, and communication competence in nurses.Methods:The participants for this study were 297 nurses from three general hospitals in two local cites in Korea. Data were collected by self-administered questionnaires from August 26 to September 10, 2013 and analyzed using descriptive statistics, One-way ANOVA, t-test, Pearson Correlation, Stepwise Multiple Regression with the SPSS/WIN 18.0 program.Results:The average scores for turnover intention, emotional labor, and communication competence respectively, were 3.45, 3.08, and 3.44 out of 5. The novices recognized that their emotional labor and turnover intention were significantly higher, and their communication competence was lower than other nurses. Nurses' turnover intention had a positive relationship with their emotional labor, but no relationship with communication competence. Job satisfaction, frequency of emotional expression, and emotional dissonance had an effect on nurses' turnover intention. Conclusion:The results show that emotional labor and job satisfaction are very important factors affecting nurses' turnover intention. So, nurse managers should try tominimize nurses' emotional labor and maximize their job satisfaction by developing various human relationship educational and support programs and using them.

Domestic work–affective labor: On feminization and the coloniality of labor

Abstract: Synopsis This paper argues for an understanding of domestic work as affective labor. It engages with the affective quality of reproductive labor by interrogating the organization of paid and unpaid domestic work in private households. Thus, while it attends to debates on emotional labor, its main focus is on the affective dimension of the social. It does so by focusing on reproductive labor, in particular, domestic work and developing a feminist critique of affective labor through the analysis of the cultural predication of feelings associated with and infused in domestic work. In this regard, the cultural predication prescribing the social meaning attached to domestic work will be explored within the framework of feminization and coloniality. Thus, domestic work will be discussed as affective labor surfacing at the juncture of feminization and coloniality. Following this argument, the article firstly engages with feminist analyses on reproductive labor, feminization and domestic work. Secondly, it looks at private households and affective labor. Thirdly, it examines the relationship between paid domestic work and migration regimes from the angle of the coloniality of labor. Using these insights, the article explores the sensorial corporeality of racialized affect negotiated in and around domestic work. It concludes by arguing for a conceptualization of domestic work as affective labor.

Learning the requirements for compassionate practice: Student vulnerability and courage

Abstract: Student nurses' professional development arises through socialisation in nursing knowledge, values and behaviours. Students are expected to demonstrate compassion; however, compassion is a complex concept, one that creates emotional challenges. A grounded theory study was undertaken to explore student nurse socialisation in compassionate practice. In-depth interviews were undertaken with 19 students in the north of England during 2009-2010, and their concerns and concern management emerged. Students expressed several concerns, one being their emotional vulnerability and uncertainty of the emotional requirements for compassionate practice. A core category of 'balancing future intentions' was identified: that students managed feelings of vulnerability and uncertainty through balancing their intentions towards and away from engagement in compassionate practice, depending upon perceived impact on their emotional well-being. The findings are discussed in relation to emotional labour and moral distress, and courage, resilience and self-compassion are explored as a means to enable sustainable compassionate practice.

The Need to Nurse the Nurse: Emotional Labor in Neonatal Intensive Care

Abstract: In this 14-month ethnographic study, I examined the emotional labor and coping strategies of 114, level-4, neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurses. Emotional labor was an underrecognized component in the care of vulnerable infants and families. The nature of this labor was contextualized within complex personal, professional, and organizational layers of demand on the emotions of NICU nurses. Coping strategies included talking with the sisterhood of nurses, being a super nurse, using social talk and humor, taking breaks, offering flexible aid, withdrawing from emotional pain, transferring out of the NICU, attending memorial services, and reframing loss to find meaning in work. The organization had strong staffing, but emotional labor was not recognized, supported, or rewarded. The findings can contribute to the development of interventions to nurse the nurse, and to ultimately facilitate NICU nurses' nurturance of stressed families. These have implications for staff retention, job satisfaction, and delivery of care.

Burnout Among Public Service Workers: The Role of Emotional Labor Requirements and Job Resources

Abstract: Current literature remains inconclusive regarding the adverse impact of emotional labor requirements on burnout. To address the discrepancy, this study revisited this relationship as well as invest...

Teacher Emotion, Emotional Labor and Teacher Identity

Abstract: [I was talking to a] kid last night and I told him about my experiences, my life, and I told him this is one of the hardest jobs I have ever done, being a teacher. And he looked at me and was like, really sir, and I was like yeah I never realized how difficult it is to be teacher. And I think it's because of all those things, those emotions that you deal with. (Mr. Guerrero quoted in Schutz et al., 2012)1 IntroductionEvery year a large number of early career teachers enter classrooms around the world. Like Mr. Guerrero, these early career teachers enter the teaching profession armed with, among other things, their goal to be a teacher, the training they received, and an emerging idea of whom they are as a teacher (Schutz et al, 2001). Unfortunately, there are also a number of reports that suggest that many of those same teachers are leaving the profession at high rates (Achinstein, 2006; Darling-Hammond, 1999; Kersaint et al, 2007; Ulvik et al, 2009). In the USA these reports suggest that nearly 30% to 50% of teachers leave the profession within the first five years (Alliance for Excellent Education 2004; Ingersoll, 2003; Quality Counts 2000). Even more problematic, these attrition rates tend to be higher in schools that serve students of color and English language learners (Jacob, 2007).A number of researchers are now suggesting the high level of teacher exodus may be related to the emotional nature of the teaching process (see Schutz and Pekrun, 2007; Schutz and Zembylas, 2009). Teaching, among other tilings, involves managing complex emotional classrooms transactions that tend to be even more pressing for novice teachers who are rarely prepared to manage the emotional events that are an endemic part of teaching and working within school contexts. Therefore, it is not surprising that many teachers leave early in their career: some are simply ill equipped to deal with the emotional transactions involved in their profession. As such, this exodus tends to be higher among early career teachers in part because of the potential emotionality of teaching, which may lead to job dissatisfaction, health symptoms, and emotional exhaustion (Jackson et al., 1986; Maslach, 1982; Morris and Feldman, 1996; Schaubroek and Jones, 2000).Excessive teacher turnover during the first few years is problematic for many reasons. First and foremost, it hurts students. It takes years for teachers to hilly develop their craft and yet too many students (especially our high needs students) repeatedly encounter newer, less prepared, and less knowledgeable teachers. In addition, teacher turnover also results in lost revenue from the cost of professional development for new teachers; it results in the dissolution of relationships with families, the community, and the school; and, finally, high turn over makes long-term educational reform efforts difficult (Schutz et al., 2012). As such, Cowie (2011), who explored how language teachers experience their teaching environment, contended that the emotional aspects in language teaching is important to consider and a key aspect of becoming a successful teacher.In this chapter we discuss how teachers' emotional experiences and emotional labor associated with those experiences are intimately related to their emerging teacher identities. In addition, we will discuss emotions episodes in the language classroom and how those episodes may influence teachers' identity development and their decisions to stay or leave the profession. Finally we will offer some conclusions regarding teacher emotions.2 Teacher emotion episodesGenerally researchers suggest that emotional episodes consist of cognitive appraisals, physiological responses, affective feeling, and behavioral tendencies (e.g. Frijda, 2000; Izard, 2007; Russell and Barrett, 1999; Schutz et al, in press; Smith, 1991). Schutz et al., (2006) further elaborated on this view by also emphasizing social and historical aspects that shape an emotional episode. …

The effects of emotional labor on frontline employee creativity

Abstract: Purpose – The purpose of this study is to empirically test and extend knowledge of the effects of emotional labor of frontline service employee. Design/methodology/approach – The authors examined the effects of emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) on frontline employee creativity, as well as the mediating effects of different kinds of job stress (hindrance stress and challenge stress) on the relationship between emotional labor and creativity. The research hypotheses were tested using data collected from 416 service employee–supervisor dyads in 82 Chinese local restaurants. Findings – Results show that surface acting is negatively related to and deep acting is positively related to frontline employee creativity; surface acting is positively related to hindrance stress, while deep acting is positively related to challenge stress; and hindrance stress mediates the relationship between surface acting and creativity. Originality/value – This study extends the consequences of emotional labor to fro...

Emotion Management: Sociological Insight into What, How, Why, and to What End?

Abstract: In recounting some of the key sociological insights offered by over 30 years of research on emotion management, or emotion regulation, we orient our discussion around sociological answers to the fo...

Serving with spirit: an integrative model of workplace spirituality within service organizations

Abstract: Service organizations are uniquely subject to the effects of emotional labor. To address these impacts, we examine workplace spirituality (WPS) as a valuable resource within the emotional labor context of service organizations and propose an integrative model that encompasses the effects of WPS on employees, customers, and the organization. We posit that organizations that possess the WPS values of respect, humanism, and integrity, and an ethical organizational climate can buffer the negative effects of emotional labor through increased employee satisfaction and organizational commitment. Similarly, we propose that WPS can positively influence customer satisfaction and loyalty and also organizational performance and sustainability directly through its WPS values and ethical climate, and indirectly through employee satisfaction and commitment and customer satisfaction and loyalty. Our conceptual integrative model provides testable propositions related to WPS within the emotional labor context of service or...

Gender Differences in Policing: Testing Hypotheses From the Performance and Disruption Perspectives

Abstract: The purpose of this article was to examine emotional labor skills and the acculturation of extreme masculine values as two pathways by which gender may influence the behavior of officers in the fie...

A Balancing Act: Emotional Challenges in the HR Role

Abstract: Despite much academic work and the development of multiple typologies, we are still some way from understanding the HR role. There is a dearth of empirical evidence on HR professionals' work and recent models have been criticized for not adequately reflecting the challenges of trying to balance competing stakeholder interests. We approach this lacuna by focusing on an issue that has not been fully considered in relation to HR work � emotion. Drawing on the findings of a broader study into emotional labour, we highlight the emotive challenges inherent in the day-to-day practice of HR. We explore the disjunctions between �felt� emotions and those actually displayed to meet differing stakeholders' expectations. We show how achieving an appropriate emotion display is a challenging pursuit given these competing expectations. Our contribution is to elucidate emotional labour in the under-researched �backstage� professional context, and through our emotion focus to extend our understanding of the complexity of the HR role beyond current prescriptive models.

Emotional labor and burnout among Turkish primary school teachers

Abstract: Emotions play a critical role in teaching, especially in primary schools. Teachers have to manage their feelings in order to sustain a positive classroom climate. Managing feelings as a requirement of work is called emotional labor, which is a relatively new area of research in teaching. The main aim of this research was to investigate the type of emotional labor strategies Turkish primary school teachers often use and whether emotional labor is a predictor of burnout for primary teachers in a Turkish context. Also, the authors explore if there is a significant variation in emotional labor in terms of gender and school type (public/private). A survey was conducted with the participation of 370 primary school teachers from Ankara, Turkey. Results indicated that Turkish primary school teachers mostly engage in genuine emotions in their relationships with students. Female teachers use deep and surface acting strategies more often than males. Also, private school teachers were found to use deep acting strategies and display genuine emotions more often than public school teachers. Finally, it was found that emotional labor is a significant predictor of burnout among Turkish primary school teachers.

Customer orientation, engagement, and developing positive emotional labor

Abstract: Frontline employees must deal on a daily basis with emotionally demanding customer interactions. Such interactions, when coupled with organizational directives to focus upon exemplary customer service, can prompt employees to express feelings and emotions that are not genuine. Such ‘surface acting' has been found to create stress in frontline personnel, but an understanding of how this negative aspect of emotional labor may be minimized is lacking in the services literature. How a frontline employee's individual attributes might interact with a service work context to build deep, as opposed to surface, acting is the current focus. Applying job demands–resources theory, this study investigates how a frontline employee's customer orientation helps to develop positive work engagement, even in the face of contextual demands. Engagement is then linked positively to the beneficial behavior of deep acting which, in contrast to surface acting, has been identified as a less stressful form of emotional labor.

The effects of relationship bonds on emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions in frontline employees

Abstract: Purpose – This paper aims to extend the relationship marketing concept to examine which relationship bonds (social, structural and financial bonds) have different effects on employee affective (want to stay), normative (ought to stay) and continuance commitment (have to stay). Preventing emotional exhaustion in frontline employees and helping them stay on the job is an important topic for emotional labor research. The research also investigates which types of commitment influence emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions significantly. Design/methodology/approach – Data were collected through a self-reported questionnaire administered to 401 restaurant service industry frontline workers. Findings – The findings support the hypothesis that whereas social and financial bonds influence affective commitment, structural and financial bonds influence continuance commitment. Furthermore, affective commitment is a crucial factor for preventing emotional exhaustion and turnover intentions, whereas continuance c...