Job demand and employee well-being. A moderated mediation model of emotional intelligence and surface acting
| Published date | 02 August 2019 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-04-2018-0127 |
| Date | 02 August 2019 |
| Pages | 1150-1168 |
| Author | Shazia Nauman,Usman Raja,Inam Ul Haq,Waqas Bilal |
| Subject Matter | Hr & organizational behaviour,Global hrm |
Job demand and
employee well-being
A moderated mediation model of
emotional intelligence and surface acting
Shazia Nauman
Riphah School of Business and Management,
Riphah International University, Islamabad, Pakistan
Usman Raja
Brock University, St Catharines, Canada
Inam Ul Haq
Lahore Business School, University of Lahore, Lahore, Pakistan, and
Waqas Bilal
Lahore Leads University, Lahore, Pakistan
Abstract
Purpose –The extant research on emotional labor (EL) has focused on positive and negative outcomes
observed in the workplace; however, many fundamental questions remain unanswered. The research has yet
to consider what factors buffer the negative outcomes of EL. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the
relationship between workload job demand and employee well-being with mediating effects of surface acting
(SA) and moderating effects of emotional intelligence (EI) in service organizations.
Design/methodology/approach –The authors used two wave data from a sample of 207 emergency
medical technicians to test the hypotheses.
Findings –By integrating SA, EI and employee well-being with the conservation of resource theory, the
authors found evidence of an indirect effect of workload job demand on emotional exhaustion and job
satisfaction via SA. The results of moderated mediation show that the negative relationship between SA and
job satisfaction was low when EI was high and the positive relationship between SA and emotional
exhaustion was low when EI was high.
Research limitations/implications –A major limitation of the present study is that all the participants
were male and drawn from a single profession within the same organization. Another limitation is that the
data were collected through self-reports.
Practical implications –This research has important theoretical and practical implications for service
organizations wishing to buffer the harmful effects of SA on employees. This study presents key theoretical
implications for the EL and well-being literatures. An important practical implication is that EI is a good
resource for managing SA’s negative outcomes.
Originality/value –The current study contributes to the extant research by showing that workload job
demands have negative effects on employee well-being via SA resulting in reduced job satisfaction and
increased emotional exhaustion. Further, the negative outcomes of SA on employee well-being can be
buffered through EI by taking EI as an emotional resource. High level of EI helps employees to mitigate the
harmful effects of SA.
Keywords Emotional intelligence, Surface acting, Job demand, Employee well-being
Paper type Research paper
In the human service sector, employees are required to display desired or required
emotions irrespective of how they feel, which can negatively impact employee well-being
(Groth et al., 2009). With the increasing significance of the service industry to economies
around the world (Wharton, 1993), research on concepts such as emotional intelligence (EI)
and emotional labor (EL) have attracted much attention in recent years. EI refers to a
person’s capacity to understand and regulate his/her own emotions and understand others’
Personnel Review
Vol. 48 No. 5, 2019
pp. 1150-1168
© Emerald PublishingLimited
0048-3486
DOI 10.1108/PR-04-2018-0127
Received 10 April 2018
Revised 19 December 2018
Accepted 6 January 2019
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:
www.emeraldinsight.com/0048-3486.htm
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emotions effectively (Salovey and Mayer, 1990). Research shows that many service-oriented
jobs require employees to follow integrative display rules requiring them to convey positive
emotions and withhold negative emotions (Brotheridge and Grandey, 2002; Groth et al.,
2009; VanMaanen and Kunda, 1989). Hochschild (1979, 1983) referred to this process as EL
and categorized it into two fundamental forms: deep acting and surface acting (SA).
Previous researchers (Grandey, 2000; Wagner et al., 2014) posit that deep acting implies an
effort to alter actual feelings to match requisite job displays whereas SA implies an effort to
alter affective displays without modifying actual feelings.
The literature shows that different EL strategies are associated with different
outcomes. For example, SA is related to poor customer relations whereas deep acting
contributes to positive customer outcomes (Pugh (2001). SA has harmful effects on
employees and has been linked to personal costs such as negative affect and job burnout
(Chi and Grandey, 2019; Hülsheger and Schewe, 2011) and to lower levels of job
satisfaction and work performance (Gillet et al., 2018). Some of SA’smostwidelyknown
and well replicated harmful effects are on job satisfaction and emotional exhaustion
(Brotheridge and Lee, 2003; Goldberg and Grandey, 2007; Grandey, 2000, 2003;
Keller et al., 2014; Totterdell and Holman, 2003). Although there is a considerable amount
of research on the outcomes of deep and SA, conditions under which such effects vary
have been less widely explored. For example, Yam et al. (2016) suggested that employees
lower in self-control tendencies (low conscientiousness or emotional stability) feel more
depleted from engagement in SA.
Job demand refers to any physical, social or organizational aspect of a job that requires
sustained physical or mental effort and is therefore associated with certain physiological
and psychological costs (Bakker et al., 2003). Workload job demands are situational cues for
the emotional regulation process (Fouquereau et al., 2018). The management and regulation
of emotions in carrying out a job are detrimental to employee well-being. Heavy job
demands thus have negative effects on employees, and these effects for those employees
who engage in SA result in high levels of emotional exhaustion and low job satisfaction.
Previous research assumes that all employees have the same reaction to SA
(Hülsheger and Schewe, 2011; Goldberg and Grandey, 2007; Nixon et al., 2011). However, we
believe that EI serves as a boundary condition around this effect. Research indicates that
those high in EI handle work demands more successfully (Bar-On, 2002). Contemporary
research has shown that EI minimizes the negative outcomes of EL and enhances employee
well-being (Austin et al., 2008; Durán et al., 2004; Gardner et al., 2009; Liu et al., 2008;
Totterdell and Holman, 2003). Dahling and Johnson (2013) recommended further research
investigating the nature of these relationships. Therefore, we suggest that employees high
in EI would be more effective in regulating their emotions and less likely to engage in SA.
Additionally, we anticipate that high EI individuals would understand when they are being
worn down by SA and as a result know when it is best to stop engaging in SA. We expect EI
to mitigate emotional exhaustion and to increase job satisfaction by helping professionals
detect, understand and regulate unpleasant experiences stemming from SA.
We use conservationof resource (COR) theoryas an overarching frameworkfor our model.
COR suggests that individuals experience stress when they lack adequate psychological
and/or physical resources to cope with stressors in the environment (Hobfoll, 1989). SA
depletes employee’s cognitive and emotional resources during self-regulation, resulting in
emotionalexhaustion and job dissatisfaction (Grandey,2000). Employees with more resources
can better fend off negative consequences of stressors. To replenish such resources,
employees’personal resources play a buffering role against stress arising from stressful
situations (Abbas et al., 2014; Hobfoll, 2001). In the same vain, we consider EI as a personal
resource that can buffer harmful effects of SA such as emotional exhaustion and reduced
job satisfaction. Our proposed model is shown in Figure 1.
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and employee
well-being
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