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.

Leadership as Emotional Labour: The Effortful Accomplishment of Valuing Practices:

Abstract: Within the context of an ethnographic study of leadership in the learning and skills sector, this article focuses on the role of leadership in making stafffeel valued (Iszatt-White & Mackenzie-Davey, 2003) and the‘emotional labour’ (Hochschild, 1983) through which leaders’ valuing practices are accomplished. By shadowing college leaders, observation was made of the day-to-day practices through which they sought to give staff a feeling of being valued. The article provides evidence of such‘valuing practices’ before going on to explicate the notion of emotional labour— previously researched largely in the services sector— in the professional context of educational leadership. In doing so, it differentiates professional emotional labour from‘emotional intelligence’ (Goleman, 1995), a more common theme within the management literature. It also explores the role of social identity and value congruence in moderating the‘emotional dissonance’(Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) which can result from a requirement for prolonged emotion work.

To Invest or Detach? Coping Strategies and Workplace Culture in Service Work

Abstract: Drawing on original ethnographic research and interweaving food servers' voices with theories of labor, this article examines the emotional content of interactions between customers and workers in restaurants. It addresses the potential benefits of emotional labor, the effect of gender on how workers make sense of and cope with the demands of their jobs, and the work culture that arises as a result of workers' approaches to the emotional demands of their jobs. The article culminates with a discussion of the potential for exploitation when servers, particularly waitresses, begin to care for the customers who pay them.

Does emotion regulation protect employees from the negative effects of workplace aggression

Abstract: Workplace aggression poses a significant challenge to organizations due to its potential impact on employees' mental and physical well-being. Using two studies, this article investigates whether emotion regulation could alleviate the negative effects of exposure to workplace aggression on employees' experience of strain, among social workers (N = 77) and emergency services personnel (N = 70). As predicted from coping theories of emotion regulation, Studies 1 and 2 showed that using the emotion regulation strategy of reappraisal during interactions with individuals from inside the organization (e.g., coworkers or managers) attenuated the workplace aggression–strain link. Conversely, but consistent with emotional labour theories of emotion regulation, engaging in reappraisal and suppression during interactions with legitimate outsiders (e.g., clients or patients) strengthened the workplace aggression–strain link. The findings have implications for both theory and practical interventions regarding workplace ...

A conceptual examination of the causal sequences of emotional labor, emotional dissonance, and emotional exhaustion: The argument for the role of contextual and provider characteristics

Abstract: In response to the increasing interest regarding the emotional consequences facing service providers who perform emotional labor as part of their service roles, this chapter provides a conceptual examination of the causal sequences of emotional labor, emotional dissonance, and emotional exhaustion (the EEE sequence). Specifically, we propose a theoretical model that examines the emotional experience, performance outcomes, and turnover intentions of service providers in a holistic fashion by incorporating affective events theory to integrate the concept of daily hassles and uplifts with the EEE sequence. In addition, the organizational factors of cultural orientation to emotions and workgroup emotional climate, and the individual factors of provider dissonance tolerance, hassle tolerance, and uplift reactivity are introduced and depicted as influencing the EEE sequence. Implications for theory, practice, and future research are discussed.

“There's No Place for Feeling Like This in the Workplace”: Women Teachers' Anger in School Settings

Abstract: Publisher Summary Emotional labor has specific implications for women teachers. Traditional gender expectations in the home as well as in the workforce require women to perform a substantially larger portion of emotional labor than men. This chapter argues that women are often portrayed in the society as possessing innate caring and nurturing qualities that draw on common sense assumptions of stereotyped characteristics of men and women. This contributes to the invisibility of this aspect of the teaching profession and the important skills and effort involved in the doing of emotional work. Teachers' moral purposes are inextricably intertwined with their descriptions of anger experiences. Teachers are clear in what they propose to achieve in their work, and many times express anger when they perceive that they are impeded from attaining their purposes. Obstacles can come from many directions—colleagues, administrators, parents, students, or society at large. This process of learning to navigate a system that is not always compatible with their own moral purposes and expectations is painful for many teachers. Caught in a double-bind, women weigh the pursuit of their moral purposes as teachers, while still keeping students' best interests at the center.