The Role of Emotional Labor in Services: How Employee Emotional Labor Influences Organizational Outcomes

Emotional labor concerns the intrapsychic experience of managing feelings and displays in order to produce appropriate emotional displays for the purposes of work. Most of the emotional labor literature concerns how its performance affects employee outcomes, such as strain and burnout. However, the commonly held assumption that emotional labor is performed for the benefit of the organization has received less attention, with largely inconsistent findings. In this thesis, I present three disparate studies that examine the relationship between employee emotional labor and customer service outcomes more closely. In the first study, I test whether the inconsistent findings regarding the effects of surface acting on customer outcomes can be, in part, attributed to the conceptualization of surface acting and the moderating role of the service context. In the second study, I examine whether the commonly assumed, but rarely tested, concept of nonconscious emotional labor can be triggered by standard priming procedures and compare the effects of nonconscious emotional labor strategies with their conscious counterparts across a variety of social, cognitive, and affective service outcomes. Finally, in the third study, I consider the role of customer judgment processes and emotional intelligence in determining the extent to which employee’s surface acting is detrimental to customer service outcomes. Results suggest that suppressing negative emotions, but not faking positive emotions, has a negative impact on customer service outcomes, but only in service contexts that are highly personalized and when the customer and employee do not have an established relationship. Nonconscious reappraisal is associated with largely beneficial outcomes across a range of service outcomes, compared to their conscious counterparts, but nonconscious suppression is associated with poorer outcomes. Processes that enable more automatic and heuristic judgments predicts more accurate inferences regarding the affective performance of employees, but only when emotional intelligence is also high. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed

Dietary Methionine Restriction Regulates Liver Protein Synthesis and Gene Expression Independently of Eukaryotic Initiation Factor 2 Phosphorylation in Mice

Background: The phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (p-eIF2) during dietary amino acid insufficiency reduces protein synthesis and alters gene expression via the integrated stress response (ISR).Objective: We explored whether a Met-restricted (MR) diet activates the ISR to reduce body fat and regulate protein balance.Methods: Male and female mice aged 3-6 mo with either whole-body deletion of general control nonderepressible 2 (Gcn2) or liver-specific deletion of protein kinase R-like endoplasmic reticulum kinase (Perk) alongside wild-type or floxed control mice were fed an obesogenic diet sufficient in Met (0.86%) or an MR (0.12% Met) diet for ≤5 wk. Ala enrichment with deuterium was measured to calculate protein synthesis rates. The guanine nucleotide exchange factor activity of eIF2B was measured alongside p-eIF2 and hepatic mRNA expression levels at 2 d and 5 wk. Metabolic phenotyping was conducted at 4 wk, and body composition was measured throughout. Results were evaluated with the use of ANOVA (P < 0.05).Results: Feeding an MR diet for 2 d did not increase hepatic p-eIF2 or reduce eIF2B activity in wild-type or Gcn2-/- mice, yet many genes transcriptionally regulated by the ISR were altered in both strains in the same direction and amplitude. Feeding an MR diet for 5 wk increased p-eIF2 and reduced eIF2B activity in wild-type but not Gcn2-/- mice, yet ISR-regulated genes altered in both strains similarly. Furthermore, the MR diet reduced mixed and cytosolic but not mitochondrial protein synthesis in both the liver and skeletal muscle regardless of Gcn2 status. Despite the similarities between strains, the MR diet did not increase energy expenditure or reduce body fat in Gcn2-/- mice. Finally, feeding the MR diet to mice with Perk deleted in the liver increased hepatic p-eIF2 and altered body composition similar to floxed controls.Conclusions: Hepatic activation of the ISR resulting from an MR diet does not require p-eIF2. Gcn2 status influences body fat loss but not protein balance when Met is restricted

Metal-Kondo insulating transitions and transport in one dimension

We study two different metal-insulating transitions possibly occurring in one-dimensional Kondo lattices. First, we show how doping the pure Kondo lattice model in the strong-coupling limit, results in a Pokrovsky-Talapov transition. This produces a conducting state with a charge susceptibility diverging as the inverse of the doping, that seems in agreement with numerical datas. Second, in the weak-coupling region, Kondo insulating transitions arise due to the consequent renormalization of the backward Kondo scattering. Here, the interplay between Kondo effect and electron-electron interactions gives rise to significant phenomena in transport, in the high-temperature delocalized (ballistic) regime. For repulsive interactions, as a perfect signature of Kondo localization, the conductivity is found to decrease monotonically with temperature. When interactions become attractive, spin fluctuations in the electron (Luttinger-type) liquid are suddenly lowered. The latter is less localized by magnetic impurities than for the repulsive counterpart, and as a result a large jump in the Drude weight and a maximum in the conductivity arise in the entrance of the Kondo insulating phase. These can be viewed as remnants of s-wave superconductivity arising for attractive enough interactions. Comparisons with transport in the single impurity model are also performed. We finally discuss the case of randomly distributed magnetic defects, and the applications on persistent currents of mesoscopic rings.Comment: 21 pages, two columns, 5 figures and 1 table; Final version: To appear in Physical Review

Kondo effect in a Luttinger liquid: nonuniversality of the Wilson ratio

Using a precise coset Ising-Bose representation, we show how backscattering of electrons off a magnetic impurity destabilizes the two-channel Kondo fixed point and drives the system to a new fixed point, in agreement with previous results. In addition, we verify the scaling proposed by Furusaki and Nagaosa and prove that the other possible critical fixed point, namely the local Fermi liquid class, is not completely universal when backscattering is included because the Wilson ratio is not well-defined in the spinon basis.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX; to appear in Physical Review

Kondo effect in crossed Luttinger liquids

We study the Kondo effect in two crossed Luttinger liquids, using Boundary Conformal Field Theory. We predict two types of critical behaviors: either a two-channel Kondo fixed point with a nonuniversal Wilson ratio, or a new theory with an anomalous response identical to that found by Furusaki and Nagaosa (for the Kondo effect in a single Luttinger liquid). Moreover, we discuss the relevance of perturbations like channel anisotropy, and we make links with the Kondo effect in a two-band Hubbard system modeled by a channel-dependent Luttinger Hamiltonian. The suppression of backscattering off the impurity produces a model similar to the four-channel Kondo theory.Comment: 7 pages, RevteX, to be published in Physical Review

Universal Resistances of the Quantum RC circuit

We examine the concept of universal quantized resistance in the AC regime through the fully coherent quantum RC circuit comprising a cavity (dot) capacitively coupled to a gate and connected via a single spin-polarized channel to a reservoir lead. As a result of quantum effects such as the Coulomb interaction in the cavity and global phase coherence, we show that the charge relaxation resistance $R_q$ is identical for weak and large transmissions and it changes from $h/2e^2$ to $h/e^2$ when the frequency (times $\hbar$) exceeds the level spacing of the cavity; $h$ is the Planck constant and $e$ the electron charge. For large cavities, we formulate a correspondence between the charge relaxation resistance $h/e^2$ and the Korringa-Shiba relation of the Kondo model. Furthermore, we introduce a general class of models, for which the charge relaxation resistance is universal. Our results emphasize that the charge relaxation resistance is a key observable to understand the dynamics of strongly correlated systems.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Superconductivity close to the Mott state: From condensed-matter systems to superfluidity in optical lattices

Since the discovery of high-temperature superconductivity in 1986 by Bednorz and Mueller, great efforts have been devoted to finding out how and why it works. From the d-wave symmetry of the order parameter, the importance of antiferromagnetic fluctuations, and the presence of a mysterious pseudogap phase close to the Mott state, one can conclude that high-Tc superconductors are clearly distinguishable from the well-understood BCS superconductors. The d-wave superconducting state can be understood through a Gutzwiller-type projected BCS wave-function. In this review article, we revisit the Hubbard model at half-filling and focus on the emergence of exotic superconductivity with d-wave symmetry in the vicinity of the Mott state, starting from ladder systems and then studying the dimensional crossovers to higher dimensions. This allows to confirm that short-range antiferromagnetic fluctuations can mediate superconductivity with d-wave symmetry. Ladders are also nice prototype systems allowing to demonstrate the truncation of the Fermi surface and the emergence of a Resonating Valence Bond (RVB) state with preformed pairs in the vicinity of the Mott state. In two dimensions, a similar scenario emerges from renormalization group arguments. We also discuss theoretical predictions for the d-wave superconducting phase as well as the pseudogap phase, and address the crossover to the overdoped regime. Finally, cold atomic systems with tunable parameters also provide a complementary insight into this outstanding problem.Comment: 98 pages and 18 figures; Final version (references added and misprints corrected

Skeletal Muscle Mitochondrial Protein Synthesis and Respiration Increase With Low-Load Blood Flow Restricted as Well as High-Load Resistance Training

Purpose: It is well established that high-load resistance exercise (HLRE) can stimulate myofibrillar accretion. Additionally, recent studies suggest that HLRE can also stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis and respiratory function. However, in several clinical situations, the use of resistance exercise with high loading may not constitute a viable approach. Low-load blood flow restricted resistance exercise (BFRRE) has emerged as a time-effective low-load alternative to stimulate myofibrillar accretion. It is unknown if BFRRE can also stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis and respiratory function. If so, BFRRE could provide a feasible strategy to stimulate muscle metabolic health.Methods: To study this, 34 healthy previously untrained individuals (24 ± 3 years) participated in BFRRE, HLRE, or non-exercise control intervention (CON) 3 times per week for 6 weeks. Skeletal muscle biopsies were collected; (1) before and after the 6-week intervention period to assess mitochondrial biogenesis and respiratory function and; (2) during recovery from single-bout exercise to assess myocellular signaling events involved in transcriptional regulation of mitochondrial biogenesis. During the 6-week intervention period, deuterium oxide (D2O) was continuously administered to the participants to label newly synthesized skeletal muscle mitochondrial proteins. Mitochondrial respiratory function was assessed in permeabilized muscle fibers with high-resolution respirometry. Mitochondrial content was assessed with a citrate synthase activity assay. Myocellular signaling was assessed with immunoblotting.Results: Mitochondrial protein synthesis rate was higher with BFRRE (1.19%/day) and HLRE (1.15%/day) compared to CON (0.92%/day) (P &lt; 0.05) but similar between exercise groups. Mitochondrial respiratory function increased to similar degree with both exercise regimens and did not change with CON. For instance, coupled respiration supported by convergent electron flow from complex I and II increased 38% with BFRRE and 24% with HLRE (P &lt; 0.01). Training did not alter citrate synthase activity compared to CON. BFRRE and HLRE elicited similar myocellular signaling responses.Conclusion: These results support recent findings that resistance exercise can stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis and respiratory function to support healthy skeletal muscle and whole-body metabolism. Intriquingly, BFRRE produces similar mitochondrial adaptations at a markedly lower load, which entail great clinical perspective for populations in whom exercise with high loading is untenable