Employees' surface acting in interactions with leaders and peers

Abstract

SummarySurface acting has been widely studied in organizational research owing to its impact on organizational behaviors and outcomes. Past research almost exclusively has focused on employees' interactions with external parties such as customers, clients, and patients. This study sought to extend this literature by examining the effects of employees' surface acting in interactions with parties internal to the organization (i.e., leaders and peers). Data were collected from 40 work groups (129 focal participants, 40 leaders, and 40 peers) from a large real estate agency company located in Beijing, China. Results showed that employees' surface acting influenced various emotional, relational, and behavioral outcomes. In addition, the present findings revealed that the consequences of employees' surface acting differed across leaders versus peers.

Supervisor‐Directed Emotional Labor as Upward Influence: An Emotions‐as‐Social‐Information Perspective

“…Hence, the present results ( research has initially been developed in customer service settings (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993;Hochschild, 1983), illustrating the instrumental benefits of deep acting, and the potential problems associated with surface acting, among service employees (Bujisic, Wu, Mattila, & Bilgihan, 2014;Medler-Liraz, 2014). Consistent with recent theorizing and research that has cast emotional labor as a common occurrence across diverse interpersonal situations (e.g., Côté et al, 2013;Grandey & Gabriel, 2015), this study extends these instrumentality considerations toward subordinatesupervisor interactions (see also Hu & Shi, 2015;Xu et al, 2014).…”

“…Depending on their epistemic motivation, individuals' approach toward social information processing may differ markedly (Kruglanski, 1989). As noted before, individuals with relatively low epistemic motivation are less attentive to diagnostic information in their social environment and tend to process such information in a rather shallow and unsystematic manner (Kruglanski & Mayseless, 1988 (Hu & Shi, 2015). We focus on subordinates' upregulation of positive emotion displays in the following, because such efforts may be more readily visible than the down-regulation of negative expressions and, thus, may be more likely to shape observers' impressions and subsequent behavior (Van Kleef, 2009.…”

“…Nevertheless, the upward impression management literature has not incorporated subordinates' emotion regulation toward their supervisors to date, and research on emotional labor has only started to touch upon this issue (Hu & Shi, 2015;Xu et al, 2014).…”

Effects of Leaders’ Positive/Negative Emotional Expression on Subordinates’ Voice Behavior: Mediation Effect of Subordinates’ Liking to Superiors

“…The theory of emotion as a feedback system considers that past emotional experience would leave aff ective residue to infl uence the emotional anticipation at the next similar situation to further aff ect behavioral decision (Baumeister et al, 2007). Frequent interaction between superiors and subordinates occurs every day, and the emotional expression of organizational members in the previous interaction would aff ect the successive interaction tendency of both parties (Hu & Shi, 2015). When leaders often give negative emotional feedback to subordinates in the superior-subordinate interaction and communication, subordinates would leave negative aff ective residue on the communication with the leaders.…”

Are You Fake or Real the Role of Emotional Labor on Leader-Member Exchange

“…In the last two decades, significant progress has been made in understanding the role and importance of managing emotional expressions in organizational behavior and outcomes (Hu & Shi, 2015, 1132. It is accepted that emotions form an integral part of leadership-related processes and outcomes (Fisk & Friesen, 2012, 1).…”