Customer Behavior, Emotional Labour, and Employee’s Emotional Outcome in Hotel Industry in Thai Nguyen Province

Các nghiên cứu về sự hài lòng công việc đã được nghiên cứu cả hai khía cạnh lý thuyết và thực tế. Việc cần phải nâng cao chất lượng thực hiện công việc trong các doanh nghiệp sản xuất, khảo sát về sự hài lòng công việc của người lao động đã được thực hiện trong nghiên cứu trước đây. Tuy nhiên vẫn chưa có nghiên cứu nào được thực hiện tại Công ty Cổ phần Gang Thép Thái Nguyên (TISCO). Đặc biệt, vẫn chưa có một nghiên cứu riêng biệt về sự hài lòng của người lao động ở khu vực hành chính đối với công việc của họ (lao động trực tiếp) cũng như các khu vực sản xuất (lao động gián tiếp). Nghiên cứu này đã nghiên cứu sự hài lòng công việc của người lao động với các nhân tố: bản chất công việc, lương, lãnh đạo, đồng nghiệp, cơ hội đào tạo và thăng tiến, điều kiện làm việc và phúc lợi. Các kết quả của nghiên cứu này sẽ cung cấp kiến thức cơ sở và các thông tin cần thiết cho người lao động và người quản lý. Những phát hiện này cho thấy rằng họ cần có kế hoạch để tăng sự hài lòng công việc cho người lao động bằng cách tập trung vào các yếu tố quan trọng (như điều kiện làm việc cho người lao động trực tiếp cũng như cơ hội đào tạo và thăng tiến cho lao động gián tiếp). KHẢ NĂNG ỨNG DỤNG TRONG THỰC TIỄN VÀ NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ BỎ NGỎ CẦN TIẾP TỤC NGHIÊN CỨU * Khả năng ứng dụng trong thực tiễn: Nghiên cứu sẽ cung cấp cho người quản trị hoặc người quản lý một kiến sâu về sự hài lòng công việc, hiệu quả thực hiện công việc và động lực làm việc. Các tác giả và các nhà nghiên cứu khác có thể nhận ra mức độ cụ thể của công việc của sự hài lòng công việc của người lao động tại TISCO. Vì vậy, kết quả này được sử dụng như một khuyến nghị đến lãnh đạo của TISCO để cải thiện mức độ hài lòng và động lực của công việc. Công ty sẽ được hướng điều chỉnh lao động công bằng và hợp lý hơn. * Những vấn đề bỏ ngỏ cần tiếp tục nghiên cứu: Nghiên cứu mới chỉ thực hiện tại các đơn vị thành viên của Công ty tại khu vực thành phố Thái Nguyên. Nghiên cứu được kỳ vọng nghiên cứu trên tất cả các đơn vị thành viên của Công ty trên cả nước. THE NEW SCIENTIFIC FINDINGS Studies on job satisfaction have been conducted and applied including both theoretical and practical aspects. In context of needing to improving quality of work performance in manufacturing enterprises, surveying on employee’s job satisfaction has been done in previous researches. However, there have not studied in Th Thai Nguyen Iron and Steel Joint Stock Corporation (TISCO). Specially, there have not been separate studies on employee’s satisfaction at administrative area toward their job (direct-employee) as well as employee’s satisfaction production area toward their job (indirect-employee). This study were to examine the Job satisfaction of employee and determine its associations with Nature of work; Salary; Supervisor; Co-worker; Opportunity of advancement; Work condition and Financial award. The results of this study will provide basis knowledge and necessary information for employee and manager. These findings suggest that they should develop a plan to increase job satisfaction for employee by focusing on important factors (working condition for direct employee, and Opportunity for indirect employees). PRACTICAL APPLICABILITY AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FURTHER STUDIES * Practical applicability: Finding of this study will provide administrator or managers an inside knowledge on job satisfaction, work performance and work motivation. The author and other research can realize specific level of job of job satisfaction of employee working at TISCO. Therefore, this finding is used as a recommendation to managers of TISCO to improve the level of satisfaction and motivation of work. Organizations will be oriented towards treating workers fairly and with respect. * Recommendations for further studies: The study is limited to Thai Nguyen province. This may effect the generalization of the findings of study to the whole country.

EMPLOYEE’S EMOTIONAL OUTCOME IN HOTEL INDUSTRY IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

A DISSERTATION PAPER

Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate Program

of the College of Business and Accountancy Central Philippine University, Philippines

In Collaboration with Thai Nguyen University, Vietnam

By MAI VIET ANH

DECEMBER 2016

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The researcher shows deep appreciation and gratitude for the guidance and assistance rendered by the following:

- To Professor Lee Song Kun and Professor Reynaldo Nene Dusaran for his

kind help with the idea, guidance, encouragement, and support that I receive during doing this dissertation

- To Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration and Central Philippine University for the help that I receive to finish my dissertation

- To my family, classmates, and colleagues with their help and encouragement I can finish my dissertation in time

MAI VIET ANH

2.1.4 Emotion regulation (ER) vs Emotional intelligence (IE) 22

LIST OF TABLE

Table 3.3 The Descriptive Statistic Results of Customer Injustice Behavior Scale 51 Table 3.4 Item Purification for Employee Injustice Behavior Scale 52 Table 3.5 The Descriptive Statistic Results of Anger Felt Scale 52

Table 3.7 The Descriptive Statistic Results of Suppression Scale 54 Table 3.8 Item Purification for Emotion Suppression Scale 54 Table 3.9 The Descriptive Statistic Results of Cognitive Reappraisal 55 Table 3.10 Item Purification for Cognitive Reappraisal Scale 56 Table 3.11 Descriptive Analysis Results for Job Satisfaction Scale 57

Table 3.13 Item Purification for Emotional Exhaustion Scale 58 Table 3.14 Item Purification for Emotional Exhaustion Scale 59

Table 4.1 Measurement Model Results for Customer Injustice Behavior Scale 61 Table 4.2 Measurement Model Results for Employee Anger Felt Scale 61 Table 4.3 Measurement Model Results for Cognitive Reappraisal Scale 62 Table 4.4 Final Measurement Model Results for Cognitive Reappraisal Scale 63 Table 4.5 Measurement Model Results for Emotional Suppression Scale 63 Table 4.6 Measurement Model Results for Job Satisfaction Scale 64 Table 4.7 Measurement Model Results for Emotional Exhaustion Scale 65

Table 4.8 Final Measurement Model Results for Emotional Exhaustion Scale 65

Table 4.14 The Regression Results of SAT with REAP and SUP 69 Table 4.15 The Regression Results of EXH with REAP and SUP 70

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 The interaction between employee and customer in service encounters 5

CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR, EMOTIONAL LABOUR AND EMPLOYEE’S

EMOTIONAL OUTCOME IN HOTEL INDUSTRY IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

MAI VIET ANH

THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Supervised by Professor Lee Song Kun and Professor Reynaldo Nene Dusaran

(Abstract)

In Thai Nguyen province, many service firms face with difficulty that sometimes employees have to deal with unpleasant customers and they easily get angry In some cases, employees do not show their suitable emotions that cause customers dissatisfied with services and switch to other providers In some situations, employees’ negative emotions cause by customers behaviors However, employees do not control their emotional and react in impolite way may cause situation worse Many service firms in Thai Nguyen province do not pay attention to this problem These situations seem to be true with several hotels in Thai Nguyen Because of unsuitable emotional expression in some situation, employees may make customers feel dissatisfied with services Understanding the effect of customer behavior on employees’ emotions and understand deeply the mechanism of emotional regulation and its outcomes in employees may help hotels increase customer satisfaction and retention

To achieve the objectives, this study first identifies the effect of customer injustice behavior on employee emotion The results show that customer injustice behavior has a positive effect on employee’s emotion, anger felt Suffering from anger felt, employee engages in emotional regulation process through cognitive reappraisal and suppression The results from hypotheses testing show that employee anger felt has positive relationship with cognitive reappraisal and suppression However, when employees engage more on cognitive reappraisal they seem to be less emotional exhaustion and feel satisfied with job Because of firms’rules, employee also engage more on emotional suppression This action may induce employees feel more exhaustion

This study contributed the theoretical knowledge about the customer behavior as an important factor affecting employees’ emotion to human resource management literature By applying experimental design method, this research clarifies the effect of customer behavior

on employee’s emotions This study also offers some useful managerial implications for service firms to improve service quality By understanding the mechanism in which

employees regulate their emotions, service firms can implement some policies to improve service quality through increase the ability of controlling emotions in employees

CHAPTER 1 THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

1.1 Background and Rationale of the Study

One of the typical characteristics of services is that customer and employee may together affect the service quality Each customer with his/her different needs and wants may evaluate the service quality differently The interaction between employee and customer also affects service quality and customer satisfaction Because service quality depends on employee’s feelings when they provide service, employees’ emotions in service encounter are very important to service transactions

Emotions have attracted much attention of researchers Emotion is viewed as the readout of a system that monitors the rate at which the discrepancy between goal and reality is being decreased (Carver and Scheier, 1990) When people expose to the emotional stimuli, they usually express their emotional responses Some research has considered these actions as emotion regulation process Koole (2009) defined emotion regulation as the set of processes whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions The prototype of emotion regulation is a deliberate, effortful process that seeks to override people’s spontaneous emotional responses During emotion regulation process, people may increase, maintain, or decrease positive and negative emotions (Koole, 2009)

Some research in field of human resource management focuses on emotional labor, the process in which employees regulate their emotions in workplace In this process, employees actively change their cognition about situations and modify their actual emotional arousal states in response to the situation, and they suppress their true emotions and express the emotional displays differently from their true feelings However, no study identified the effect

of customer behavior on employees’ emotions regulation process

Customers’ emotions in service encounters are very important to the service firms In service settings, service failures seem to be inevitable, so the understanding customer emotions and knowing how to impact on their emotions and help them express suitable emotions during service encounters is very important For example, when service failures happen, customers may get furious and express their angry attitudes with employees by saying something bad or doing some unwanted actions These actions may cause difficulties for employees in recovery efforts and lessen other customers believes about service quality If the firms can understand how to impact on customer perception and help them express suitable emotions, the situation may not become worse Furthermore, when customers get

angry and have some unfair actions with employees, it is easy for employees to get angry too, and the service seems to be worse

Hochschild (1983) first disclosed this emotional demand on service providers in her study of flight attendants She coined the term “emotional labor” to describe this occupational emotional demand According to Hochschild (1983), emotional labor is defined as “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display; emotional labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value” (p.7) This definition explicitly delineates that service providers are required to regulate or manage their “felt” emotions and display those emotions for commercial purposes These “displayed” emotions have economic value, which can be transformed into wages, salaries, or tips

Researchers suggested that service employees perform emotional labor using three acting techniques (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) One is “surface acting.” Service providers employ surface acting when they alter their outward appearance to simulate the required emotions - emotions that are not necessarily privately felt The second acting mechanism is “deep acting.” Deep acting occurs when employees change not only their physical expressions, but also their inner feelings This can be done through imaging or recalling similar emotional experiences The last acting mechanism is “genuine acting.” Genuine acting occurs when employees’ felt emotions are congruent with expressed emotion and display rules

Since Hochschild’s (1983) research, interest in emotional labor has accelerated rapidly over the past decades A major reason for this increased attention is due to a change in the economy As the economy in most of the developed countries has shifted from manufacturing

to the service industry, the nature of job role requirements has changed Whereas workers in factories deal with machines, service providers interact with people Emotionally charged employee-customer interactions are essential to product delivery in service job roles

In the service industry in general, and the hospitality industry in particular, being friendly or nice to people is a value-added part of the product that employees provide (Schneider & Bowen, 1985) Most managers in the field assume that the friendliness and good cheer of employees are strongly related to customer satisfaction and increase customer commitment, loyalty, and therefore, affect bottom lines (Albrecht & Zemke, 1985; Bowen, Siehl, & Schneider, 1989) The service literature has documented reasons of how critical employees’ emotional display is in determining customers’ service quality perceptions First, customer-contact employees are the interface between customers and organizations, and thus represent the organization to customers (Bowen, et al 1989) If an employee is rude to a

customer, this rudeness will leave nothing but a bad impression about the company in the customer’s mind

Second, the nature of service (i.e., intangibility, heterogeneity, variability, and inseparability between service providers and customers) makes the interaction between employees and customers a critical component in determining customers’ perceptions of service quality (Bowen, et al., 1989) These factors indicate the premium that is placed on the behavior of service providers during encounters with customers, and this behavior often strongly affects customers’ perceptions of product quality, both of goods and services (Ashforth & Hamphery, 1993)

After Hochschild (1983), much research has been conducted to further explore the concept of emotional labor on fast-food employees (Leidner, 1993), waitresses (Paules, 1991; Rose, 2001), amusement park employees (Van Maanen & Kunda, 1989), cashiers (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987), 911 dispatchers (Shuler & Sypher, 2000), and police officers (Martin, 1999), to name a few Most of the existing literature on emotional labor is in the form of ethnographic

or sociological studies which are more qualitative in nature Very few researchers (e.g., Wharton, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Kruml & Geddes, 2000a) have used a more systematic, quantitative approach to explore the dimensions of emotional labor and its associated antecedents, consequences, and moderators

While the research on emotional labor gradually has evolved from qualitative studies

to quantitative studies, there are still a number of unresolved issues surrounding the measurement and definition of emotional labor (Fisher & Ashkansasy, 2000)

Researchers have used different approaches to understand the nature and dimensionality of emotional labor Some treat emotional labor as a unidimensional construct solely concerned with the intensity and frequency of emotional displays (Hochschild, 1983; Wharton 1993; Abraham, 1998), and others see emotional labor as a multi-dimensional construct (Morris & Feldman, 1997; Grandey, 1999; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000; Kruml & Geddes, 2000a)

In Thai Nguyen province, many service firms face with difficulty that sometimes employees have to deal with unpleasant customers and they easily get angry In some cases, employees do not show their suitable emotional expression that cause customers dissatisfied with services and switch to other providers In some situations, employees’ negative emotions cause by customer’s behaviors However, employees do not control their emotional and react

in impolite way may cause situation worse Many service firms in Thai Nguyen province do not pay attention to this problem These situations seem to be true with several hotels in Thai Nguyen Because of unsuitable emotional expression in some situation, employees may make

customers feel dissatisfied with services Understanding deeply the mechanism of emotional regulation and its outcomes may help hotels increase customer satisfaction and retention

Research Questions

In service encounters, employees expose to many sources of stimuli and it is easy for them to experience negative emotions When they suffer from emotional situations, they may react naturally to the stimuli and express their emotions However, employees usually express their emotions that different from their true feelings For example, when an employee has some trouble with fastidious customers, he/she may feel dissatisfied, however, he has to show normal face that different to the true feelings This process is usually known as emotional labor, in which employees control their emotional expression and feelings However, because

of emotional regulation, employees may suffer from emotional exhaustion or burnout They may feel dissatisfied with their jobs From above discussion, some questions should be answered:

- Customer injustice behaviors have impact on employee’s emotions or not?

- What is the effect of employee’ emotions on their emotional labor?

- What is the effect of emotion regulation on employee’s emotional outcomes?

1.2 Objectives

In general, this study intends to identify the effect of customer behavior on employees emotional outcomes through emotional regulation process and then propose some managerial implications for service firms in Thai Nguyen to improve service quality by focus on employees’ emotions during service process

Specifically, the research objectives which correspond to therefore mention issues are shown below:

1) To study and clarify the effect of customer injustice behavior on employee’s emotion in service process

2) To study the effect of employee’s anger felt on emotional regulation

3) Identify the effect of emotion regulation on employee emotional outcomes such as emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction

1.3 Theoretical Framework

This study adopts Lazarus (1980)’s theory of emotion and adaptation, and Stephens and Gwinner (1998)’s model to interpret the process of emotion regulation According to this theory, appraisal processes of internal and situational conditions lead to emotional responses,

these, in turn, induce coping activities: appraisal emotional response  coping (Bagozzi, 1992) Bagozzi conceptualizes that an individual appraises various past, present, and future outcomes These outcomes produce particular emotions and subsequently lead to various coping responses For example, when an employee anticipates or experiences a pleasant event, he/she may feel satisfied, which in turn, direct him/her to take the necessary steps to attain that outcome Conversely, when he/she anticipates or suffers from unpleasant events such as injustice behaviors from customers, it may lead to negative emotional responses, which may direct efforts to reduce or avoid such outcomes

Figure 1.1 The interaction between employee and customer in service encounters

This study adopted appraisal theory to interpret emotion regulation process of emotional regulation in employees This process can be considered as emotional labor

Figure 1.2 Emotional Self-Regulation Process

An appraisal is the evaluation of internal or situational conditions as they apply to one’s well-being Two appraisal processes can be identified: primary and secondary In primary appraisal, one assesses the motivational relevance of conditions leading to the

Unpleasant

events Emotion felt

Emotional Labor

Appraisal process Emotional reactions Coping activities Consequences

Emotional Outcomes

Service quality

appraisal, the motivational congruence, or the extent to which the conditions thwart or facilitate achievement of one’s goals, and one’s ego-involvement A secondary appraisal addresses the resources or options for coping with internal or situational conditions, which include attribution to oneself or to another of credit or blame for any harm or benefit, self-efficacy with regard to regulating one’s own internal states, and expectations of forces operating beyond one control (Bagozzi, 1992)

The results of appraisal will lead to some outcomes: biological urges to act, subjective experience or affect, and physiological responses, the combination of these outcomes determines which particular emotion will result from any appraisal (Bagozzi, 1992) Because

of the presence of a particular emotion, two coping responses will appear Problem-focused coping consists of efforts to overcome or reduce the effect of an undesirable situation Emotion-focused coping refers to cognitive strategies to master, reduce, or tolerate an undesirable situation This strategy entails denial, avoidance of thinking about an appraisal, or reconceptualizing the source of dissonance or its meaning (Bagozzi, 1992)

1.4 Conceptual Framework

Based on the discussion in the previous chapters the basic model of employee emotion regulation is presented in Figure 1.1 This model follows Lazarus’s theory of emotion and adaptation, and affective event theory Affective event theory posits that specific events generate specific emotions, which in turn translate to affectively driven behaviors In this basic model, customer’s injustice behaviors can be considered as a source of negative event Injustice perception occurs when outcomes or procedures are seen as unfair in comparison to certain standards and when interpersonal treatment is discourteous or disrespectful without justification (Cropanzano and Greenberd, 1997) These events, in turn, generate negative emotions in employees (anger) and then these emotions lead to coping behaviors in employees (emotional labor)

The hypothesized model presented in Figure 1.3 expands the basic model by proposing the effects of cognitive reappraisal and suppression on emotional outcomes Angry employees will engage in emotion regulation and in return, affects their emotional outcomes Particularly, when employees adopt cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression strategies, they will be exhaust or job dissatisfaction

This argument is consistent with research of Folkman and Lazarus (1980) at the point that problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies can be used in tandem to deal the same situation This argument is also associated with research of Duhachek (2005) when classify

coping strategies into three types: active coping, expressive coping, and avoidance/denial Active coping is aimed at problem solving and resolution Because employee emotion regulation can be considered as purposive actions, in which employees actively regulate and express their desired emotions to achieve their goals, therefore, employee emotion regulation can be considered as active coping to achieve better service outcomes

In the model of this research, the hypotheses and procedures will be implemented as followings: First, from basic model, some hypotheses about the relationships between employee’s perception of customer’s injustice behaviors and employee anger felt, and the relationship between employee anger felt and emotional regulation will be hypothesized and tested empirically Customer’s injustice behaviors will have a positive effect on employees’ anger felt, then, in turn, employee anger will lead to emotional labor The review in Chapter Two supports these relationships among variables

Second, the hypothesized model will be tested with the role of cognitive reappraisal strategy and emotion suppression strategy in emotional outcomes After suffering unfair treatment, employees may engage in reappraisal process, which in turn increase the emotional exhaust and decrease job satisfaction Cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression will mediate the effects of anger felt on emotional regulation However, reappraisal and suppression process make employees feel stressful, exhaust, and tired From above discussion, some hypotheses are proposed as following:

H1: Customer injustice behavior will lead to anger feeling in employees

H2: Anger feeling will cause employees to engage in cognitive reappraisal strategy to regulate their emotions

H3: Anger feeling will cause employees to engage in emotion suppression strategy to regulate their emotions

H4: Employees who engage more in cognitive reappraisal strategy will more satisfy with the job

H5: Employees who engage more on suppression strategy will less satisfy with the job

H6: Employees who engage more on suppression strategy will become more exhaust H7: Employees who engage more in cognitive reappraisal strategy will more become exhaust

In this model, author used structural equation modeling method, some dependent variables are independent variables of others For example, employee anger felt can be dependent variable of customer behavior; however, it is also independent variable of

reappraisal and suppression Reappraisal and suppression are independent variables of emotional outcomes

Figure 1.3 Theoretical Model

In this theoretical model (Figure 1.3) the two constructs of cognitive reappraisal and emotional suppression lies in the center, which is the main research interest of this study In this study, emotional regulation is conceptualized as “the degree of manipulation of one’s inner feelings or outward behavior to display the appropriate emotion in response to display rules or occupational norms.” These two construct emphasizes the “process” of how one regulates the appropriate emotional display to satisfy the organization’s display rules As Grandey (1999) suggested, that when the research goal is to predict individual outcomes of performing emotional labor, understanding the emotion management process becomes vital (Grandey, 1999)

In addition, emotional regulation emphasizes the degree of manipulation that service employees use to generate the appropriate emotional display Researchers have proposed that service providers perform emotional labor in one of three ways: surface acting, deep acting, and genuine acting (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) While these three acting mechanisms vary in nature, they require different degrees of manipulation of one’s inner feelings or outward behavior Some may require a greater degree of manipulation of one’s inner feelings (i.e., deep acting) than those of others (i.e., surface acting)

In the proposed theoretical model (Figure 1.3), customer behaviors are treated as the antecedents of emotional regulation Researchers have suggested that customer behaviors are the precursors of whether a person will engage in emotional regulation, or whether that employees will have a detrimental outcome (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989; Grandey, 1999) In this study, customer behaviors can be considered as emotional events Specifically, this study investigates how customer behavior affect the way individuals engage in emotional management process

Customer’s

Injustice

Behavior

Employee’s Anger Felt

Cognitive Reappraisal

Emotion Suppression

Job Satisfaction

Emotional Exhaustion

Concerning emotional regulation and its consequences, this study then investigates the effect of emotional regulation on emotional exhaustion and high job satisfaction Emotional exhaustion refers to feelings of being emotionally overextended and worn out by one’s work (Maslach, 1982) Job satisfaction is a positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of the job (Locke, 1976)

Theory suggests that performing emotional regulation can lead to emotional consequences It is then predicted that employees who feel angry with customer will engage more emotional regulation and experience emotional consequences

1.5 The Operational Definitions

Customer Injustice Behavior

To test the effect of customer injustice behavior, employees’ perception of customer injustice behavior was used Employees’ perception of customer injustice behavior refers to the understanding of employees about customer behaviors For example, employees may perceive that customers have some behavior that may harm employees’ emotions Perception

of Customer Injustice Behavior can be measured by four items adapted from previous studies (Appendix 1) Four these items measure the level at which employee perceives customer injustice behavior The mean score was used as measure for customer injustice behavior as perceived by the employees

Anger Felt

Anger Felt refers to emotional state that employees really dissatisfy with something or other behaviors To test the effect of anger felt on emotional labor, the feelings of employees may show the level of emotions such as happy, dissatisfaction, angry, mad, and crazy Four items (7-point scale) used for measure employees’ emotions (anger) after being treated unfairly were adapted from Bougie et al (2003) and Weiss (1999) (Appendix 1) The mean score was used to measure employee anger felt

Reappraisal

Cognitive Reappraisal refers to regulating emotional experience by changing the content of thoughts or re-evaluating the emotions Using the reappraisal strategy, employees can reduce their emotional reactions toward a stimulus that tends to evoke emotional reactions Cognitive reappraisal is mainly utilized to reduce the unpleasant emotional arousal evoked by a stressful event, it also has the possibility of increasing negative emotions by allowing an individual to overthink the negative stimulus and perceive it worse than initially

In order to measure cognitive reappraisal, the intention adopt thinking strategy to deal with stimulus was used Five items for measuring cognitive reappraisal (7-point scale) were adapted from Gross and John (2003) and Gabbott (2010) The mean score was considered as the measure of cognitive reappraisal scale

Emotional Suppression

Suppression refers to restraining of emotional expression by controlling emotional behavior in order to regulate emotional expression In order to measure cognitive reappraisal, the intention adopt thinking strategy to deal with stimulus was used Four items for measuring cognitive reappraisal (7-point scale) were adapted from Gross and John (2003) and Gabbott (2010) The mean score was considered as the measure of cognitive reappraisal scale

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a term used to describe how content an individual is with his/her job In this study, author use the overall satisfaction with job in general as indicator of level of satisfaction In addition, the employees’ level of satisfaction can be measured with some particular indicators like: Attitude toward present job, Satisfaction with pay, Satisfaction with promotion opportunities, Satisfaction with coworkers, Satisfaction with supervisor In this study, job satisfaction was measured by overall job satisfaction of employee Four items were used to measure job satisfaction adapted from study of Schwepker (2001) The mean score was used as measure of job satisfaction scale

Exhaustion

Saxton, Phillips, and Blakeney (1988) also pointed out that emotional exhaustion is related to excessive emotional demand during interpersonal interaction; this causes energy exhaustion and increased withdrawal These conditions decrease productivity and increase certain stress reactions In the same vein, Maslach and Jackson (1981) found that workers who had to engage in face to face contact with clients as well as manage emotional expression for extended periods were most susceptible to emotional exhaustion Emotional Exhaustion includes feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work Seven items (7-point scale) was used to measure employee exhaustion adapted from Maslach, et al.,

1996 The mean score was used as measure of this variable

1.6 Significance of the Study

By conducting this research, managers at Hotels in Thai Nguyen can understands the mechanism of emotional regulation in employees, understand the role of emotional regulation

in service process By training employees with emotional regulation skill, hotels can avoid

some situations in which employees show their unsuitable emotions with customers, increase customer satisfaction and retention

This study is an attempt to increase the current level of knowledge of the existing literature on emotional labor by proposing and empirically testing a causal model of emotional labor

In terms of its theoretical contribution, first, this study contributes to the body of literature on emotional labor by exploring how customer injustice behavior affect the way service providers perform emotional labor Specifically, this study explores the mechanism of what drives individuals to engage in a certain type of acting technique when interacting with guests A proposed model of emotional labor (Figure 1) was developed for the hospitality industry Many researchers have suggested that individual characteristic is a major critical indicator of how one performs emotional labor, and thereafter whether that labor will have a detrimental outcome (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989; Wharton, 1993; Grandey, 1999) However, very few studies have used a systematic approach to empirically test this assumption

Second, this study provides a better understanding of the emotional labor of employees in the hotel industry While much attention to emotional labor has been paid in the service industries, little research has focused on the nature of emotional labor in the hospitality field Most empirical emotional labor studies were conducted on nurses or school administrators whose authority is over clients; this study contributes to the body of knowledge about emotional labor by examining hotel employees who deal with the situation where “the customer is always right.” As many hotels challenge their employees to provide world-class service, this thrust increases service quality, but adds a burden on employees in terms of intensified emotional labor Therefore, this study contributes to the emotional labor literature

by understanding how hotel employees, who endure a high degree of emotional labor, perform emotional labor and experience the associated consequences

In terms of its practical contribution, the results of this study could be helpful in identifying the types of people who can enjoy and endure performing emotional labor This information is valuable to the industry in terms of refining employee selection and training strategies In addition, as this study also investigates how job autonomy and organizational social support help alleviate the potential negative consequences of emotional labor, industry practitioners can benefit from the study results by understanding what the industry can do to buffer the negative effects of emotional labor

1.7 Scope and Delimitation

This study focuses on studying the effect of customer behaviors on employees’ emotions through emotional regulation process in hotels in Thai Nguyen province However, due to time and other resource constraints, author intends to choose randomly some hotels in Thai Nguyen province to collect the data This study will use survey as the main data collection method The participants will be employees at any Hotel in Thai Nguyen The study will be conducted within a limited period of five months

First, although scenario-based methodology avoids the expense, like any other experimental studies, a role-playing approach used in this study traded off external validity for internal validity This approach minimizes biases due to memory and recall, the limitations present in survey research Future observational and experimental studies that observe or manipulate the employee’s experience of being treated unfairly are warranted to increase the external validity of the findings

Second, the service problems used in the scenario were related to hotel and restaurant services Future research should examine the effect of emotion regulation in other kinds of service Especially, future studies can have examined the effect of emotion regulation in some service situations in which customer behaviors affect employee’s emotions and employees perceive they have low ability to control the transaction such as medical services, administrative services

Third, customer emotion regulation not only affects job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion, it also affects employees’ performance Therefore, further research needs to be done to identify the effect of emotion regulation on employee’s performance

CHAPTER 2 REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

of moods and emotions on evaluation, satisfaction and information processing Emotions influence information processing, mediate responses to persuasive appeals, measure the effects of marketing stimuli, initiate goal setting, enact goal-directed behaviors, and serve as ends and measures of consumer welfare

2.1.2 Emotion Regulation

How and why people have to manage their emotions? It is clearly that there are many factors affect emotions In everyday life, people are exposed to many sources of emotion-arousing stimuli, ranging from their internal sensations to external events To response to these stimuli, people usually express their emotions in some ways In many cases, emotional expressions may be considered as advantages when people share their emotion with others For example, when one person fails his/her examination, and he/she is really sad and disappointed, his or her friends may show emotional expressions such as unhappy or disappointed emotions to share the empathy with her/him The few words of comfort accompany with true emotional expressions may help him or her overcome difficult situations

In other cases, emotional expressions may be regarded as disadvantages when people show their emotional expressions to others For instance, when an employee serves one unpleasant customer, it is easy for him to lose his temper and get angry Consequently, his

emotional expressions may be showed as angry appearance This situation may become worse that employees feel disappointed and dissatisfied with the jobs It is necessary for the employee to manage his/her emotions to achieve customer satisfaction To do that, he/she has

to suppress his emotional expression of anger during service encounters

However, in many cases, emotional expressions may be suppressed at the extent at which other people cannot realize Even though one’s emotions are so unpleasant but his/her expressions look the same with different situations This idea accompanied with the Jame’s point of view of response tendencies leads to the thought that people can manage their emotions to achieve their goals without detection by others Therefore, emotion regulation is

the way to achieve one’s goals

There are some definitions and points of view about emotion regulation According to Gross (1998), emotion regulation refers to the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions Emotion regulatory processes may be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have their effects at one or more points in the emotion generative process (Gross, 1998) The emotional changes that are produced by emotion regulation may

or may not bring people closer to the emotional state that they desired (Kool, 2009)

Some approaches have also considered emotion regulation by the external environment In each of particular cases, people resist stimuli by the immediate emotional impact of the situation In this perspective, emotion regulation can be defined as the set of processes whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions (Kool, 2009) Emotion regulation researchers also have emphasized that both positive and negative emotions may be regulated and that both emotion expression and experience may be targeted (Gross, 1998)

Because emotion regulation is a process, so individuals may regulate their emotions at some points in the emotion process Considering about the working environment, emotional stimuli may come from job environment or a particular work events, these stimuli cause the emotion response in employees Consequently, some inappropriate behaviors or attitudes will appear in the encounters Response regulation involves modifying the feelings and modifying expressions

As above discussion, emotion regulation refers to the processes by which people manage their emotions to response to the stimuli and seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions Emotion regulatory processes consist of two sub-processes One of them is the process that happens before people exposing to the stimuli and the other happens after that Gross (1998) also divided the emotion regulatory process in two ones: antecedent-focused

emotion regulation, which occurs before the emotion is generated, and response-focused emotion regulation which occurs after emotion is generated He also distinguished five sets of emotion regulatory processes: situation selection, situation modification, attention deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation ((Gross, 1998; Gross & Munoz, 1995)

2.1.3 How employees regulate their emotions

Emotion regulation and emotional labor are beginning to attract attention of researchers recently There are some definitions and points of view about emotion regulation According to Gross (1998), emotion regulation refers to the processes by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these emotions Emotion regulatory processes may be automatic or controlled, conscious or unconscious, and may have their effects at one or more points in the emotion generative process (Gross, 1998) The emotional changes that are produced by emotion regulation may or may not bring people closer to the emotional state that they desired (Kool, 2009)

Some approaches have also considered emotion regulation by the external environment In each of particular cases, people resist stimuli by the immediate emotional impact of the situation In this perspective, emotion regulation can be defined as the set of processes whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions (Kool, 2009) Emotion regulation researchers also have emphasized that both positive and negative emotions may be regulated and that both emotion expression and experience may be targeted (Gross, 1998)

 Mechanism of employee emotion regulation

Because emotion regulation is a process, so individuals may regulate their emotions at some points in the emotion process Considering about the working environment, emotional stimuli may come from job environment or a particular work event, these stimuli cause the emotion response in employee Consequently, some inappropriate behaviors or attitudes will appear in the encounters Because employees have to follow the organizational rules for display, behaviors, and attitudes, so they have to regulate their emotion response Response regulation involves modifying the feelings and modifying expressions

Antecedent-focused emotion regulation or deep acting

As above discussion, emotion regulation refers to the processes by which people manage their emotions to response to the stimuli and seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions From this idea, we can know that emotion regulatory processes consist of two

sub-processes One of them is the process that happens before people exposing to the stimuli and the other happens after that Gross (1998) also divided the emotion regulatory process in two ones: antecedent-focused emotion regulation, which occurs before the emotion is generated, and response-focused emotion regulation which occurs after emotion is generated

He also distinguished five sets of emotion regulatory processes: situation selection, situation modification, attention deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation ((Gross, 1998; Gross & Munoz, 1995) Four of these are involved in deep acting process and response modulation involves surface acting

+ Situation selection

Situation selection refers to approaching or avoiding certain people, place, or objects

in order to regulate emotions (Gross, 1998) This action may be considered as the efforts to prevent being emotional from sources of emotion by actively avoiding certain stimuli For example, one employee feels uncomfortable when he/she interacts with certain kind of customers such as talkative ones; he/she can avoid serving these customers and asks other co-workers for help

+ Situation modification

Situation modification refers to the active efforts to directly modify the situation so as

to alter its emotional impact constitutes an important form of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998) Such active efforts have been referred to the stress and coping literature as problem-focused coping (Lauzarus & Folkman, 1984) and by Rothbaum et al (1982) as primary control Situation modification is active efforts to prevent emotional arousal by doing some adjustment about situations one has to cope with For above example, the employee can prepare some tactics to treat actively with talkative customers

+ Attentional deployment

Attentional deployment is one of the first emotion regulatory processes that direct

one’s attention to other focuses Strategies for changing attentional focus may be grouped under the beadings of distraction, concentration, and rumination (Gross, 1998) Distraction focuses attention on non-emotional aspects of the situation (Nix, Watson, Pyszynski, & Greenberg, 1995) or moves attention away from the immediate situation altogether (Derryberry & Rothbart, 1988) Concentration is the strategy to focus one’s attention from a source of emotion trigger instead of other ones Rumination also involves directed attention, but attention is directed to feelings and their consequences (Gross, 1998) For instance, an employee receives the bad news about their family and this news may induce him/her got

angry with customer In this case, this employee can pay attention to talking with customer and forget this bad news

+ Cognitive Change

Cognitive change consists of modifying some cognitive steps or evaluations (Frijda, 1986) These cognitive steps and evaluations involve in emotion response such as denial, isolation, and intellectualization In addition, social comparison in which one compares his/her situations with others’ to decrease negative effects Reappraisal is considered as one way to change the sources of attention In particular, individuals can regulate their emotions

by changing some personal thoughts For example, employee may evaluate or interpret the situations in positive ways and can reduce the negative emotions

Response-focused emotion regulation or surface acting

In this process, one has a reaction response toward emotional stimuli, but manipulates how he or she shows that emotional response by directly influencing physiological, experiential, or behavioral responding (Gross, 1998) Instead of showing the real emotion, individuals have to change their emotional expressions, even when they may feel differently This process is called response modulation In this section, individuals instead of adjusting the situations or the perception of the situations, they manipulate the emotional expression of his

or her reactions to the situations For example, an employee may show his/her happy face with customers or suppress his/her anger, even though they really feel angry

Earlier research on emotion focused on the categorization of emotional responses Researchers attempted to provide a list of basic emotions such as joy, anger, fear, sadness, and disgust which may serve as the building blocks for higher levels of emotions (Izard 1977; also see Niedenthal, Halberstadt, and Innes-Ker 1999 for a review) It is assumed that basic emotions are characterized by universal physiological reactions and facial expressions (Ekman, Friesen, and Ellsworth 1982) Researchers also investigated the dimensional structure of emotional responses to differentiate various emotions with a more parsimonious set of defining characteristics Two dimensions, intensity and valence, are often used to distinguish emotions The intensity dimension refers to the level of arousal or how strongly individuals feel an emotion The valence dimension refers to the pleasant (positive) or unpleasant (negative) nature of an emotion (Russell 1980) Research in this area advanced knowledge on the emotional responses individuals may have, but it did little to inform the process through which emotions are generated

More recent emotion research emphasized the process underlying the generation of emotions Research suggests that emotions may be generated through different processes

(Berkowitz 1993; Pham et al 2001) First, sensory experiences such as pain or bad taste may elicit emotional reactions through an automatic associative process (Berkowitz 1993; Lazarus 1982; Leventhal 1984) Second, certain stimulus such as a Christmas song might trigger emotional reactions through conditioning or pattern matching (Allen and Madden 1985; Gorn 1982) These two processes are relatively automatic and require little cognition The third way

of emotion generation, appraisal, is more complicated with varying levels of consciousness and deliberation As this process is particularly relevant to the generation of emotional reactions toward marketing stimuli as well as it being involved in an important emotion regulatory strategy (namely reappraisal), it is discussed in more detail presently

Appraisal theory suggests that individuals’ emotional reactions are based on their appraisal of a situation or a target (Lazarus 1991; Schwarz and Clore 1996) The generation of emotion requires cognition, which involves an interpretation of the innovativeness, significance, relevance, and consequence of the target Some researchers regard appraisal as

an antecedent to emotion while others regard appraisal as a component of emotion (see Ellsworth and Scherer 2003 for a review) The former confines emotion to emotional responses whereas the latter conceives emotion to encompass the entire emotion generative process Nevertheless, both suggest that the generation of emotional reactions may vary with the way people interpret the target In other words, the generation of emotional reactions is relational and flexible There are no absolute features of a target that will lead to a certain emotional reaction The emotional reaction toward a target depends on the perspective with which people assess and construe the target

Moreover, there are potentially different perspectives to adopt for appraising a given target Under different conditions, people may appraise and interpret the same target differently and hence experience different emotions (Lazarus 1991) For example, Tomaka and colleagues (1997) examined students’ stress responses to an arithmetic test Participants assigned to the threat appraisal condition were told that they should complete the test as quickly and accurately as possible and that they would get scored for speed and accuracy, a procedure that induced them to construe the test as a threat to their ability Participants assigned to the challenge appraisal condition were instructed to think of the task as a challenge and think of themselves as someone capable of meeting that challenge The results indicated that the manipulation of cognitive appraisal influenced the way participants appraised the test and the corresponding emotional reactions Participants in the threat appraisal condition felt more stressed than those in the challenge appraisal condition

An emerging body of research in neuroscience provides neurophysiological evidence that the appraisal of a stimulus can influence the generation of emotional reactions

Researchers observed the activation of amygdala, a brain structure which is primarily associated with emotional reactions and is also extensively connected with brain structures for cognitive functioning (Phelps et al 2001) They found that the cognitive interpretation and mental representation of the emotional properties of a stimulus would influence amygdala activation and the corresponding emotional reactions (Phelps et al 2001; Schaefer et al 2002; Wheeler and Fiske 2004)

In the context of this research where consumers encounter a product or an advertisement, a spontaneous appraisal of product appearance or pictorial advertising design

is likely to take place which elicits emotional reactions (e.g., Hirschman 1986; Yeung and Wyer 2004) Moreover, the aesthetics of a product or the design of an advertisement itself does not always lead to the same emotional reaction under various situations The emotional reactions consumers have depended on their way of appraisal Thus, consumers may be able

to reduce their emotional reactions toward marketing stimuli through a particular way of appraisal that decreases the emotional relevance of the marketing stimuli This emotion regulatory strategy, reappraisal, is discussed in the following section

1) Cognitive Reappraisal

Prior studies considered cognitive reappraisal as a way of appraising a stimulus The reappraisal strategy refers to the interpretation of stimulus from a neutral and detached perspective which decreases the emotional relevance of the stimulus (Gross, 1998) Reappraisal intends to eliminate the emotional responses at early stage of the emotion generative process (Gross 1998; Richards and Gross, 2000) Reappraisal which is a type of cognitive change means the ways that individuals analyze an emotion and elicit situation in order to change its impact on emotional experience (Gross and John, 2003) It refers to regulating emotional experience by changing the content of thoughts or re-evaluating the emotions Using the reappraisal strategy, employees can reduce their emotional reactions toward a stimulus that tends to evoke emotional reactions For example, employees may think customer injustice behavior as accidental events and do not pay so much attention

As a particular way of appraising a stimulus, the reappraisal strategy refers to the interpretation of a stimulus from a neutral and detached perspective which decreases the emotional relevance of the stimulus (Gross 1998; Richards and Gross 2000; Ochsner et al 2002) Using the reappraisal strategy, individuals can reduce their emotional reactions toward

a stimulus that tends to evoke emotional reactions For example, individuals who see a badly injured person typically experience a strong, negative emotion, but Richards and Gross (2000) found that participants who received the instruction to view the pictures of badly injured

person from a doctor’s perspective reported experiencing low emotional reactions toward the pictures The finding suggests that if individuals adopt a reappraisal strategy and appraise a stimulus in more analytical and indifferent terms, they may be able to detach themselves from the emotional aspect of the stimulus and feel relatively neutral

Recent advancements in neuroscience also provide neurophysiological evidence (e.g., amygdala activation) that people can reduce the generation of emotional reactions toward a stimulus through reappraisal (Ochsner et al 2002; Phelps 2006) For example, Ochsner and colleagues (2002) examined participants’neural responses to pictures of emotional scenes such as a woman crying out of a church Participants either responded naturally to the scene (e.g., interpreting the scene as a woman who has attended a funeral and cried in grief) or were instructed to reappraise the scene to reduce its emotional significance (e.g., interpreting the scene as a woman attending a wedding crying in joy) Results indicated that reappraisal reduced amygdala activation which is primarily associated with emotional reactions

Although previous studies have focused on the reappraisal of stimuli that are likely to evoke negative emotions, the process of reappraisal should be generalizable to stimuli that are likely to elicit positive emotions In a consumer context, high- aesthetic products or emotional advertising appeals are potentially able to evoke positive feelings among consumers However, through a conscious emotion regulatory strategy such as reappraisal, consumers may choose a particular perspective for interpreting marketing stimuli to manage their emotional reactions If consumers who see an aesthetically attractive product reappraise the product in an emotionally detached manner, they should experience a low level of positive feelings toward the product as a consequence

When employees adopt reappraisal strategy and appraise a stimulus in more objective ways, they may reduce their emotional reactions to stimuli Employees may interpret the situation positively by focusing on positive aspects of the situation Reappraisal requires employees to adopt a different interpretation of potentially enticing marketing stimuli before they encounter the stimuli Taking customer’s perspective is one of the tactic of reinterpreting responses and needs of employees looking at emotional stimuli through the eyes’ of customers Perspective-taking may increase the forgiveness and reduce the intensity of hostility

To summarize, employees can adopt the reappraisal strategy to reduce the generation

of emotional reactions in anticipation of potentially emotion-evoking stimuli Although this strategy is effective for changing the entire emotion trajectory, it may not be readily adoptable

to employees at all times This is because reappraisal requires employees to adopt a different interpretation of potentially enticing marketing stimuli when they encounter the stimuli If

employees have no experience in putting themselves in an emotionally detached mindset, they may not be able to do so effectively on the spot As such, employees may need some practice before they can apply this strategy appropriately when the situation calls for it (Gross 2002; Phelps 2006) In contrast, suppression, another regulatory strategy, may be applied more readily when employees have already started experiencing emotional response tendencies toward stimuli This strategy is discussed presently

2) Emotion Suppression

Emotion suppression refers to the inhibition of ongoing emotional response

tendencies during the emotion generative process, which can be applied to inner experiences

as well as overt behaviors such as facial expressions (Gross, 1998) Suppression refers to restraining of emotional expression by controlling emotional behavior in order to regulate emotional expression (Gross and John, 2003) In other words, emotional suppression is a conscious inhibition of emotional expressive behavior while emotionally aroused (Gross and Levenson, 1993) For example, an employee may show his neutral face instead of angry one even though he is really angry

Previous studies have focused on response modulation; this process refers to directly influencing physiological, experiential, or behavioral responding Response modulation occurs late in the emotion generative process, after response tendencies have been initiated (Gross, 1998) When the employees suppress their emotions that are caused by emotional events during service encounters, the process of emotion regulation is likely to occur Employees monitor their emotional reactions to the stimuli so that their expressions are in accordance with their desired state and try to move close to their desired state When employees perceive that their emotional expression is not suitable with organizational rules they regulate their emotions, they will control their emotions

Although most previous research has examined expressive suppression involving negative emotions, the process underlying expressive suppression may apply to other kinds of suppression behaviors as well as the suppression involving positive emotions Initial empirical evidence can be found in Schmeichel, Vohs, and Baumeister (2003) where participants followed explicit instruction to suppress both their internal emotional experiences and external facial expressions elicited by an emotionally upsetting video clip

When employees suppress their emotional reactions that are elicited by customers’ behavior, a similar emotion regulatory process is likely to occur To achieve suppression, employees need to engage in a loop of monitoring their current emotional reactions,

comparing their emotional reactions with their desired state, and trying to move close to their desired state This process requires employees to manage their emotional responses effortfully

as these responses continually arise during the service process

2.1.4 Emotion regulation (ER) vs Emotional intelligence (IE)

As mentioned above, much research has focused on studying emotional intelligence Mayor and Salovey (1997) defines emotional intelligence as a set of metal abilities to do with emotions and the processing of emotional information that are part of, and contribute to, logical thought and intelligence in general Kidwell, Hardesty, Murtha, & Sheng (2011) define emotional intelligence as marketer’s ability to use emotions to facilitate interactions with customers Emotional intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge from one’s emotions and those of others to produce beneficial outcomes High-EI individuals should be able to make use of their superior ability to regulate their emotions in the workplace

to produce and experience situationally-appropriate emotions Superior emotion perception and understanding abilities should aid in the determination of the type of emotional display that would be appropriate (Austin, Dore, & Donovan, 2008) Much research studies emotional intelligence based on employee perspective and considers emotional intelligence as employees’ ability to regulate their emotions in workplace Four distinct processes define the construct of perceiving, facilitating, understanding and managing emotions (Salovey et al, 1999) Perceiving emotions refers to ability to perceive, appraise, and express accurately Facilitating emotion is the ability to access, generate, and use emotions to facilitate thought Understanding involves ability to analyze complex emotions and to form emotional knowledge (Kidwell, Hardesty & Childers, 2007) Managing refers to ability to regulate emotion to achieve desired outcomes (Strizhakova & Tsarenko, 2010)

Differently from emotional intelligence, emotion regulation refers to the behaviours that employees make to regulate and express their emotions suitably according to organizational rules These actions can be considered as the processes by which employees can regulate their emotions and express the suitable emotions in order to achieve their goals Employees perceive the service situations that may cause emotional responses in them Emotion regulation can be considered as the purposive actions the employees do to achieve their goals In service encounters, their goals may be the customer satisfaction Employees not only perceive emotions by their abilities, but they regulate their emotions because of firm’s rules People with high emotional intelligence may manage their emotions naturally, and express suitable or accurate emotions with different situations Emotion regulation can be considered as situational behaviours that employees do to regulate and express their emotions

differently from their true feelings, even though, they can fake their expression Emotion regulation can be regarded as self-regulation actions that need more efforts and motivations than employees’ abilities

2.1.5 Antecedents and consequence of emotion regulation

2.1.5.1 Antecedents of employee emotion regulation

In service setting, emotional labor is the process of regulating emotion to achieve the organizational goals This process also has antecedents Antecedents of emotion regulation are situational variables (Gross, 1998) In the context of emotional labor, the situational variables include the employee’s interaction with customers Situational antecedents refer to the situation acts as a cue from which emotion may results According to Grandey (2000) situational antecedents of emotional labor can be measured as both chronic expectations of the employee’s interactions with customers and acute events that create an emotional response

Similar to emotional labor, in the service encounters, the interaction with employees and some acute events may cause emotional responses There are some sources of emotional stimuli that trigger employees’ emotions

 Emotional Events

Emotional events have immediate impact on an employee’s emotions An emotional event may lead to more emotional regulation when that event results in emotions that are discrepant from the organizational display rules The event is appraised for its positive or negative influence on person’s well-being In particular, if the event interferes with the employees’ goals, one of which is to express and induce positive emotions, the event will be appraised negatively In other words, the events may be seen as stressful Such events may involve a customer angrily blaming the employee for a product malfunction, or learning that a family member has become sick In such cases, the employee experiences an event that requires emotion regulation to maintain the appropriate appearance at work

 Customer Injustice Behavior

Employee and customer interact together during service performance How well this interaction also affects employee’s attitudes One of the factors that affects employees

‘emotions is customer behavior and attitude Customers behave in the way that make employees feel they have been treated unfairly

Research also shows that customers’ injustice refers to unfairness or insensitivity displayed when customers treat unfairly with employees Affective event theory posits that specific event at work generate specific emotions, which in turn translate to spontaneous,

affectively driven behaviors such as organizational citizenship behavior and work withdrawal One class of affective events includes situations where individuals feel they are treated unfairly (Rupp and Spencer, 2006) According to affective event theory, customers’ injustice creates negative emotions in employees When employees are treated rudely or impolitely by customers, it is easy for them to experience negative emotions However, employees have to show the displays that differ from their true feelings

2.1.5.2 Consequences of Emotional Regulation

Emotional labor requires some efforts of employees The amount of emotional labor is related to stress due to the physiological demands of emotion regulation (Gross, 1998; Lazarus, 1991) Emotional labor also affects customer service performance In short-run, emotional labor may reduce the job satisfaction because emotional suppressions have not been depleted and lead to the withdrawal behavior

self-Employee are the backbone of any business success and therefore, they need to be motivated and maintained in organization at all cost to aid the organization to be globally competitive in terms of providing quality product and services to the society (Ongori, 2007) Employee that is happy contented and fulfilling their desires and needs at work are described

in terminology as employee job satisfaction Many measures describe that employee job satisfaction is a factors in employee motivation, employee goal achievement and positive employee morale in the workplace

In addition, job satisfaction is also affected by the employee state of emotion This forces the managers to create and sustain positive working environment in the organization Employee satisfaction is considered within the empirical studies either complete feeling about the job or related to set of attitudes about various aspect of job (Spector, 1997) Locke (1976)

defined employee satisfaction as a pleasurable or positive emotion state resulting from appraisal of one job or job experience

Job satisfaction is believed to influence employee performance and customer satisfaction (Chi & Gursoy, 2009; Hartline & Ferrell, 1996; Lee et al, 2010) Job satisfaction

is assumed to be influenced by many factors including socio- demographic characteristic such

as age, education and tenure (Kalmar & Ferris, 1989; Kutz et al, 1990), gender (Mason, 1995), training and award at the workplace (O’ Neill, 1997) and emotional labor (Adelmann,1995; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Liu et all, 1990)

Hochchild’s (1983) indicated that working to manage something as personal as emotion for commercial purpose would be inherently unsatisfying In this case, employee who is required to regulate their emotion will experience a lower level of job satisfaction and

it does not matter what types of acting technique are involved when performing emotional labor Job satisfaction is a set of evaluative feeling that employee have towards their work situation (Skinner, Dubinsky, & Donnelly, 1984) Churchill, Ford and Walker (1974) stated job satisfaction as all characteristics of the job itself and the work environment which salesmen find rewarding, fulfilling and satisfying or frustrating and unsatisfying As the well-established operationalization of workplace happiness (Wright, 2005), full filling the employee needs that result to job satisfaction such as emotional fulfillment

According to (Davi Ngo, 2009), employee satisfaction is important to organization because to enhance employee to be contented, to, to increase customer satisfaction, to reduce turnover, recruiting and training cost Davi Ngo (2010) also state that employee satisfaction gives important to organization by producing active employee and improve teamwork among employee in the organization From this we can know that employee satisfaction contributes much benefit to the organization According to (Harris,2009), It will become significantly more important in the years ahead to know the commitment of individuals to an organization,

as well as the organization’s need to create an environment in which one would be willing to stay This statement is also supported by Ian C Ross,Alvin Zandeer,(2006) who state the degree of satisfaction of certain personal needs provided by a person's place of employment has a significant direct relationship to his continuing to work for that company To achieve this employee satisfaction in organization is important so that employee remain working in the company

To achieve this employee satisfaction in organization is important so that employee remain working in the company This statement is supported by Bartomolomei (2010) who state that ensuring the satisfaction of employees is essential to maintaining a healthy organization According to an August 2009 article in The Times, when employees are happy

with their job and satisfied with their companies, they will want to produce more and perform better, and are loyal to their employers

Burnout or Exhaustion

Burnout is a stress outcome typically found in employees in the helping industries Burnout occurs when an employee becomes overly emotionally involved in interactions with customers and has little way to replenish those emotional resources being spent The signs of burnout are emotional exhaustion, depersonalization When a situation induces repeated emotional responses that the employee must regulate, the employee may experience emotional exhaustion, or energy depletion and fatigue To cope with this feeling, employees may detach from customers by objectifying or depersonalizing them This may lead to feeling negatively about themselves and their work, to the point where they experience a diminished sense of personal accomplishment

Emotion exhaustion is a specific stress- related reaction that refers to a state of depleted energy caused by the excessive psychological and emotional demands that occur among individuals who work in some capacity (Jackson, Turner & Brief, 1987) Frijda (1994) describe emotion exhaustion as feeling of being emotionally strained and exhausted by one work since emotion are not an inexhaustible resource Emotional exhaustion is displayed by both physical fatigue and a sense of feeling psychologically and emotionally drained (Maslach & Jackson, 1981; Wright & Cropanzano, 1998) It is considered the core characteristic of burnout (Maslach, 1982) Maslach (1982) claimed that emotionally exhausted individual are those engaging in emotionally charged situation on a regular basis Emotional exhaustion reflects a chronic feeling that one is overtaxed and exhausted by emotion demand of job Emotional exhaustion is the outcomes most associated with emotional labor and is characterized by feelings of being emotionally overextended due to the work role (Maslach, et al., 1996)

Prior research has offered conflicting findings regarding emotional labor and emotional exhaustion Emotional exhaustion is one of the most often cited consequences of emotional labor (Hochschild 1983; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987; Wharton 1993; Morris et al, 1996) Kruml and Geddes (2000) suggest that the degree of exhaustion which workers experiences According to Hochschild (1983) research, employees who cannot separate their true self and acted self are more vulnerable to emotion exhaustion This view corresponds to Maslach (1982), who found that individuals are most susceptible to emotional exhaustion when they invest more emotion in the enactment of helping roles (Maslach, 1982) Emotional exhaustion occurs when the emotional demand exceeds what an individual is able to afford during interpersonal interaction at work (Maslach, Schaufeli & Leiter, 2001) When an

individual chronically works under stress that is induced by interpersonal interaction, emotional exhaustion can further result in emotional over tension

2.1.6 Emotional Labor and Emotional Regulation

Emotions are feelings that people experience, interpret, reflect on, express, and manage (Thoits, 1989; Mills and Kleinman, 1988) They arise through social interaction, and are influenced by social, cultural, interpersonal, and situational conditions (Martin, 1999) In many situations in our daily lives, we often find ourselves suppressing feelings and displaying

a more socially accepted emotion that is deemed more appropriate For example, showing excitement about a colleague’s promotion or suppressing anger when being cut off by someone in a waiting line Regulating one’s emotions to comply with social norms then is referred to as “emotion work” (Hochschild, 1990; p 118) When our job roles require us to display particular emotions and suppress others, we do our emotion management for a wage Hochschild (1983) termed this regulation of one’s emotions to comply with occupational or organizational norms as “emotional labor.” She defined emotional labor as “the management

of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display; emotional labor is sold for

a wage and therefore has exchange value” (Hochschild, 1983; p.7)

According to Hochschild (1983), jobs involving emotional labor possess three characteristics: they require the workers to make facial or voice contact with the public; they require the worker to produce an emotional state in the client or customer, and they provide the employer with an opportunity to exert some control over the emotional activities of workers (Hochschild, 1983)

Based on impression management, Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) defined emotional labor as “the act of displaying the appropriate emotion.” Their definition differs from Hochschild’s (1983), since their definition emphasizes the actual behavior rather than the presumed emotions underlying the behavior (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993)

As the flight attendants described in Hochschild’s study, to comply with the emotion requirement of the organizations, service providers need to practice to play roles, fake a smile

or a laugh, and try to maintain a “happy” appearance (Hochschild, 1983; Karabanow, 1999)

In other words, when interacting with the public under the guidance of organizations, service providers manage a publicly displayed emotion that is not necessarily privately felt Managing emotions then become public acts when emotions are sold as products which need

to be monitored by the company (Hochschild, 1983) As Albrecht and Zemke (1985) stated,

“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 interactive work entails” (p.114)

Display Rules

Hochschild (1983) argued that service providers and customers share a set of expectations about the nature of emotions that should be displayed during the service encounter These expectations are a function of societal norms, occupational norms, and organizational norms (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989) Ekman (1973) referred to such norms as display rules, which are shared expectations about which emotions ought to be expressed and which ought to be disguised (Ekman, 1973)

The service industry in general, and the hospitality industry in particular, implement display rules to regulate employees’ behavior “Show an upbeat attitude at every table” or

“Put energy and enthusiasm into every guest interaction” are common instructions in employee handbooks In addition, companies use policies, symbols, myths, and stories to teach, demonstrate, and reinforce these display rules Based on these display rules, service providers are expected to act friendly and upbeat and to disguise anger and disgust, even toward annoying customers Further, employees must often relinquish part of their independence to the control of their company, including such things as wearing uniforms, and regulation of their mannerisms, body language, and emotional expressions (Paules, 1991) The purpose is to ensure that employees will project the desired image of the company to the public, and that this image will elicit the desired response— satisfaction and continued patronage from consumers

Service Acting

Hochschild’s emotional management perspective of emotional labor is based on the

“acting” service providers perform Based on Goffman’s (1959) dramaturgical perspective of social interactions, Hochschild theorized that service is a “show” where the service provider is

an “actor,” the customer is the “audience,” and the work setting is the stage (Grandey, 1999) The work place (restaurant) provides the setting and context that allows actors (wait staff) to perform for audiences (diners) The interaction between actors and audiences is based on their mutual definition of the setting, which can be interpreted as occupational or organizational norms or display rules

Researchers proposed that employees perform emotional labor through three types of acting mechanism: surface acting, deep acting, and genuine acting (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993)

Surface Acting

Surface acting involves employees simulating emotions that are not actually felt, by changing their outward appearances (i.e., facial expression, gestures, or voice tone) when exhibiting required emotions For example, a hotel front desk employee may put on a smile and cheerfully greet a customer even if she or he is feeling down In this case, the front desk clerk feigns emotions that are not experienced

Using the surface acting technique, people alter the outward expression of emotion in the service of altering their inner feelings By changing facial or bodily expressions, such as slumped shoulders, bowed head, or drooping mouth, inner feelings can be altered to a corresponding state (Hochschild, 1993) One flight attendant described how surface acting helps her to elicit friendly behavior

If I pretend I’m feeling really up, sometimes I actually cheer up and feel friendly The passenger responds to me as though I were friendly and then more of me responds back (Hochschild, 1990, p 121)

The flight attendant uses surface acting to display an emotion—friendliness—that she does not actually feel Surface acting then is a discrepancy between felt and displayed emotion (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993)

Deep Acting

Another acting technique is deep acting Deep acting occurs when employees’ feelings

do not fit the situation; they then use their training or past experience to work up appropriate emotions

Unlike surface acting, deep acting involves changing inner feelings by altering something more than outward appearance In surface acting, feelings are changed from the

“outside in,” whereas feelings are changed from the “inside out” in deep acting (Hochschild, 1983) Hochschild (1983) classified deep acting as (1) exhorting feeling, whereby one actively attempts to evoke or suppress an emotion, and (2) trained imagination, whereby one actively invokes thoughts, images, and memories to induce the associated emotion (thinking

of a wedding to feel happy or a funeral to feel sad) In other words, employees use their training or past experiences to help conjure up appropriate emotions or responses (empathy, cheerfulness) for a given scene (Kruml & Geddes, 2000a) By practicing deep acting, emotions are actively induced, suppressed, or shaped

The airline company that Hochschild studied utilizes the deep acting technique to help flight attendants produce appropriate emotions or suppress inappropriate emotional responses toward guests In a training session, flight attendants are taught to image the cabin as a living

room and passengers as their guests, and to regard difficult passengers as children who need attention (Hochschild, 1983)

For example, one flight attendant described how she uses the deep acting technique to control her anger when dealing with an annoying customer She said:

I try to remember that if he’s drinking too much, he’s probably scared of flying I think to myself, ‘He’s like a little child.’ Really that’s what he is, and when I see him that way, I don’t get mad that he’s yelling at me He’s like a child yelling at me then (Hochschild, 1983; p.35)

In this case, the flight attendant uses deep acting to change her feelings by deliberately visualizing a substantial portion of reality in a different way

Genuine Acting

As Hochschild’s acting paradigm rests on the assumption that service providers are making efforts to actually feel the emotions they are displaying, many scholars claim that Hochschild ignores the instances whereby one spontaneously and genuinely experiences and expresses the expected emotion without exerting any effort (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) For example, a bartender may show genuine caring when trying to comfort a depressed customer Or a nurse who feels sympathy at the sight of an injured child has no need to “act.” Therefore, genuine acting is used to imply the situation where employees spontaneously experience and express same emotion (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) Emotions are displayed with very little effortful prompting However, Kruml and Geddes (2000a) argued that these assertions about Hochschild’s acting classification is incorrect because she described the genuinely expressed emotions of service employees as passive deep acting or genuine acting (Kruml & Geddes, 2000a)

As the competition becomes more intense in the hospitality industry, many hospitality companies challenge their employees to strive for “world class service.” This striving for guest-service excellence makes companies no longer content with their employees engaging

in surface acting; they are seeking to achieve genuine acting or deep acting in employees Consider the following instructions drawn from an employee handbook on how to greet or say good-bye to customers Companies explicitly specify that “a personal greeting with a big smile and a warm ‘Hello’ means much more to a guest than a robotic greeting” or “Sincere thanks and your sincere (not ‘canned’) wish that you get the opportunity to see and serve the guest again.” Clearly, by encouraging employees to engage in genuine acting or deep acting, companies hope to enhance the authenticity of the service performance and reduce the

possibility that service providers might break the service “norms” and express emotions incongruous with the role they are expected to play (Paules, 1991)

Consequences of Emotional Labor

Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) described emotional labor as a double-edged sword

On the one hand, it can facilitate task performance by regulating interactions and precluding interpersonal problems On the other hand, it can impair performance by priming expectations

of good service that cannot be met (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) The following section discusses the positive and negative consequences of performing emotional labor, and particularly, its effects on employees’ psychological well-being

Negative Consequences

It has been proven that there is a clear correlation between one’s emotional state and one’s physical state Laboratory research suggests that efforts to display positive emotions or suppress negative emotions often lead to patterns of physiological response that presage somatic illness (Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000) These illnesses range from a lower immune level (Jamer, Schwartz, & Leigh, 1988; Cohen & Herbert, 1996), and cardiovascular illness (Booth-Kewley & Friedman, 1987; Friedman, 1989), to cancer (Watson, Pettingale, & Greer, 1984)

In the emotional labor literature, substantial research in this field addresses unfavorable outcomes The most-often-cited outcomes are burnout (Hochschild, 1983; Kahn, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996) and job dissatisfaction (Morris & Feldman, 1996; Grandey, 1999; Wharton, 1993) For example, Rutter and Fielding (1988) found that prison officers report that suppressing emotion in the work place is positively associated with overall stress and negatively associated with job satisfaction Other impacts on the individual’s psychological well-being are also discussed in the literature, such as poor self-esteem, depression, cynicism, role alienation, and self-alienation (Richman, 1988; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Fineman, 1993; Tolich, 1993; Wharton, 1993)

Wharton (1999) suggested two reasons why the regulation of service providers’ emotional displays is problematic First, to ensure service quality, employers often implement behavior scripts (such as smile, eye contact, body position, tone of voice) for service providers to follow This restrictive script prevents service providers from interacting with customers based on spontaneous intuition, but on a script drawn up by employers That is, workers’ own inclinations for interaction may be suppressed and replaced by an organizationally sanctioned response (Wharton, 1999) Second, service providers may have different interests vis-à-vis the outcome of the interaction That is, employers believe that