Antecedents and outcomes of emotional labor, a study of front line employees of the tourism industry in vietnam

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITYInternational School of Business ---Nguyen Anh Phuc ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF EMOTIONAL LABOR: A STUDY OF FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES OF THE TOURISM I

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Nguyen Anh Phuc

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES

OF EMOTIONAL LABOR: A STUDY

OF FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES OF

THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN

VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Nguyen Anh Phuc

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES

OF EMOTIONAL LABOR: A STUDY

OF FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES OF

THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN

VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: Nguyen Thi Mai Trang

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

Firstly, I would like to say thank you very much to Assoc Prof Nguyen Thi Mai Trang (mysupervisor) for her valuable instructions and kind supports in helping me finish this academicresearch I also appreciate the members of the thesis defense committee’s comments andmeaningful suggestions to help me to complete this thesis My sincere thanks are given to all of

my professors at International Business School – University of Economics of Ho Chi Minh Cityfor their teaching during my master course Finally, I would like to express my deepest thanksfor my family, friends for always being my side during studying the master course

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

ABBREVIATION

1 Introduction 1

2 Theoretical background and hypotheses 5

2.1 Emotional labor 5

2.2 The relationships among emotional labor and its antecedents and its outcomes 6

2.2.1 The relationship between emotional intelligence and emotional labor 6

2.2.3 The relationship between job autonomy and emotional labor 8

2.2.4 The relationship between emotional display rules and emotional labor 8

2.2.5 The relationship between emotional labor and job burnout 9

2.2.6 The relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction 10

2.2.7 The relationship between job burnout and job satisfaction 10

2.3 Research model 11

3 Method 12

3.1 Procedure and sample 12

3.2 Measurement (see Appendix D) 13

4 Results and discussion 16

4.1 Respondents Characteristics 16

4.2 Scale validation 18

4.3 Results of structural equation modeling analysis (SEM) 21

4.4 Discussion 21

5 Conclusion and managerial implications 25

5.1 Conclusion 25

5.2 Managerial implications 26

5.3 Limitations and future research 29

LIST OF FIGURESFigure 1 Research model……… 10Figure 2 Standardized coefficient path ……… 24

LIST OF TABLESTable 1 Respondents’ characteristics 17Table 2 Means, standard deviations, and standardized CFA loadings of items 19, 20Table 3 Correlations (final measurement model) 20Table 4 Unstandardized structural paths 21

Averaged variance extractedStructural equation modelingStatistical Package for the Social Sciences

The new trend of successful tourism companies is truly engaging their front-line serviceemployees by applying emotional labor theory to maximize service quality, satisfaction,and behavioral outcomes This study investigates the antecedents of front-line serviceemployee emotional labor in the tourism organizations in Vietnam It also examines therole of emotional labor toward employee job burnout and job satisfaction Employing theCFA & SEM analyses with a sample of 302 front-line employees, the research findingsreveal that emotional intelligence, job autonomy, and emotional display rules has thepositive relationships with emotional labor and emotional labor has a positiverelationship with job burnout Furthermore, emotional labor negatively relates to jobsatisfaction of Vietnamese employees Finally, job burnout has a negative relationshipwith job satisfaction

Key words: Emotional intelligence, job autonomy, emotional display rules, emotional

labor, job burnout, job satisfaction, tourism.

1 Introduction

The service sector in Viet Nam is identified as one of the key industry to develop theoverall economy growth rate In the trend of transitioning to the freedom economy, theservice sector, consisting of tourism industry in Vietnam, has always played an importantrole The World Travel & Tourism Council (2014) mentions that the contribution factors

of Travel & Tourism sectors to GDP will be hotels, airlines, airports, travel agents andleisure and recreation services that deal directly with tourists The total contribution ofTravel & Tourism to GDP of Vietnam was VND311, 117 Billion (9.6% of GDP) in 2013and directly created 1,899,000 jobs (3.7% of total employment) Vietnam is one of themost popular destinations in Asia, the number of international visitors to Vietnam hasbeen rising every year It means that tourism industry will have to focus more on betterhuman resources policies so that they can fare well in the competition and satisfy theircustomers due to its special feature is an interaction between service providing by theservice employees and service accepting by customers

Travel agencies (both traditional and online) dominate the market for Vietnam,Thailand and the Philippines with a 62%, 66% and 52% share, respectively However,direct booking is still getting to the most popular booking channel in Vietnam andaccounts for significant sales in this country (Thornton, 2016) Therefore, creating theorganizations’ reputation is crucial to take advantages the new trend of direct bookingchannel The main characteristic of a service sector is “the contact and interactionbetween service providers (employees) and service acceptors (customers)” (Tsaur, Chang

and the employees who play role as service providers will provide those services tocustomers Thus, employee in the tourism industry becomes a part of service productsand their excellent performance help to form image of organizations (Kusluvan, 2003).Vietnam tourism industry needs to overcome these issues to optimize its potential at least

by using “professional smiling front-line service workers” to be as “countryambassadors”

Today, the new trend of successful tourism companies is truly engaging theirfront-line service employees by applying emotional labor theory to enhance satisfactionwith their external customers As stated by Grandey (2000), interest in emotional laborfor research has been gradually started basing on the work of Hochschild (as cited inGrandey, 2000) Nowadays, business in the tourism is very competitive so that travelagencies must focus more on "service with a smile" to improve their reputations basing

on customer satisfaction, employee behavioral outcomes As mentioned above, front-lineservice worker’s performance is one of the key points to obtain customer service usingand royalty Service workers are therefore requested to regulate their feelings well inacting when interacting with customers (Karatepe, 2010) Hochschild (1983) uses thedefinition of emotional labor to indicate front-line service worker’s actions of trying toregulate both inside feelings and external appearance of showing these feelings to satisfycompany’s expected emotions This researcher mentions that emotional labor mayinvolve showing, pretending to express or suppressing emotions (e.g showing smiles andgood humor…) and in each case, managing emotions of front-line service workers will

result in more effective workplace interaction Then, emotions have evolved to helpemployees act adaptively to customer behaviors and working situations (Grandey, 2000).

Additionally, emotional intelligence shows that employees are able to recognizeand understand any emotional signal Based on that ability, front-line service employeesmay use suitable ways to manage their feelings and encourage intellectual growth(Salovey & Mayer, 1990) Therefore, emotional intelligence becomes a critical factors tomake emotional issues easier for service workers to regulate While front-line serviceemployees perform their jobs, they always interact to customers face-to-face So they areasked to show appropriate manners and control their feelings well (Karatepe, 2010).Thus, a study of both emotional labor and emotional intelligence for understandingservice employee individual emotional expression to help the service employees keepsmiling faces is really important

The reality is that front-line service workers in Vietnam are facing to differentkind of stresses Vietnamnet (2017) reveals that employees have to deal with a lot ofunexpected troubles or customers’ bad attitudes leading to work stress and job burnout.Sexual harassments while contacting with the customers is not an easy case foremployees to handle and these challenges will hurt employees’ emotion (VOV, 2016).Moreover, these workers admit that they are tired of fixing the frequent bad tourismenvironment of destinations in Vietnam or tired of how using their relationships withintermediaries to perform the best services for customers (Vietnamnet, 2017) Employees

in the service sector also share their anxieties on balancing their times for families and for

that the above challenges will create mental and physical pressure resulting job burnout,less job satisfaction and finally low service quality Up till now, there are a lot ofresearches studying about employees’ emotional labor and emotional labor in developedcountries (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Grandey, 2000) (also seeappendix G) In scholars’ attempts to search for potential antecedents and outcomes thathave high power to explain worker emotional labor in the service industry, Grandey(2000) conceptualizes a model to help employees to regulate their emotions whenperforming their jobs in the workplace which includes situational cues (e.g interactionexpectations, emotional events), emotion regulation process (emotional labor, individualfactors, organizational factors), results (e.g individual well-being, organizational well-being) and then other works restrict themselves to identify these factors separately or not

in the tourism industry There is few studies mention the relationships of these factors inone model to have an empirical research in tourism industry As the researcher wellsearched from previous studies, the study of Hoang (2010) studies the application ofemotional labor to distinguish the differences in emotional labor illustration of femaleemployees in the low-end sectors and high-end sectors Very few scholars do the researchabout this issue in the tourism industry in Vietnam – where front-line tourism workersmight be counterfeit in claiming for himself or herself by the line others assume he or shehas taken during a particular contact in the contrast of his or her ability to manageemotions due to a saving face culture in working environment, not basing onorganizational displays rules (Nguyen, Ladkin & Osman, 2016; Quang, Khuong & Le,2015) More importantly, due to this saving face culture, Vietnamese tourism front-line

employees often try to control their manners while face-to-face interact with customersfor long time They will easily hurt physically or emotionally by stress Thus, this studytry to understand and fill in this gap by testing the effects of emotional intelligence, jobautonomy, emotional display rules on emotional labor, and subsequently on job burnoutand job satisfaction of front-line service workers who are working in the tourism industry

in Vietnam Basing on the research results, this finding provides managers a deepunderstanding about emotional labor Therefore, findings of this study can be used todevelop the suitable human capital management strategies in the tourism organizations

2 Theoretical background and hypotheses

2.1 Emotional labor

Emotional labor refers to “the regulation and expression of organizationally desiredemotions at work in order to fulfill the emotional display requirement of theorganizations or job” (Diefendorff, Richard, & Croyle, 2006; p.17) The research ofemotional labor shows that when front-line service employees are asked to haveparticular expressions to customers during working might create more pressures toemployees’ feelings Grandey (2000) mentions employees experience the process ofregulating their manners and showing up to follow the emotional expectations of a job(e.g services) These service workers are expected to regulate their emotions (e.g.displaying positive emotions and acting friendly) while working with customers,colleagues and supervisors This study is going to discover the ways that service workerscontrol their emotions to satisfy with their works and to improve work outcomes

Diefendorff et al (2006) and Grandy (2000) study emotional labor by analyzinghow to show (e.g surface acting) and control feelings (e.g deep acting) for meetingorganizational goals Then, the front-line service employees surely know how to interactwith the customers with an enthusiastic and friendly attitude That is why, more learningabout this concept is really essential for Vietnamese tourism organizations.

2.2 The relationships among emotional labor and its antecedents and its outcomes 2.2.1 The relationship between emotional intelligence and emotional labor

Emotional intelligence is identified as the concept of “social intelligence” to refer theability to use emotions in both oneself and others to produce beneficial outcomes (Wong

& Law, 2002; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) Emotional intelligence shows that employees areable to recognize and understand any emotional signal Based on that ability, front-lineservice employees may use suitable ways to manage their feelings and encourageintellectual growth (Wong & Law, 2002; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) It is known as “theability to recognize and use information in social interactions” (Grandey, 2000, p 106).Characterized by considerable face-to-face interaction with customers, the tourismindustry requires front-line employees to manage, regulate, and control their emotionseffectively (Karatepe, 2010) Front-line service workers, who have knowledge andunderstand more about emotional intelligence, are more skillful in using suitable behaviorfor each social interactions (Balogun, Balogun, & Agesin, 2016) Emotional intelligenceshould be more employed by front-line service employees to provide excellent servicesfor the customers (Grandey, 2000) Based on that, front-line service employees would

really know how they feel and why Then, they are able to regulate their suitableemotions as requested.

Employees understand the ways to control their own emotions and are able tomanage when being requested which is defined as emotional intelligence Then,employees’ abilities to recognize their own emotions and others known as emotionalintelligence will distinguish from their abilities to regulate their own emotions known asemotional labor Emotional intelligence is an important factor in changing emotionalbehaviors and it modify employee’s emotional labor (Lee & Ok, 2012) Numerous recentstudies has also used emotional intelligence as service workers’ ability for controllingemotion and their capacity to regulate the feelings knowing as emotional labor (e.g.Mastracci, Newman & Guy, 2010; Lee & Ok, 2012) Mastracci el al (2010) reveal theknowledge or understanding of employees about emotional intelligence as their abilitiesthat are needed to regulate emotional labor Additionally, emotional labor will have aneffect on whether a person engages in surface acting or performs deep acting in case theyexperience emotional dissonance (Grandey, 2000) As such, these abilities of emotionalintelligence may help front-line workers know when to perform emotional labor.Emotional intelligence and emotional labor are always together If there is no existence ofone of them, other will be disappearing (Guy, Newman & Mastracci, 2014) Thus, it isproposed:

H1: Emotional intelligence will positively relate to emotional labor.

2.2.3 The relationship between job autonomy and emotional labor

Job autonomy is defined by Breaugh (1999), a feeling of having freedom or power toperform the works oneself It allows employees to experience their abilities to make theirown decisions and to perform a task without control of anyone else Job autonomy showsfront-line service employees’ willingness to take part in working with freely expressingcompany’s expected emotions (i.e engage in emotional labor) A front-line serviceemployee (e.g tour guide in the tourism industry…) usually interacts directly tocustomers, so more job autonomy leads more individual choice and discretion involved in

a job and customers satisfaction In all the situations or circumstances, when front-lineservice employees are required to regulate their emotions by the travel agencies withfreedom or without freedom, they are not themselves anymore Thus, it is hypothesized:

H2: Job autonomy will positively relate to emotional labor.

2.2.4 The relationship between emotional display rules and emotional labor

Display rules are a social group's informal norms about when, where, and how one shouldexpress emotions (Heuven, Bakker, Schaufeli, & Huisman, 2006; Safdar, Friedlmeier,Matsumoto, Yoo, Kwantes, Kakai, & Shigemasu, 2009) They may be known as thestandard behavior requirement in socializing with other people Safdar et al (2009) statethat the way to show feelings may be different and from these points to identify one'scultural and social identity Display rules require people to show suitable attitudes indifferent circumstances While emotional intelligence and emotional labor areemployee’s internal abilities to recognize the feelings and manage one’s own emotions,emotional display rules are external requirements of the organizations asking their people

to show feelings The local cultures are surely different with the others Additionally, theVietnamese front-line service employee (e.g tour guide…) lacks working experiencewith multi-national customers Thus, the organizations generally use the display rules asthe expectations for emotional expression that the employees should show the public(Grandey, 2000) Thus, it is proposed:

H3: Emotional display rules will positively relate to emotional labor.

2.2.5 The relationship between emotional labor and job burnout

Burnout is a stress outcome typically found in employees in service industries Burnoutoccurs when an employee becomes overly emotionally involved in interactions withcustomers and has little way to replenish those emotional resources being spent(Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998; Grandey, 2000) The signs of burnout are emotionalexhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Cordes &Dougherty, 1993) When front-line service workers (e.g tour guide…) are usually face toface to customers and in this situation they have to know ways to regulate their emotions

By repeating these actions every day, service workers may be aware of losing emotionalfeeling or tiredness To deal with this happening problems in emotions, front-line serviceworkers separate themselves from customers by opposing or lying them If theseproblems are not solved, employees will have bad feelings about themselves, their jobs,and their job performance might reduce as long consequences (Cordes & Dougherty,1993) Thus, it is hypothesized:

H4: Emotional labor will positively relate to job burnout.

2.2.6 The relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a positive feeling of love doing job and it is also a way to helpemployees to evaluate their job performance (Dubinsky & Hartley, 1986) It is said thatwhen front-line service workers are requested to be nice to customers may help themenjoy doing their works (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) Nevertheless, trying to regulatetheir emotions for too while service workers have internal emotional conflicts maythreaten personal feeling (Hochschild, 1983) Vietnam is a keeping face culture,Vietnamese tourism front-line employees are (e.g tour guide…) usually face to face tocustomers and in this situation they have to know ways to regulate their emotions Byrepeating these actions every day, service workers may be aware of losing emotionalfeeling or tiredness and lower their satisfactions It means the service workers who oftentry to regulate emotions with customers may have less job satisfaction Thus, it isproposed:

H5: Emotional labor will negatively relate to job satisfaction.

2.2.7 The relationship between job burnout and job satisfaction

According to the work of Rothmann (2008), a positive feeling of love doing job will beaffected very much by too much stress while working Fairbrother and Warn (2003) statethat employees have more job burnout will reduce their pleasant of performing their jobs.Furthermore, Rothmann (2008) reaffirms that job satisfaction has been negativelyimpacted by pressure or worry caused by the problems on jobs It shows that whenpressure of work increases and love of doing job will decrease It is a key point of lowjob involvement for frontline service workers in the tourism industry Additionally, as it

is mentioned above, Vietnamese tourism front-line employees often contact face-to-face

to customers with stress will lower their satisfactions Therefore, the researcher proposed

3 Method

3.1 Procedure and sample

This study were undertaken by an in-depth question qualitative study and a questionnairesurvey from employees in Ho Chi Minh City since most of travel agencies centralize here(69.7% of Vietnam) & the travel agency creates a link between the customers and servicesuppliers (Department of tourism Ho Chi Minh City, 2017) Respondents were front-lineemployees (e.g tour guides…) who are working in the tourism industry The originalscales was used in the in-depth interviews to adjust the items being suitable forVietnamese respondents The main quantitative survey was used to test the measurementand structural models Through the qualitative study, the questionnaires, which weretranslated into Vietnamese, were used to question six people in order to modify andrevise all observed items of the draft questionnaire to make improvement for the officialquestionnaire From June 7th to June 14th, there were six interviews conducted in Ho ChiMinh City Each question of the measurement scale was alternatively asked forrespondents’ understanding and suggestions until every item being fully understood Thefinal measurement scales was slightly modified to be suitable used in Vietnam (seeAppendix A, B, & C)

The method of self-administered survey with the convenience sampling approachwas employed for this study The measurement scales in this study had forty one items sothat the minimum sample size should be: n=41*5=205 samples From July 13th toSeptember 25th, electronic mail (emails of respondents were provided by tour operatorsand by Saigon tour guide union), Google survey (to Saigon tour guide union) and hard

copies were (to travel agency offices) used to deliver 500 questionnaires to participantswho are working as front-line officers for travel agencies in Ho Chi Minh City (via

electronic mail was 21%, Google survey was 58% and hard copies were 21%)

After data collection, the researcher collected total 356 responses from 35 travelagencies; the answer rate was 71.2 percent Then, total 54 answer sheets were not usedbecause they were not suitable (13 answers were not from the tourism industry; 8 answersheets with the same answer for all questions; and the others with missing answervalues) Finally, 302 answers were enough to be analyzed comparing with a necessarysample size The data was used to be calculating Cronbach’s alpha, CFA to test the

reliability and validity of each measurement scale Then, the model and hypotheses weretested by using SEM analysis

3.2 Measurement (see Appendix D)

Job autonomy

Job autonomy was measured by seven-item scale (adapted from Breaugh, 1999)

Job autonomy (adapted from Breaugh, 1999)

JobAuto1 I have freedom choose the ways to do my job

JobAuto2 I can manage my work timetable

JobAuto3 I can arrange my work activities (when I do)

JobAuto4 It is possible for me to decide when to do specific work activities

JobAuto5 My job allows me change how to be evaluated so that I can highlight my job and play down others

JobAuto6 I am allowed to change my job objectives

JobAuto7 I am allowed to manage what I am asked to achieve by my supervisor

Emotional intelligence

Measurement scales for the four components of emotional intelligence comprised of fourcomponents: self-emotions appraisal (3 items); others-emotions appraisal (3 items); use

of emotion (3 items); regulation of emotion (3 items) (adapted from Wong & Law, 2002)

Emotional intelligence (adapted from Wong & Law,

2002) Self-emotions appraisal

SelfEmoA1 I can often know why I have certain feelings

SelfEmoA2 I understand my own emotions very well

SelfEmoA3 I always know whether or not I am happy

UseEmo1 I always have objectives and have big efforts to get them

UseEmo2 I always trust my competences

UseEmo3 I encourage myself for being well

Regulation of emotion

RegulaE1 I can regulate my manner so that I can control difficulties critically

RegulaE2 I calm down quickly when I lose my temper

RegulaE3 I regulate my own emotions very well

Emotional labor

Emotional labor was measured by two sub-dimensions: Deep acting: 4 items; Surfaceacting: 4 items (adapted from Diefendorff et al., 2006)

Emotional labor (adapted from Diefendorff et al., 2006)

Deep acting

DeepAct1 I just want to do my job without being annoyed

DeepAct2 I try to recognize the emotions that I need to show to others

DeepAct3 I try my best to feel the emotions that I need to show to customers

DeepAct4 I try to develop my internal feelings that I need to show to my clients

Surface acting

SurfaceAct1 I give an appropriate action to deal with customers

SurfaceAct2 I just pretend to have the emotions I need to display for my job

SurfaceAct3 I express my emotions to client that are different from what I feel insideSurfaceAct4 I fake a good mood when interacting with customers

Emotional display rules

The measurement scale of emotional display rules was used by four-item scale (adaptedfrom Heuven et al., 2006)

Emotional display rules (adapted from Heuven et al., 2006)

EmoDisplay1 I am requested to only express positive emotions to customers

EmoDisplay2 I am requested to never express negative emotions to customers

EmoDisplay3 I am requested to place myself in the situation of customers

EmoDisplay4 I am requested to be sincere and authentic with customers interactions

Job burnout

Burnout’s measurement scale was used by five items (adapted from Schaufeli &Enzmann, 1998)

Job burnout (adapted from Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998)

JobBurn1 I feel less interested in doing my work since I began doing this

job JobBurn2 My work does not sound enthusiastic to me

JobBurn3 I have uncertain feelings about the importance of my job

JobBurn4 I am more skeptical about my contribution

JobBurn5 I am extremely tired from my work

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction was measured by five items adapted from Lytle (as cited in Kim, Leong

& Lee, 2005)

Job satisfaction (adapted from Lytle (as cited in Kim, Leong & Lee, 2005))

JobSatisf1 I think my job enjoyable

JobSatisf2 I am quite satisfied with my current job

JobSatisf3 I love my work very much

JobSatisf4 My job is very special

JobSatisf5 I really enjoy doing my job

Likert scale of seven-point from 1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree was used tomeasure the scales These items were adjusted and refined to be suitable for Vietnamesecultures Then, questionnaires were translated into Vietnamese for the main survey (seeAppendix D)

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Respondents Characteristics

The SPSS software was used to analyze data and the findings of the demographicanalysis were described in Table 1

Table 1 Respondents’ characteristics

4.2 Scale validation

Scales in this research were evaluated by factor loadings indicators, Cronbach’s alphaindicators, composite reliability (CR) and the average variance extracted (AVE) inconfirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the scale reliability, discriminant andconvergent validity Each first-order construct and second-order construct was evaluatedseparately by using CFA methods CFA results showed that some items needed to beremoved out of research model to fit with market data (see table 2) Running the CFA forthe final measurement model, the author removed EmoDisplay1, JobAuto7 and JobBurn4because their factor loadings were lower than .5 (.39, .40 and .32 respectively).Emotional display rules was still measured by 3 observed items: EmoDisplay2,EmoDisplay3, EmoDisplay4; Job autonomy was measured by six items (JobAuto1,JobAuto2, JobAuto3, JobAuto4, JobAuto5, and JobAuto6) and job burnout was measured

by JobBurn1, JobBurn2, JobBurn3, and JobBurn5 Thus, the measurement scales of eachdimension were still acceptable The model fit of running CFA was good with theminimum discrepancy of 1.889; the probability of getting a discrepancy was 000; thecomparative fit index was 947; The Tucker-Lewis coefficient was 942; the probability

of getting a sample RMSEA as large as 054 is 063 Estimates of standardized regressionweights of all items were higher than 0.5 with p<.001 Additionally, the scales in thisstudy with average variances extracted indicators over 0.5, composite reliabilities andcronbach’α higher than 0.76 (see Appendix F & G) showed construct reliability,

convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the measurement scales (Fornell and

Larcker, 1981; Steenkamp & Van Trijp, 1991)

Table 2 Means, standard deviations, and standardized CFA loadings of items

Self-emotions appraisal: Cronbach’α=.93; CR=.93; AVE=.82

(Se1) SelfEmoA1 I can often know why I have certain feelings 4.02 1.75 89 (Se2) SelfEmoA2 I understand my own emotions very well 3.92 1.78 89 (Se3) SelfEmoA3 I always know whether or not I am happy 3.90 1.68 94

Others-emotions appraisal: Cronbach’α=.90; CR=.91; AVE=.76

(Oe1) OtherEmoA1 I know my friends’ feelings from their external manners all the time 3.93 1.75 90 (Oe2) OtherEmoA2 I am a very good person who can see others’ emotions 3.86 1.70 86 (Oe3) OtherEmoA3 I can recognize emotions of people surrounding me 3.97 1.71 86

Use of emotion: Cronbach’α=.85; CR=.84; AVE=.75

(Ue1) UseEmo1 I always have objectives and have big efforts to get them 3.82 1.68 87 (Ue2) UseEmo2 I always trust my competences 3.84 1.69 88 (Ue3) UseEmo3 I encourage myself for being well 3.87 1.80 86

Regulation of emotion: Cronbach’α=.92; CR=.91; AVE=.78

(Re1) RegulaE1 I can regulate my manner so that I can control difficulties critically 3.59 1.75 90 (Re2) RegulaE2 I calm down quickly when I lose my temper 3.56 1.67 88 (Re3) RegulaE3 I regulate my own emotions very well 3.74 1.75 87

Emotional display rules: Cronbach’α=.76; CR=.75; AVE=.52

(Ed2) EmoDisplay2 I am requested to never express negative emotions to customers 4.92 1.45 63 (Ed3) EmoDisplay3 I am requested to place myself in the situation of customers 4.20 1.65 77 (Ed4) EmoDisplay4 I am requested to be sincere and authentic with customers’ 4.29 1.70 76 interactions.

Job autonomy: Cronbach’α=.97; CR=.96; AVE=.83

(Ja1) JobAuto1 I have freedom choose the ways to do my job 5.21 1.69 93 (Ja2) JobAuto2 I can manage my work timetable 5.36 1.68 94 (Ja3) JobAuto3 I can arrange my work activities (when I do) 5.42 1.68 95 (Ja4) JobAuto4 It is possible for me to decide when to do specific work activities 4.16 1.57 92 (Ja5) JobAuto5 My job allows me change how to be evaluated so that I can highlight my 4.77 1.60 82 job and play down others.

(Ja6) JobAuto6 I am allowed to change my job objectives 5.36 1.68 93

Deep acting: Cronbach’α=.93; CR=.93; AVE=.77

(Da1) DeepAct1 I just want to do my job without being annoyed 4.88 1.69 85 (Da2) DeepAct2 I try to recognize the emotions that I need to show to others 4.85 1.77 90 (Da3) DeepAct3 I try my best to feel the emotions that I need to show to customers 4.63 1.75 89 (Da4) DeepAct4 I try to develop my internal feelings that I need to show to my clients 4.57 1.74 88

Surface acting: Cronbach’α=.93; CR=.93; AVE=.79

(Sa1) SurfaceAct1 I give an appropriate action to deal with customers 4.31 1.65 94 (Sa2) SurfaceAct2 I just pretend to have the emotions I need to display for my job 4.33 1.69 89 (Sa3) SurfaceAct3 I express my emotions to client that are different from what I feel 4.19 1.66 93 inside.

(Sa4) SurfaceAct4 I fake a good mood when interacting with customers 4.62 1.61 78

Items M SD 

Job satisfaction: Cronbach’α=.94; CR=.94; AVE=.79

(Js2) JobSatisf2 I am quite satisfied with my current job 4.78 1.70 87

(Js5) JobSatisf5 I really enjoy doing my job 4.74 1.77 88

Job burnout: Cronbach’α=.91; CR=.90; AVE=.73

(Jb1) JobBurn1 I feel less interested in doing my work since I began doing this job 4.17 1.65 87

(Jb2) JobBurn2 My work does not sound enthusiastic to me 4.09 1.67 88

(Jb3) JobBurn3 I have uncertain feelings about the importance of my job 4.00 1.67 85

(Jb5) JobBurn5 I am extremely tired from my work 3.97 1.69 82

Notes: CR: composite reliability; AVE: averaged variance extracted; M: mean, SD: standard deviation, :

standardized CFA loading

Moreover, table 3 presents that estimates of correlations among exogenous variables have

number from -.290 to .365, significantly less than .8, showing discriminant validity

among exogenous variables in this research Appendix F shows the Pearson correlations

between items (see Appendix F)

Table 3 Correlations (final measurement model)

4.3 Results of structural equation modeling analysis (SEM)

The model fit of running SEM analysis was good with the minimum discrepancy of 1.972; the probability of getting a discrepancy was 000; the comparative fit index was.941; The Tucker-Lewis coefficient was 937; the probability of getting a sample RMSEA

as large as 057 is 063 Table 4 and figure 2 show all six hypotheses were supported

Table 4 Unstandardized figure of path coefficients Hypotheses path coefficients Testing Est.(se) CR P-

sub-components: deep acting & surface acting Consequently, the results of survey wereused to discuss below:

H1 Emotional intelligence will positively relate to emotional labor.

Hypothesis 1’s test showed that emotional intelligence positively related toemotional labor with standardized coefficient path of 0.21 and p=.001, supporting someresearches which indicated that emotional intelligence is an antecedent formingemployees’ emotions (Guy, Newman & Mastracci, 2014) Subordinates understand theways to control their own emotions and are able to manage when being requested which

is defined as emotional intelligence Then, the ability to recognize emotions in one selfand in others is known as emotional intelligence distinguishing emotional labor from theability to regulate one’s own emotions of emotional labor Therefore, hypothesis H1 wassupported

H2 Job autonomy will positively relate to emotional labor.

The results showed that job autonomy had positive impact on emotional laborwith p= 001 and β =.24 is consistent with research papers which states that emotionallabor strongly associates with job autonomy and affected directly by autonomy (Breaugh,1999) with feeling of having freedom or power to perform the works oneself It allowsemployees to experience their abilities to make their own decisions and to perform a taskwithout control of anyone else Job autonomy shows front-line service employees’willingness to take part in working with freely expressing company’s expected emotions(i.e engage in emotional labor) Thus, H2 was supported

H3 Emotional display rules will positively relate to emotional labor.

The results displayed a positive relationship between emotional display rules andthe ways subordinates show the feeling while performing their jobs The positiveindicators of β =.28 and p=.004 proved that hypothesis 3 was supported in the study Thispositive result was in line with the study of Grandey (2000) Emotional display rules areexternal requirements of the organizations asking their people to show feelings.

H4 Emotional labor will positively relate to job burnout.

In terms of investigating the emotional labor’s relationship with job burnout, thisstudy showed the influence of emotional labor on dependent factor It confirmed theresults of the study of Schaufeli and Enzmann (1998) about front-line service workers(e.g tour guide…) are usually face to face to customers and in this situation they have toknow ways to regulate their emotions By repeating these actions every day, serviceworkers may be aware of losing emotional feeling or tiredness With β = 0.43 andp=0.001, hypothesis 4 was approved

H5 Emotional labor will negatively relate to job satisfaction.

According to figure 1, employee emotional labor had a negative influence on jobsatisfaction at P value of 0.009, with β =-0.22 reporting more requirements of emotionregulation while working face to face to customers may reduce front-line employees’satisfaction on their jobs Thus, hypothesis 5 was confirmed

Figure 2: Standardized coefficient path

H6 Job burnout will negatively relate to job satisfaction.

In terms of studying the effect of job burnout on job satisfaction, this study showsthat there is a negative effect of job burnout on job satisfaction It confirms that whenstress is high and satisfaction is low, the risk of low energy – a central aspect of low workengagement – increases considerably The indicators of β = -.21 and p=.003 confirmedthe suggestion of hypothesis 6

In the conclusion of the research analysis, it showed the good results of the modelfit and all hypotheses were supported

5 Conclusion and managerial implications

5.1 Conclusion

As mentioned above, the research analysis shows the good results of the model fit and allhypotheses were supported The findings display that Vietnamese subordinates, who areworking in tourism industry in Ho Chi Minh City, have the ability to perceive andunderstand emotional information, and to generate and regulate emotions during workingtime Based on the indicators showing relationships among variables, employeeemotional labor has the strongest predictor of job burnout in tourism sector in provingfront-line tourism workers might be counterfeit in claiming for himself or herself by theline others assume he or she has taken during a particular contact in the contrast of howfront-line service employees being able to regulate feelings due to a saving face culture inworking environment, not basing on organizational displays rules Additionally, thisresearch results achieved the research targets and added more behavioral factors which