Relationship between Emotional Labor Consequences and Employees' Coping Strategy

Abstract

This research begins with the intention of discerning why previous literature regarding the consequences of emotional labor is diverse in the analysis result. Regarding the result of emotional labor, alienation hypothesis and facial feedback hypothesis reveal the bipolar perspectives. Recently, several works have examined the moderating variables affecting the relationship between emotional labor and its consequences in order to solve symptoms that can frequently be found. However, there has been little study to verify empirically the moderating role of the employee's coping strategy towards emotional labor. This study elaborates a different result of emotional labor according to the coping strategy. The analysis result supports this research's assumption. In other words, it was found that it is highly probable to have only negative consequences of emotional labor only when emotional labor is executed through deep acting and surface acting, but the reverse in the case of emotional labor through genuine emotion. Such an analysis result indicates that the emotional laborer's coping strategies are worth focusing on as the new moderating variables between the emotional labor and its consequences.

Keywords:

• emotional labor
• employees' coping strategy
• alienation hypothesis
• facial feedback hypothesis