The role of perceived organizational support on emotional labor in the airline industry

Abstract

Purpose -The purpose of the present study was to examine whether and how the perceived organizational support (POS) influences emotional labor and the relationship between emotional labor and flight attendants' outcomes. Design/methodology/approach -Structural equation modeling analysis provided support for the hypotheses from a sample of 256 flight attendants in South Korea. Findings -The results showed that POS has a positive effect on deep acting. Furthermore, it was found that surface acting has a positive influence on emotional exhaustion, whereas deep acting has a negative influence on emotional exhaustion. In addition, emotional exhaustion has a negative influence on organizational commitment, while organizational commitment has a negative influence on turnover intention. Furthermore, POS moderated the relationship between deep acting or surface acting and emotional exhaustion. Originality/value -The current study broadened the conceptual work and laboratory studies in emotional labor by examining the role of POS on emotional regulation strategies related to emotional exhaustion. In addition, this study sheds new light on customer service management within the airline industry by examining flight attendants' emotional labor, particularly interactions with POS.

Teachers’ Emotional Labour and Burnout: Does Perceived Organizational Support Matter?

“…The findings provide empirical support for previous observations that suggest that not all dimensions of emotional labour have potentially adverse consequences for employees. As in the current study, Moon et al (2013), for example, provided evidence for the supposition that the impact of emotional labour may not be entirely negative for employees. Specifically, Moon et al found that surface acting and deep acting was positively and negatively associated with burnout, respectively.…”

“…Two emotional labour strategies are considered in the emotional labour literature (e.g., Brotheridge, 2006;Hochschild, 1983;Moon et al, 2013) to constitute the core dimensions of the construct. They are: surface acting and deep acting.…”

“…For example, Moon et al (2013) examined the moderating role of POS in the relationship between emotional labour (surface acting or deep acting) and emotional exhaustion among flight attendants in South Korea. Moon et al found that POS had a significantly positive effect on deep acting, but against expectations, no significant negative effect on surface acting.…”

“…Most of what is known has been garnered from reviews, commentaries and ethnographic studies (Chang, 2009), suggesting an existing research void that warrants further investigation. In addition, although there has been a surge of interest in emotional labour and burnout, as they continue to appear as core concepts in recent organizational behaviour studies (e.g., Demerouti et al, 2014;Moon, Hur, & Jun, 2013;Schaufeli & Salanova, 2014), these concepts appear to be somewhat in embryonic stage in the Nigerian organizational context. Hence, insight into how emotional labour results in burnout can only enhance the understanding of teacher well-being (Kinman et al, 2011) in the Nigerian organizational context.…”

“…With few exceptions (e.g., Jawahar, Stone, & Kisamore 2007;Moon et al, 2013;Srivastava, 2011), most previous studies have focused on coworker or supervisor support (e.g., Brouwers et al, 2011). Little is however known concerning whether POS can protect teachers from the negative impact of emotional labour.…”