Emotional labor as cultural performance: The communication of caregiving in a nonprofit nursing home

Scholarship on emotional labor has yielded important information regarding the expression and experience of emotions in organizations. Although this concept holds great promise for the study of organizational communication, the current literature has been limited by inadequate attention to interaction and a focus on retail service. The present study extends this body of literature by casting emotional labor as cultural performance and by applying the concept to a human service organization. A naturalistic study of caregiving communication provides descriptive data on performances of emotional labor and implications for understanding the qualities of emotional expression and cultural performance in human service organizations.