This chapter provides conclusion of the study and discussion overall implication of the study based on results and findings. Limitation in data analysis and research design, suggestion for future study are also included.
Surface Acting and Emotional Labor
As hypothesized, surface acting is positively related to burnout. This means that both, Salvadorans and Taiwanese employees in the service industry, experience increased emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of personal accomplishment at work, as a result of controlling and modifying their emotions. The results are consistent with previous studies (Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Zapf, 2002; Kim, 2008). The service industry is characterized by the frequent interaction with clients, which involves displaying emotions in line with the company's requirements. Salvadorean and Taiwanese service employees present increased feelings of emotional exhaustion due to the work demands of portraying fake emotions. Furthermore, depersonalization increases, developing negative attitudes and feelings, such as cynicism towards the customer. Lastly, the feeling of a lack of personal accomplishment increases. Depersonalization makes the individual negatively evaluate himself, especially the personal ability to perform the work and to deal with the customer; as a consequence, employees feel unhappy and dissatisfied with their job results.
Deep Acting and Emotional Labor
The results in this study are contrary to the study conducted by Kim 2008. Deep acting was not found to have a negative and significant effect on burnout. Deep acting involves modifying internal feelings, using techniques that allow the situation to be reframed, turning
66
displayed emotions more genuine. Using deep acting implies that employees would have more positive emotions, and the burnout effect would decrease. Surprisingly, this study found no relationship between deep acting and burnout. For both groups, Salvadorans and Taiwanese employees did not report much use of this resource to regulate their emotions, and it is preferable to fake the emotions as it generates less effort.
Companies in the service industry demand their employees use emotional labor.
Therefore, on many occasions, the employee has to manage their emotions according to the requirements of the company (displayed rules). These requirements can be difficult to meet in a demanding sector such as the service industry. Employees may find very difficult to feel genuine emotions since this creates a more exhausting emotional effort. This may explain why both Salvadorans and Taiwanese in the service industry show a more significant use of surface acting to achieve organizational demands. Deep acting becomes a challenge for the employee to change their emotions to a more genuine state; therefore, surface acting is adopted in its place.
Differences of Surface Acting and Deep Acting on Salvadorean and Taiwanese
This study hypothesized that the positive and significant effect of surface acting on burnout is stronger for Salvadoreans than Taiwanese. However, this hypothesis was rejected, since no significant differences between groups were reported. No differences were also observed between El Salvador and Taiwan in the effect of deep acting on burnout. However, the only difference was observed on the effect of surface acting on depersonalization for Salvadorean employees, reporting higher effect than Taiwanese employees. These results for El Salvador may be explained with Triandis et al. (1984) research, that demonstrated that
67
Latin American countries (such El Salvador) report a high normative pressure to behave positively toward others.
As previously described, El Salvador and Taiwan represent collectivist cultures, characterized by the use of emotional labor to please a counterpart. For these groups, is common to use surface acting and deep acting to hide negative emotions and displayed the necessary ones. For collectivist cultures, it may be easier to hide these emotions, since they have been taught with these patterns of behavior (Hofstede, 1980) becoming a cultural rule that promotes harmony between different parties, which central principle is to avoid conflict.
According to the results of this research, both countries, El Salvador and Taiwan, use surface acting during the interaction between the service employee and the customer interaction, to have a successful transaction. For both countries, surface acting did not represent a significant difference between them. Surface acting becomes an essential technic for service employees in El Salvador and Taiwan to offer a quality service.
Moderating Effect of Customer Mistreatment
In this research, customer mistreatment was not found to have a moderating effect between surface acting and burnout. However, customer mistreatment was found only to moderate the negative effect of deep acting on personal accomplishment. This result suggests that Salvadorean and Taiwanese employees when receiving mistreatment from customers use deep acting to create genuine emotions while facing a demanding customer. The use of deep acting increases the personal accomplishment at work. The use of deep acting requires reappraising the situation and consider the change of emotions as a benefit for the customer and the employer.
Testing the differences between Salvadorean and Taiwanese on the moderating effect of customer mistreatment, no significant differences were found. However, the multi-group
68
moderation test revealed that customer mistreatment towards Salvadorean service employees had a more positive moderating effect of surface acting on depersonalization compared to Taiwanese service employees. This result suggests that Salvadorean employees get more depersonalization effects when receiving mistreatment from customers and make use of surface acting to fake the desired emotions.
For both countries, customer mistreatment was perceived as very low by the respondents;
however, El Salvador reported higher customer mistreatment than Taiwan. Taiwan has a strong service industry, and as a developed country, the standards of service provided are higher. This can explain the low perception of customer mistreatment in Taiwan since the transaction between employee and customer does not present any inconvenient. However, for El Salvador, a developing country, the service provided may present more inconvenient than the Taiwanese transaction, since the quality of the service may not be one of the priorities for the service provider.
Research Limitations
Owing to the data collection, measurement, and sample characteristics, some of the limitation was recognized in this study. First, through collecting self-report questionnaires, the common source bias influenced the result of the investigation. To address this concern, all of the questionnaires were anonymous, and both 5 and 7-point Likert Scales were used in the instruments. Also, the purpose and variables of this research were not explained in advance.
Secondly, due to the time and resource limitation, convenient sampling was used for data collection process. Also, due to the location of the researchers, the collection of data was done through an online survey.
Third, the findings in this study may not be representative and generalize all the service industry in collectivist countries. Responses provided came from different types of business
69
in the service industry, and the conditions or tasks in each business might be different, as well as the location. In future research, is suggested to collect data from standard business characteristics.
Fourth, this study evaluated emotional labor and customer mistreatment, which could be sensitive topics for the respondents and having the risk of obtaining fake responses. To address this issue, social desirability was applied as a control variable.
Implications
Nowadays, the stressful environment that surrounds the service industry provide and the management of emotions that implies to employees has become an important issue. The focus of this study was to understand the importance of the relationship between emotional labor and burnout on employees in the service industry in El Salvador and Taiwan, as well determine the role that customer mistreatment plays between these two variables. As mentioned before, there are several studies about emotional and burnout, but none with customer mistreatment as moderator. Also, there are no previous studies about these variables making comparison between western and eastern countries, with collectivist characteristics.
This study will help the service industry in El Salvador and Taiwan to understand the importance of emotional labor as a predictor of burnout. Dealing with the customer on a daily basis, and addressing their needs become a stressful job, and require an adequate management of emotions. Companies in the service industry should be aware of the techniques that employees use for managing emotions, such as surface and deep acting, and provide training or seminars to handle emotions in a proper way. Emotion regulation is part of the daily work in the service industry, and this routinely activity is leading to burnout.
Many employees cannot cope with this routine, and they decide to jump from one call center
70
to another to avoid the monotony. Future research can also consider the turnover intention of employees due to the demands of emotional labor.
Customer mistreatment was perceived from the employees in El Salvador and Taiwan, is suggested to service industry also to enhance the techniques to deal with customer demands.
Is also necessary to consider the type of customer and market for future research because this can determine the level of mistreatment and demands that customers display against the employees in the service industry. HR managers should also create strategies to motivate employees to deliver a more efficient service and promote the right conditions to employees to provide a service with a more natural display of emotions. Furthermore, managers should be conscious of the cultural differences among their employees, and their emotional training needs should be addressed carefully, respecting the cultural background.
Although previous studies have discussed the variables addressed in this research, there are no studies that consider the participation of customer mistreatment as moderator. For researchers, this study will help them to examine more factors that lead to job burnout, and also identify other criteria related to customer mistreatment affecting employee’s outcomes.
This study also can contribute to the current literature to address these research gaps.
71
REFERENCES
Allen, J. A., Diefendorff, J. M., & Ma, Y. (2013). Differences in emotional labor across cultures: a comparison of Chinese and U.S. service workers. Journal of Business and Psychology, 29(1), 21-35.
Ashforth, B. E., & Humphrey, R. H. (1993). Emotional labor in service roles: The influence of identity. The Academy of Management Review, 18(1), 88-115.
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Verbeke, W. (2004). Using the job demands-resources model to predict burnout and performance. Human Resource Management, 43(1), 83-104.
Baranik, L. E., Wang, M., Gong, Y., & Shi, J. (2016). Customer mistreatment, employee health, and job performance. Journal of Management, 43(4), 1261-1282.
Barger, P. B., & Grandey, A. A. (2006). Service with a smile and encounter satisfaction:
emotional contagion and appraisal mechanisms. Academy of Management Journal, 49(6), 1229-1238.
Baron, R. M., & Kenny, D. A. (1986). The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: Conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1173-1182.
Bedi, A., & Schat, A. C. (2007). Customer aggression: A theoretical and meta analytic review.
Administrative Sciences Association of Canada, 28(9), 115-127.
Beehr, T. A., & Drexler Jr, J. A. (1986). Social support, autonomy, and hierarchical level as moderators of the role characteristics‐outcome relationship. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 7(3), 207-214.
Behrman, D. N., & Perreault Jr, W. D. (1984). A role stress model of the performance and satisfaction of industrial salespersons. The Journal of Marketing, 48(4), 9-21.
Belt, V. (2002). A female ghetto? Women's careers in call centres. Human Resource Management Journal, 12(4), 51-66.
Ben-Zur, H., & Yagil, D. (2005). The relationship between empowerment, aggressive behaviours of customers, coping, and burnout. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 14(1), 81-99.
Berry, L. L., & Seiders, K. (2008). Serving unfair customers. Business Horizons, 51(1), 29-37.
Bies, R. J. (2001). Interactional injustice: The sacred and the profane. In J. Greenberg & R.
Cropanzano (Eds.), Advances in organizational justice (pp. 89-118).
Bitner, M. J., Booms, B. H., & Mohr, L. A. (1994). Critical service encounters: The employee's viewpoint. The Journal of Marketing, 58(4), 95-106.
72
Bono, J. E., & Vey, M. A. (2005). Toward understanding emotional management at work: A quantitative review of emotional labor research. Emotions in organizational behavior, 224-244. Psychology Press.
Bowen, D. E., Chase, R. B., & Cummings, T. G. (1990). Service management effectiveness:
Balancing strategy, organization and human resources, operations and marketing.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Boyd, C. (2002). Customer violence and employee health and safety. Work, Employment and Society, 16(1), 151-169.
Brislin, R. W. (1980). Translation and content analysis of oral and written materials. In H. C.
Triandis & J. W. Berry (Eds.), Handbook of Cross-cultural Psychology (Vol. 2, pp.
389-444). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Brotheridge, C. M., & Grandey, A. A. (2002). Emotional labor and burnout: Comparing two perspectives of “people work”. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60(1), 17-39.
Brotheridge, C. M., & Lee, R. T. (2002). Testing a conservation of resources model of the dynamics of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 7(1), 57-67.
Brotheridge, C. M., & Taylor, I. (2006). Chapter 7 Cultural Differences in Emotional Labor in Flight Attendants. In Individual and organizational perspectives on emotion management and display (pp. 167-191). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
Central Reserve Bank. (2017). Gross Domestic Product by Economic Activity. Retrieved from http://www.bcr.gob.sv/bcrsite/?cdr=30
Charles, S. T., & Carstensen, L. L. (2007). Emotion regulation and aging. Handbook of Emotion Regulation, 6, 307-327.
Chathoth, P., Altinay, L., Harrington, R. J., Okumus, F., & Chan, E. S. (2013). Co-production versus co-creation: A process based continuum in the hotel service context. International Journal of Hospitality Management,32, 11-20.
Cheung, F., Tang, C. S. K., & Tang, S. (2011). Psychological capital as a moderator between emotional labor, burnout, and job satisfaction among school teachers in China. International Journal of Stress Management, 18(4), 348-371.
Cheung, F. Y. L., & Tang, C. S. K. (2010). Effects of age, gender, and emotional labor strategies on job outcomes: Moderated mediation analyses. Applied Psychology:
Health and Well‐Being, 2(3), 323-339.
Cole, M. S., Bernerth, J. B., Walter, F., & Holt, D. T. (2010). Organizational justice and individuals' withdrawal: Unlocking the influence of emotional exhaustion. Journal of Management Studies, 47(3), 367-390.
Colquitt, J. A. (2001). On the dimensionality of organizational justice: a construct validation of a measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 386-400.
73
Cordes, C. L., & Dougherty, T. W. (1993). A review and an integration of research on job burnout. Academy of Management Review, 18(4), 621-656.
Cropanzano, R., Rupp, D. E., & Byrne, Z. S. (2003). The relationship of emotional exhaustion to work attitudes, job performance, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Journal of Applied psychology, 88(1), 160-169.
Dahling, J. J., & Perez, L. A. (2010). Older worker, different actor? Linking age and emotional labor strategies. Personality and Individual Differences, 48(5), 574-578.
Deery, S., Iverson, R., & Walsh, J. (2002). Work relationships in telephone call centres:
Understanding emotional exhaustion and employee withdrawal. Journal of Management studies, 39(4), 471-496.
Diefendorff, J. M., & Gosserand, R. H. (2003). Understanding the emotional labor process: A control theory perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 24(8), 945-959.
Diefendorff, J. M., & Richard, E. M. (2003). Antecedents and consequences of emotional display rule perceptions. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(2), 284-294.
Diefendorff, J. M., Richard, E. M., & Croyle, M. H. (2006). Are emotional display rules formal job requirements? Examination of employee and supervisor perceptions. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, 79(2), 273-298.
Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics [DGBAS] (2017). Service sector in Taiwan. Retrieved from https://eng.dgbas.gov.tw
Dormann, C., & Zapf, D. (2004). Customer-related social stressors and burnout. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 9(1), 61-82.
Eid, M., & Diener, E. (2001). Norms for experiencing emotions in different cultures: inter-and intranational differences. Journal of Personality inter-and Social Psychology, 81(5), 869-885.
Ekman, P. (1973). Cross-cultural studies of facial expression. In P. Ekman (Ed.), Darwin and facial expression: A century of research in review (pp. 169-222). New York:
Academic Press.
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1982). Felt, false, and miserable smiles. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 6(4), 238-252.
Erickson, R. J., & Ritter, C. (2001). Emotional labor, burnout, and inauthenticity: Does gender matter?. Social Psychology Quarterly, 64(2), 146-163.
Folgerø, I. S., & Fjeldstad, I. H. (1995). On duty—off guard: Cultural norms and sexual harassment in service organizations. Organization Studies, 16(2), 299-313.
Grandey, A. A. (2000). Emotional regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5(1), 95-110.
74
Grandey, A. A. (2003). When “the show must go on”: Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 46(1), 86-96.
Grandey, A. A., Dickter, D. N., & Sin, H. P. (2004). The customer is not always right:
Customer aggression and emotion regulation of service employees. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(3), 397-418.
Grandey, A. A., Kern, J. H., & Frone, M. R. (2007). Verbal abuse from outsiders versus insiders: comparing frequency, impact on emotional exhaustion, and the role of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12(1), 63-79.
Gross, J. J. (1998). Antecedent-and response-focused emotion regulation: divergent consequences for experience, expression, and physiology. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(1), 224-237.
Harris, L. C., & Reynolds, K. L. (2004). Jaycustomer behavior: an exploration of types and motives in the hospitality industry. Journal of Services Marketing, 18(5), 339-357.
Hobfoll, S. E., & Shirom, A. (2000). Conservation of resources theory: applications to stress and management in the workplace. In R. T. Golembiewski (Ed.), Handbook of Organizational Behavior (2nd ed., pp. 57–81). New York, Dekker.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling.
Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Hofstede, G. (1980). Culture and organizations. International Studies of Management &
Organization, 10(4), 15-41.
Hofstede, G. (1982). Dimensions of national cultures. In R. Rath, H. S. Asthana, D. Sinha, &
J. B. H. Sinha (Eds.), Diversity and unity in cross-cultural psychology, (pp. 173-187).
Lisse, Netherlands: Swets & Zeitlinger.
Hooper, D., Coughlan, J., & Mullen, M. (2008). Structural equation modelling: Guidelines for determining model fit. Journal of Business Research Methods, 6(1), 53-60
Jolliffe, I. T. (1986). Choosing a subset of principal components or variables. In Principal Component Analysis (pp. 92-114). Springer, New York, NY.
Karatepe, O. M., Haktanir, M., & Yorganci, I. (2010). The impacts of core self-evaluations on customer-related social stressors and emotional exhaustion. The Service Industries Journal, 30(9), 1565-1579.
Kim, H. J. (2008). Hotel service providers’ emotional labor: The antecedents and effects on burnout. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 27(2), 151-161.
Kruml, S. M., & Geddes, D. (2000). Exploring the dimensions of emotional labor: The heart of Hochschild’s work. Management Communication Quarterly, 14(1), 8-49.
Lankshear, G., Cook, P., Mason, D., Coates, S., & Button, G. (2001). Call centre employees' responses to electronic monitoring: Some research findings. Work, Employment and Society, 15(3), 595-605.
75
Leidner, R. (1999). Emotional labor in service work. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 561(1), 81-95.
Lucker, G. W. (2002). La cultura y la psicología social [The culture and social psychology] C.
Kimble, E. Hirt, R. Díaz-Loving, H. Hosch, G. Luker y M. Zárate (Compls).
Psicología social de la Américas. México: Pearson Educación.
Malhotra, N. K., Ulgado, F. M., Agarwal, J., Shainesh, G., & Wu, L. (2005). Dimensions of service quality in developed and developing economies: multi-country cross-cultural comparisons. International Marketing Review, 22(3), 256-278.
Maslach, C. (2015). Burnout: The cost of caring. Los Altos, CA: Malor Books.
Maslach, C. (2001). What have we learned about burnout and health?. Psychology &
Health, 16(5), 607-611.
Maslach, C., & Jackson, S. E. (1981). The measurement of experienced burnout. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2(2), 99-113.
Maslach, C., Jackson, S. E., & Leiter, M. P. (1996). MBI: Maslach burnout inventory.
Sunnyvale (CA): CPP, Incorporated.
Maslach, C. (1976). Buned-out. Human Behavior, 5(9), 16-22.
Maslach, C. (1978). The client role in staff burn‐out. Journal of Social Issues, 34(4), 111-124.
Matsumoto, D., Yoo, S. H., & Nakagawa, S. (2008). Culture, emotion regulation, and adjustment. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 94(6), 925-937.
Middleton, D. R. (1989). Emotional style: The cultural ordering of emotions. Ethos, 17(2), 187-201.
Morales, H., (2009). El papel de los servicios en la economía: Servicios avanzados a las empresas y tradicionales [The role of services in the econonomy: advanced servicese to the traditionals companies]. El Salvador: Central Reserve Bank. Retrieved from:
http://www.bcr.gob.sv/bcrsite/uploaded/content/category/1203891899.pdf
Morris, J. A., & Feldman, D. C. (1996). The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labor. Academy of Management Review, 21(4), 986-1010.
Näring, G., Briët, M., & Brouwers, A. (2007). Validation of the Dutch questionnaire on emotional labor (D-QEL) in nurses and teachers. Psychosocial Resources in Human Services Work, 135-145.
Nunnally, J. (1978). Psychometric methods. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Ng, T. W., & Feldman, D. C. (2009). How broadly does education contribute to job performance?. Personnel Psychology, 62(1), 89-134.
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] (2008a). The Contribution of Services to Development and The Role of Trade Liberalization and
Regulation [PDF file]. Retrieved from:
http://www.oecd.org/investment/globalforum/40302909.pdf
76
Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development [OECD] (2008b), Gross domestic product (GDP). Retrieved from: https://data.oecd.org/gdp/gross-domestic-product-gdp.htm
Parasuraman, A., Berry, L. L., & Zeithaml, V. A. (1991). Understanding customer expectations of service. MIT Sloan Management Review, 32(3), 39-48.
Park, D., & Shin, K. (2012). The service sector in Asia: Is it an engine of growth?.
Washington, DC: Asian Development Bank.
Pizam, A. (2004). Are hospitality employees equipped to hide their feelings? International Journal of Hospitality Management, 23(4), 315-316.
Podsakoff, P. M., MacKenzie, S. B., Lee, J. Y., & Podsakoff, N. P. (2003). Common method biases in behavioral research: a critical review of the literature and recommended remedies. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(5), 879-903.
PROESA (2017). El sector servicios en El Salvador representa el 63% del PIB para el 2016 [The service sector in El Salvador represent the 63% in GDP for 2016]. Retrieved from http://www.proesa.gob.sv/inversiones/nuestros-al-inversionista/boletin-seguridad/item/ 1358-el-sector-de-servicios-en-el-salvador-representa-el-63-del-pib-para-el-2016
Rafaeli, A., & Sutton, R. I. (1987). Expression of emotion as part of the work role. Academy of Management Review, 12(1), 23-37.
Reynolds, W. M. (1982). Development of reliable and valid short forms of the Marlowe‐
Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 38(1), 119-125.
Rupp, D. E., McCance, A. S., & Grandey, A. (2007). A cognitive-emotional theory of customer injustice and emotional labor. In D. DeCremer (Ed.), Advances in the Psychology of Justice and Affect (pp. 99-226). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.
Rupp, D. E., McCance, A. S., & Grandey, A. (2007). A cognitive-emotional theory of customer injustice and emotional labor. In D. DeCremer (Ed.), Advances in the Psychology of Justice and Affect (pp. 99-226). Charlotte, NC: Information Age.