Evaluating emotional labor: A new approach

Abstract

Emotional labor—the effort required to manage one's feelings or emotions at work—plays a significant part in many occupations. When it is manifested by emotional exhaustion or burnout, emotional labor can have negative effects on business operations, including high employee turnover. A study of 204 academics in Turkey, in which burnout was hypothesized as a mediator between emotional labor and intention to leave, shows that surface acting—the simulation of emotions that are not genuinely felt—is a cause of emotional exhaustion, and that emotional exhaustion is linked to intention to leave. The study also shows that naturally experienced emotions are negatively correlated to burnout. This indicates that managers seeking to retain employees should discourage surface acting and support natural feelings. A proposed approach to evaluating emotional labor based on business ethics seeks to enable managers to reduce the negative consequences of emotional labor while preserving the positive ones.