Differences in Emotional Labor Across Cultures: A Comparison of Chinese and U.S. Service Workers

Purpose In the global economy, the need for understanding cross-cultural differences and the customer service-related processes involved in emotional labor is evident. The current study attempts to examine this issue by developing and testing hypotheses pertaining to cross-cultural differences between U.S. and Chinese service workers on the levels of display rule perceptions, emotion regulation, and burnout (i.e., emotional exhaustion, personal accomplishment, and depersonalization) as well as the relationships among these variables. Design/Methodology/Approach Data was collected from service workers in the U.S. (n=280) and China (n=231). We tested for measurement differences, mean differences, and differences in the relationships among emotional labor variables between the two samples using a variety of analyses. Findings It was found that the relatively robust sequence of display rules to surface acting to burnout was observed in a U.S. sample but was not observed in a Chinese sample, with some relationships being significantly weaker in the Chinese sample (e.g., surface acting to burnout dimensions) and others exhibiting relationships with the opposite sign (e.g., display rules were negatively related to surface acting in the Chinese sample). Implications The results of this study suggest that many of the relationships among emotional labor variables vary as a function of the cultural context under consideration. Originality/Value This is the first study to directly compare emotional labor across samples from Eastern and Western cultures. Additionally, this study begins to answer questions concerning why models of emotional labor generated in a Western culture may not apply in other cultures

Different fits satisfy different needs: Linking person-environment fit to employee commitment and performance using self-determination theory

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Willing and able: action-state orientation and the relation between procedural justice and employee cooperation

Existing justice theory explains why fair procedures motivate employees to adopt cooperative goals, but it fails to explain how employees strive towards these goals. We study self-regulatory abilities that underlie goal striving; abilities that should thus affect employees’ display of cooperative behavior in response to procedural justice. Building on action control theory, we argue that employees who display effective self-regulatory strategies (action oriented employees) display relatively strong cooperative behavioral responses to fair procedures. A multisource field study and a laboratory experiment support this prediction. A subsequent experiment addresses the process underlying this effect by explicitly showing that action orientation facilitates attainment of the cooperative goals that people adopt in response to fair procedures, thus facilitating the display of actual cooperative behavior. This goal striving approach better integrates research on the relationship between procedural justice and employee cooperation in the self-regulation and the work motivation literature. It also offers organizations a new perspective on making procedural justice effective in stimulating employee cooperation by suggesting factors that help employees reach their adopted goals

Emotional Labor Actors: A Latent Profile Analysis of Emotional Labor Strategies

Research on emotional labor focuses on how employees utilize 2 main regulation strategies—surface acting (i.e., faking one’s felt emotions) and deep acting (i.e., attempting to feel required emotions)—to adhere to emotional expectations of their jobs. To date, researchers largely have considered how each strategy functions to predict outcomes in isolation. However, this variable-centered perspective ignores the possibility that there are subpopulations of employees who may differ in their combined use of surface and deep acting. To address this issue, we conducted 2 studies that examined surface acting and deep acting from a person-centered perspective. Using latent profile analysis, we identified 5 emotional labor profiles—non-actors, low actors, surface actors, deep actors, and regulators—and found that these actor profiles were distinguished by several emotional labor antecedents (positive affectivity, negative affectivity, display rules, customer orientation, and emotion demands–abilities fit) and differentially predicted employee outcomes (emotional exhaustion, job satisfaction, and felt inauthenticity). Our results reveal new insights into the nature of emotion regulation in emotional labor contexts and how different employees may characteristically use distinct combinations of emotion regulation strategies to manage their emotional expressions at work

Do Demanding Conditions Help or Hurt Self-Regulation?

Although everyday life is often demanding, it remains unclear how demanding conditions impact self-regulation. Some theories suggest that demanding conditions impair self-regulation, by undermining autonomy, interfering with skilled performance and working memory, and depleting energy resources. Other theories, however, suggest that demanding conditions improve self-regulation by mobilizing super-ordinate control processes. The present article integrates both kinds of theories by proposing that the self-regulatory impact of demanding conditions depends on how people adapt to such conditions. When people are action-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to improved self-regulation. When people are state-oriented, demanding conditions may lead to impaired self-regulation. Consistent with this idea, action versus state orientation strongly moderates the influence of demands on self-regulatory performance. The impact of demanding conditions on self-regulation is thus not fixed, but modifiable by psychological processes. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Humility breeds authenticity: How authentic leader humility shapes follower vulnerability and felt authenticity

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Leader Humility in Singapore

Singapore Management University, Human Capital Leadership Institute, BSI

The differential impact of interactions outside the organization on employee well-being

Ministry of Education, Singapore under its Academic Research Funding Tier

Overt Attention and Context Factors: The Impact of Repeated Presentations, Image Type, and Individual Motivation

The present study investigated the dynamic of the attention focus during observation of different categories of complex scenes and simultaneous consideration of individuals' memory and motivational state. We repeatedly presented four types of complex visual scenes in a pseudo-randomized order and recorded eye movements. Subjects were divided into groups according to their motivational disposition in terms of action orientation and individual rating of scene interest

Multiple goals: A review and derivation of general principles

A great deal of literature has examined the factors involved in single-goal pursuit. However, there is a burgeoning realization that employees hold multiple goals at any one point in time and that findings from the single-goal literature do not necessarily apply to multiple-goal situations. Research is now being conducted on multiple goals, but it is being conducted across a broad range of disciplines, examining different levels of the goal hierarchy. Consequently, researchers are using the same label to refer to distinct concepts (the “jangle” fallacy) or different labels to refer to similar concepts (the “jingle” fallacy), and some aspects of the multiple-goal space are yet to be examined. We derive seven general principles of the multiple-goal process from a broad review of the literature. In doing so, we provide a common architecture and an overarching perspective of the theory for ongoing research as well as highlighting a number of areas for future research