How emotional labor affects job performance in hospitality employees

Abstract

The study examines how surface acting and deep acting affect emotional exhaustion and job performance in the hotel industry and whether emotional intelligence has a moderating effect on the relationship. The study was conducted using a questionnaire survey, and the data were analyzed using a structural equation model. The main findings of the study demonstrate that surface acting has no effect on emotional exhaustion while deep acting has a negative effect on emotional exhaustion. This indicates that deep acting not only produces better service performance but also reduces emotional exhaustion. Moreover, surface acting and deep acting both have a positive effect on job performance, showing that both acting skills are all about demonstrating a better job performance at work. Furthermore, emotional intelligence has a moderating effect on the relationships between surface acting and job performance and deep acting and job performance, this indicates that employees with higher emotional intelligence are more likely to perform a more effective outcome of acting on job performance, regardless of whether it is surface acting or deep acting. But this phenomenon only occurs when employees are not experiencing emotional exhaustion. If employees are already experiencing emotional exhaustion, emotional intelligence does not have any moderation effect on job performance.