Work exhaustion in information technology professionals

Abstract

As the role of information technology (IT) in business grows and IT users become more technologically dependent, the IT professional is increasingly expected to work with individuals from other areas of the organization. Dealing with customers, either internal or external, brings the expectation that one will conform to societal, occupational, or organizational norms regarding the display of emotion. This paper examines the impact of emotional display expectations on work exhaustion in IT professionals. We find that the method that one uses to manage emotional reactions in the workplace impacts work exhaustion. Surface acting shows a strong, positive association with work exhaustion while deep acting shows no such relationship. We find that the perception of emotional display rules in the workplace affects the use of emotional management strategies, termed deep acting and surface acting. We also find that the necessity of dealing with other's emotions impacts the level of display rule expectations. The findings of this study offer important contributions to theory by exploring emotional labor expectations of IT professionals. This study also offers suggestions to management to help alleviate the stresses associated with common workplace interactions.

The Politics of Emotion

“…This deep acting results in more positive outcomes for the organization as well. With respect to positive and negative display rules, employees typically engage in deep acting when responding to positive display rules, and in surface acting when responding to negative display rules (Grandey, 2003;Diefendorff, Richard, & Croyle, 2006;McCance, Nye, Wang, Jones, & Chiu, 2013;Rutner, et al, 2011). Consistent with this information from prior studies, we hypothesize the following:…”

“…Emotional labor is a particularly important interpersonal skill for career success in service-and information-based professions, such as IT/IS, where employees must interact with others both within and outside of their organizations (O'Boyle, Humphrey, Pollack, Hawyer, Story, 2011;Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). However, there are only a few extant studies of emotional labor in the context of interactions between IT/IS professionals and their customers and colleagues (Rutner, et al, 2011). Even among IT/IS professionals within a single organization, there may be differing expectations regarding appropriate organizational displays across types of IT/IS jobs, and there may even be individual differences in how employees respond to expectations of emotional displays, but calls for exploration of these issues (Diefendorff, et al, 2011;Grandey, et al, 2013) have not yet been addressed.…”

“…Positive and negative display rules are similar to each other in that both govern the public display of emotion, but they are differentially related to outcomes, such as job satisfaction and job performance, resulting in the recommendation that positive and negative display rules be addressed as separate constructs (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011;Kammeyer-Mueller, et al, 2013;Rutner, et al, 2011).…”

“…Interpersonal skills are increasingly important for Information Technology / Information Systems (IT/IS) professionals, who often work in boundary spanning positions and must interact effectively with customers and colleagues, both internal and external to the organization (Rutner, Riemenschneider, O'Leary-Kelly, & Hardgrave, 2011;Bassellier & Benbasat, 2004). Two interpersonal and social skills that particularly impact interactions with others are the ability to engage successfully in emotional labor by displaying appropriate emotions in the workplace, and the ability to use political skills to effectively influence others.…”

“…Typically, positive and negative display rules are conceptualized as organization-level phenomena, but recent research on units within a large organization indicated that display rules can differ across units within the same organization (Diefendorff, Erickson, Grandey & Dahling, 2011). The same may be true across job types within a single organization, but this issue has not yet been addressed, even though exploration of the varied expectations regarding emotional labor across job types has been called for (Rutner, et al, 2011). Addressing this issue by exploring emotional labor within a single organization, but across job types, is a major purpose of this study.…”