Emotional labor

About: Emotional labor is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 3948 publications have been published within this topic receiving 112110 citations. The topic is also known as: emotional labour.

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.

Service with a smile: do emotional intelligence, gender, and autonomy moderate the emotional labor process?

Abstract: This survey study of 176 participants from eight customer service organizations investigated how individual factors moderate the impact of emotional labor strategies on employee well-being. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that gender and autonomy were significant moderators of the relationships between emotional labor strategies and the personal outcomes of emotional exhaustion, affective well-being, and job satisfaction. Females were more likely to experience negative consequences when engaging in surface acting. Autonomy served to alleviate negative outcomes for individuals who used emotional labor strategies often. Contrary to our hypotheses, emotional intelligence did not moderate the relationship between the emotional labor strategies and personal outcomes. Results demonstrated how the emotional labor process can influence employee well-being.

Emotion Management in the Workplace

Abstract: The work explores the management of emotion in organizations and the emotion management skills organizational actors need to possess in order to achieve organizational objectives while also acknowledging the subjective experiences of its members. The key strength of this text lies in its critical approach and labor-process orientation. It will appeal to students of organizational studies, gender studies, sociology and human resource management at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Women's Jobs, Men's Jobs: Sex Segregation and Emotional Labor

Abstract: Job segregation—the tendency for men and women to work in different occupations—is often cited as the reason that women's wages lag men's. But this begs the question: What is it about women's jobs that causes them to pay less? We argue that emotional labor offers the missing link in the explanation. Tasks that require the emotive work thought natural for women, such as caring, negotiating, empathizing, smoothing troubled relationships, and working behind the scenes to enable cooperation, are required components of many women's jobs. Excluded from job descriptions and performance evaluations, the work is invisible and uncompensated. Public service relies heavily on such skills, yet civil service systems, which are designed on the assumptions of a bygone era, fail to acknowledge and compensate emotional labor.