LITERATURE REVIEW - When the Customer is Not Always Right: A Comparison Between Salvadorean and

This chapter of literature reviews for developing the framework and selecting variables.

First the literature review of emotional labor, burnout and customer mistreatment. Then, hypotheses are derived afterwards.

Context of El Salvador’s Service Industry

The service industry was previously considered as a group of activities of minor relevance, but this has taken a great boom becoming one of the main growth promoters and job generators; it has also become a very heterogeneous sector. The implications that the service industry has had on the levels of employment, has been one of the aspects that have most attracted the attention of those interested in the topic. Only in Latin America and the Caribbean, for the decade of the 90's, around 90% of new jobs emerged in the service sector and accounted for 55% of the total employment (PROESA, 2017).

The participation of the services sector has been increasing since the 90’s, mainly in the generation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) representing 63% according to information provided by the Central Reserve Bank (2017). This becomes an important issue for El Salvador development since this is related to the productivity of the service industry. Some of the activities that are included in El Salvador’s service sector are: commerce, hospitality, transportation, storage, communications, finance, insurances, service to companies, communitarian, social and personal services, etc. (United Nations, 2008).

In 2007, the Ministry of Economy and the Promotion Agency of Exports and Investments of El Salvador (PROESA) designed the Law of International Services, whose purpose was to attract companies from the services sector. In this law, the figure of "parks"

and "centers" that produce international services was created and they are granted extraterritorial status for tax purposes, that is, they extend the benefits of the free zone to the

companies that produce services with the aim of attracting companies in the area of call centers and customer service providing services to companies in the aeronautical and maritime sectors, logistics services and back office (PROESA, 2017).

Context of Taiwan’s Service Industry

Before the mid of the 1980s, Taiwan had given priority to the primary sector, with activities such as agriculture and forestry. Was until the point when 1949 that Taiwan actualized a progression of import substitution and export extension enhancing the service industry (Xiong, 2003). During this period a notable increase was observed in the customer service, finance, and insurance activities. The period of 1986 and 1995 was vital for Taiwan’s service industry development with an annual average growth of 14% (Xiong, 2003).

However, between 1996 and 2000, the service industry in Taiwan enter into an adjustment and transformation period, experiencing a slowdown in the growth of the sector.

Consequently, Taiwan promoted a series of measures to transform and upgrade the service industry (Xiong, 2003).

Taiwan evolved from a manufacturing economy to a service-oriented one. As shown in Figure 1.1, from 1980 to 2010 Taiwan’s service industry experimented an increased participation on Gross Domestic Product (GDP) over 60%, and a level of employment in the sector over 35%, representing an advantage compared to the other two sectors, agriculture, and Industry. Nowadays, the service sector represents 72% of Taiwan’s GDP, going from a manufacturing economy to a service-oriented one (DGBAS, 2017).

The different activities that fall under the service sector in Taiwan comprise the wholesale and retail trade, transportation and storage, information and communication, finance and insurance, real estate and ownership of dwellings, public administration and defense, and miscellaneous others (DGBAS, 2017). According to the DGBAS (2017) the

finance, insurance, and real estate activities are the most dominant in Taiwan’s service industry, creating significant competitive employment opportunities in the country.

Figure 1.1. Sectoral Employment and GDP Shares in Taiwan. Readapted from “The Service Sector in Asia: Is it an Engine of Growth?” by D. Park and K. Shin, 2012, Retrieved from https://www.adb.org/sites/default/files/publication/30092/economics-wp322.pdf. Copyright 2012 by Asia Development Bank.

Emotional Labor

In the past decades, many researchers have been interested in the role that emotion plays in the customer service industry (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983; Morris &

Feldman, 1996). Employees who work attending customers are expected to show certain feelings and stifle others, and this exertion of managing feelings in return for a wage has been characterized as “emotional labor” (Hochschild, 1983). However, Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) had a different approach to emotional labor, giving more importance to observable behaviors rather than management of internal feelings. The difference between Hochschild (1983) and Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) approach, is that the first one is focused on the management of emotions, but the second one targets the behaviors that come from the emotions. Moreover, Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) explained that behaviors could be

observed after complying organizational rules and these can be commanded with no management of emotions. Another definition of emotional labor was proposed by Morris and Feldman (1996) suggesting that emotional labor grasp both, the exertion and the scope required to express feelings, defining it as “the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotion during interpersonal transactions” (p. 987). Morris and Feldman (1996) proposed four dimensions of emotional labor: (1) frequency of displayed emotions; (2) duration and intensity of displayed emotions; (3) Variety of emotions required to be expressed; and (4) emotional dissonance.

First, the frequency of displayed emotions refers to the constant requirements of the organization to regulate emotions to fit social demands, rather than the frequency of interaction between employee and customer (Morris & Feldman, 1996).

Second, the duration and intensity of displayed emotions. Morris and Feldman (1996) described that higher levels of attentiveness entail greater psychological and physical effort from the employee. This is additionally identified with the force with which a feeling is experienced or communicated.

Third, employees might need to engage with a variety of emotions depending on the job requirements. For example, a professor may need to display a range of emotions toward the students, such as enthusiasm, neutrality to show fairness, and professionalism to all the students, even negative ones while correcting them. Thus, the constant changes of emotions require emotional labor (Morris & Feldman, 1996).

And fourth, employees may feel a contrast between the veritable feelings and the feelings required to be shown. This conflict between emotions is called emotional dissonance (Middleton, 1989). According to Morris and Feldman (1996), the conflict of emotions involves higher levels of emotional labor. For example, to a seller requires higher levels of emotional labor to sell a product that he does not believe in.

Emotion regulation seems to be part of the daily job routine (Wharton & Erickson, 1995) and is relevant during customer service interactions (Bowen, Chasse, & Cummings, 1990).

Front-line employees are required to have frequent communication with customers, as a result of this, becoming representatives of the company (Hochschild, 1983). Front-line employees need to incur in emotional labor to satisfy the expectations of the company for complying specific standards (Diefendorff & Richard, 2003) known as display rules (Ekman

& Friesen, 1982). Many organizations communicate display rules to their employees through their selection, training, rewards and/or punishments methods, to guarantee the appropriate emotion displayed to achieve performance goals (Leidner, 1999; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987).

Indeed, to provide a service that meets organizational standards, employees might use some strategies to manage their emotions while interacting with customers: Surface acting or deep acting (Grandey, 2000; Gross, 1998; Hochschild, 1983). Grandey (2000) developed a model explaining the theory about emotional regulation, based on Gross’s study (1998). In this model, Grandey (2000) explained that surface acting is the strategy to display required emotions with no significant effort, keeping internal feelings intact. For example, employees that need to regulate certain displayed emotions, just like an actor, without feeling them (Hochschild, 1983). The other method is deep acting, which involves changing emotions and feelings consciously from the inside, in order to truly feel the emotions required for the job (Brotheridge & Lee, 2002). Deep acting can be accomplished through different technics, such as attention deployment (recalling specific events to change the focus of thoughts) and cognitive change, reevaluating the situation so the emotional shock can be diminished (Grandey 2000; Gross, 1998).

Näring, Briët, and Brouwers (2007) also proposed two other forms of emotional labor, besides surface and deep acting: suppression and emotional consonance. Suppression represents hiding feelings due to company’s requirements, and emotional consonance is

explained as the effortless requirement of showing emotions according to the demanded situation. Näring et al. (2007) developed an instrument to measure emotional labor using four dimensions: surface acting, deep acting, suppression and emotional consonance. This instrument is characterized by the use of suppression as one of the dimensions of emotional labor. Näring et al. (2007) argued that suppression is important to measure because this represents a different psychological process of restraint of emotions.

The use of different techniques to manage their inner emotions may be inconvenient for employees to match organization’s demands; and this dissatisfying feeling will lead to burnout and job stress (Hochschild, 1983). Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, and Isic (1999) pointed that emotional labor was associated with feelings of personal accomplishment and emotional exhaustion, which are dimensions of burnout. The constant use of emotional labor may create emotional exhaustion and disengagement with individual’s true feelings (Hochschild, 1983).

Burnout

Schaufeli and Enzmann (1998) defined job burnout as a state of emotional and physical exhaustion caused by the stress of the workplace. Nevertheless, the study developed by Maslach and Jackson (1981) is the one that has been used as a base in many studies. Maslach (1976) proposed that burnout was a characteristic syndrome of people with chronic work stress for long-term work reasons, very closely related to the service work and treatment of people, such as the one they have the doctors and teachers. These interactions might harm them in their psychological, affective and emotional state, through mental exhaustion and low performance, and personal fulfillment in all areas of their professional and general development. Adopting all these attitudes of cynicism and sensations of depersonalization will affect both the labor organization of belonging as well as their social and family group

(Maslach & Jackson, 1981). Maslach and Jackson (1981) stated that burnout can be explained in three dimensions: (1) emotional exhaustion, (2) depersonalization (3) personal accomplishment.

Emotional exhaustion represents mental and emotional tiredness that an individual exhibit due to the execution of daily work activities. Discomfort accompanies it and is experienced as a failure to give more of himself or herself, due to the perception of work overload and labor demands during the workday but continues affecting him or her throughout the rest of the day (Maslach & Jackson, 1981).

Lack or shortage of personal accomplishment refers to the feeling of low self-esteem and the perception of low-achievement on tasks performed. Feelings of reduced competence, achievement and motivation in general, which causes the development of dysfunctional attitudes at work, low performance and personal effectiveness (Maslach & Jackson, 1981).

Depersonalization means negative or cynical attitudes that employee displays to the service recipients. A depersonalization of the individual is understood as a general attitude of negative feelings towards others, irritability, disinterest, and cynicism in the general interpersonal treatment. Sometimes depersonalization can be performed also towards coworkers, superiors and/or subordinates, or other people from the social and family environment (Maslach & Jackson, 1981).

The process of burnout explained with the previous three dimensions allow us to observe that burnout is manifested by employees when they perceive difficulties to satisfy organizational expectations (Hobfoll & Shirom, 2000). Added to this, some researchers found certain factors that predict burnout, such as job-related stress, lack of job resources, and the stress perceived from bad attitudes and behaviors expressed by the customer against the employee (Yagil, 2008; Karatepe, Haktanir, & Yorganci, 2010). Cropanzano, Rupp, and Byrne (2003) explained that emotional exhaustion is one of the most important dimensions to

describe burnout, compared to the other two dimensions -lack of personal accomplishment and depersonalization-. This can be explained and supported by other researches which works states that naturally burnout starts with emotional exhaustion, then is followed by depersonalization and this bring as a result the shortage of personal accomplishment (Bakker, Demerouti, & Verbeke, 2004; Maslach, 2001).

Emotional Labor and Burnout

The constant interaction between customer and employee may generate stress (Behrman

& Perreault, 1984). This happens when employees spend too many emotional resources with customer interaction and are not able to restore them (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993) Furthermore, the monotonous activities and task repetition that is performed during employee-customer interaction might increase the feeling of burnout (Taylor & Bain, 1999).

During this interaction, the employee needs to satisfy display rules demanded by the company with the purpose of leaving a lasting impression on the customer about the quality of the service (Barger & Grandey, 2006). To comply with these rules, the two techniques proposed by Grandey (2000) for emotion regulation can be applied: surface or deep acting.

Although both of these strategies can help the employee to have a successful interaction with the customer, surface acting implies “faking in bad faith” (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987).

According to Rafaeli and Sutton (1987), employees who act in bad faith, usually pretend emotions just to comply with the rules established by the company, thus creating a dissonance between what the person really feels and what the person should express.

However, deep acting is referred to “acting in a good faith” (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987), since employee consciously will change the internal feeling to match with the desired emotions, through some techniques such as retrospection of past events, refocusing or physiological modification (Grandey 2000; Gross, 1998)

The constant and intense interaction with customers may generate stress and burnout to front-line employees (Behrman & Perreault, 1984; Yagil, 2008). For example, studies performed among call center companies has been found that the constant interaction with customers constitutes a stressful job (Belt, 2002; Lankshear, Cook, Mason, Coates, & Button, 2001). The monotonous activities and task repetition that is performed in a call center suggest the feeling of burnout on employees (Taylor & Bain, 1999). Part of the routine of the call center corresponds the use of guidelines or scripts to lead the interaction with customers, suppressing the display of real emotions and behaviors, leading to emotional exhaustion, thus driving burnout (Deery, Iverson, & Walsh. 2002).

Many studies had confirmed the relationship between emotional labor and burnout (Kruml & Geddes, 2000; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Zapf, 2002; Kim, 2008). Surface acting has been found to be positively related to burnout since this represents a more significant effort to hide one’s true feelings or display unauthentic emotions (Brotheridge &

Grandey, 2002; Brotheridge & Lee, 2002; Grandey, 2003). However, deep acting has been found to be negatively related to burnout. In a study made by Kim (2008) in the hospitality sector, was found that deep acting was not associated with emotional exhaustion and that employees that fake emotions (surface acting) are more exposed to burnout, rather than the ones who perform deep acting to display authentic feelings. Based on the literature, the following hypotheses have been developed:

H1: Surface Acting is positively related to burnout.

H1a: Surface acting is positively related to emotional exhaustion.

H1b: Surface acting is positively related to depersonalization.

H1c: Surface acting is positively related to personal accomplishment.

H2: Deep acting is negatively related to burnout.

H2a: Deep acting is negatively related to emotional exhaustion.

H2b: Deep acting is negatively related to depersonalization.

H2c: Deep acting is negatively related to personal accomplishment.

Emotional Labor in Collectivist Countries

There has been an increased interested in the variations across Western and Eastern countries, regarding the management of emotions. Cultures can manage emotions differently based on the values they follow to solve situations and establish relationships; being differentiated by individualistic or collectivistic cultures (Hofstede, 1980). According to Triandis (1993), the individualist cultures are characterized by a stable independent self, such as in The United States. On the other hand, collectivist cultures are characterized by an interdependent self, being found in certain regions of Europe, Asia and Latin America (Triandis, 1993).

Hofstede (1980) explained that the intensity of emotions experienced in individualistic cultures is perceived as strong, since this culture motivates its members to express themselves with more freedom, seen as an essential part for the individual’s development. In contrast with collectivistic cultures, individuals display controlled emotions, since members of this cultures are mainly concern on how the displayed emotions will affect others. Even though countries in Latin America are included as Western countries, Lucker (2002) stated that Latin American countries are not individualistic cultures as The United States but collectivistic similarly as in Asia.

Members of collectivist cultures are characterized by having personal interdependence, very susceptible to be influenced by other people, trust in others, avoiding conflicts and showing respect to others, as well they follow the pattern of conduct seen in the family environment. This is supported by Matsumoto, Yoo and Nakagawa (2008), describing collectivist cultures with high tendency of suppressing their emotions in order to display

more appropriate or desirable ones. Brotheridge and Taylor (2006), argued that collectivist cultures, as Taiwan and El Salvador, perform in more emotional labor toward customers, making adjustments in their internal feelings (deep acting) in order to avoid conflicts with others, than individualistic cultures.

In a study made by Hofstede (1982), was developed a scale comparing countries with diverse cultural dimensions, including the levels of individualism among 53 countries. The results showed that both, El Salvador and Taiwan, present low levels of individualism, thus making them collectivist cultures. However, El Salvador presents a higher level of individualism compared to Taiwan as seen on Figure 1.2, presenting El Salvador as a less collectivist country. All Western countries does not follow the same pattern of emotions, therefore, is better to describe the management of emotions from the individualist and collectivist culture perspective (Hofstede, 1980).

The previous study made by Allen, Diefendorff and Ma (2013) found that deep acting is more strongly related to burnout in China than the United States. Eid and Diener (2011) also explained that “the moderation or suppression of emotions is generally highly valued in China” (p.883). Therefore, collectivist cultures tend to perform more in deep acting than surface acting, because the individuals are expected to act in harmony toward others (Allen et al., 2013).

Even though Asian countries are considered collectivist (Hofstede, 1980), the characteristics presented in Asian countries may differ to Latin American collectivist countries (Triandis, 1990). However, based on Hofstede (1980) study, we can predict that Salvadorean people will present higher level of surface acting, and lower level of deep acting, due to the lower level of collectivism that presents, compared to Taiwan. The following hypotheses have been developed:

H3: The positive relationship between surface acting and burnout is stronger for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

H3a: The positive relationship between surface acting and emotional exhaustion is stronger for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

H3b: The positive relationship between surface acting and depersonalization is stronger for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

H3c: The positive relationship between surface acting and personal accomplishment is stronger for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

H4: The negative relationship between deep acting and burnout is weaker for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

H4a: The negative relationship between deep acting and emotional exhaustion is weaker for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

H4b: The negative relationship between deep acting and depersonalization is weaker for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

H4c: The negative relationship between deep acting and lack of personal accomplishment is weaker for Salvadorean service workers than Taiwanese.

Figure 2.2. Country comparison of cultural dimensions. Readapted from Hofstede, G. H.

(1982). Culture's Consequences: International Differences in Work-related Values.”

Retrieved from https://www.hofstede-insights.com/country-comparison/el-salvador,taiwan/

Customer Mistreatment

Although there is a growing interest in the predictors of employee burnout, few studies intended to identify potential moderators for the relationship between emotion labor and burnout. This study proposes customer mistreatment as a moderator.

Customer mistreatment is referred to any action that incurred in offensive, demeaning, disrespectful or aggressive treatment from the customer to the employee (Dormann & Zapf, 2004; Grandey, et al., 2004) Customer mistreatment is viewed as a daily commotion that is commonly expressed in a verbal way rather than physical. Despite the low intensity that this

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