Motivating service employee creativity: regulatory focus and emotional labour

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to advance our understanding of the roles that service employees’ responses to high job demands play in service innovation, by examining the effects that service employees’ motivational orientation in self-regulation (regulatory focus) and their emotional labour strategy have on their creativity. Design/methodology/approach By integrating regulatory focus theory and emotion regulation theory, the authors developed a theoretical model to propose the links between promotion and prevention regulatory foci, different emotional labour strategies and frontline employee creativity. The research hypotheses were tested using hierarchical linear model based on data collected from 304 frontline employees and 72 supervisors in 51 restaurants. Findings The results showed that promotion focus was positively related to frontline employee creativity while prevention focus was negatively related to it. In addition, both emotional labour strategies (deep acting and surface acting) mediated the effect of promotion focus on frontline employee creativity. Surface acting mediated the effect of prevention focus on frontline employee creativity. Originality/value This is the first research conducted to explain, from a self-regulatory perspective, the influence that is exerted on service employees’ service innovation by their responses to high job demands. The findings identify the effects that service employees’ promotion focus or prevention focus in self-regulation have on their creativity, and the data unravel the role of emotional labour strategy as the mediating mechanism that explains the influence of regulatory focus on service employee creativity. On the basis of the findings, managerial directions are offered with regard to managing service employees’ regulatory focus and emotional labour, with a view to enhancing the creativity and innovation within a service organisation.

Emotions naturally and laboriously expressed: Antecedents, consequences, and the role of valence

“…In contrast, surface acting, whereby one devotes effort toward suppressing emotion while feigning an obligatory display, may provide regulatory fit with a prevention focus state, which orients people toward vigilance and duty through avoidance behaviors. Grandey and Gabriel (2015) noted that regulatory focus theory could be used as a new theoretical basis for understanding why individuals engage in emotion regulation, yet only one published study has examined these relationships, and it focused solely on positive displays and on traits as opposed to states (Geng et al., 2018). Our findings add to this work by suggesting that states of promotion and prevention foci can be used to understand the episodic use of deep acting and surface acting, respectively, for both positive and negative displays.…”

“…Though limited, there is some research to support this notion. At the between‐person (or trait) level, Geng, Li, Bi, Zheng, and Yang (2018) found that individuals who were chronically promotion focused tended to use deep acting, whereas those who were chronically prevention focused tended to use surface acting. As the sample consisted of frontline restaurant employees, where displays were presumably positive, the effects of regulatory focus on negative displays were not examined.…”

Human Resource Management Models to Support Emotional Labor during Emergencies in Jordan

“…Though the emotional labor has turned to be one of the key job demands in the competing service industry of today's times, it has an impact on the worker's burnout and emotional exhaustion (Geng et al, 2018). The numerous mental and physical stresses counting burnout, frustration, emotional exhaustion, and uneasiness are recognized as the possible outcomes of emotional dissonance (Alrawadieh et al, 2019).…”

Motivational Field of Creative Activities of the Population of the South of Russia Based on the Materials of Research in the Stavropol Territory

“…One of the important areas of work of the Ministry of culture of the Russian Federation is to ensure the conditions for the development of amateur artistic creativity of the population, which plays an important role in the system of preservation of national cultural values, cultural leisure of the population of Russia. [1,2,3] Institutionally, this is done through the involvement of the population to participate in the activities of amateur groups operating on the basis of sectoral cultural organizations. Therefore, it is important to analyze trends in the development of the motivational sphere of participants and leaders of these groups and the conditions that ensure the stability and stability of the motivational field, which is understood as the living space of a person as a set of interrelated facts.…”