Antecedents and outcomes of emotional labor a study of front line employees of the tourism industry in vietnam

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITYInternational School of Business ---Nguyen Anh Phuc ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES OF EMOTIONAL LABOR: A STUDY OF FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES OF THE TOURI

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Nguyen Anh Phuc

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES

OF EMOTIONAL LABOR: A STUDY

OF FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN

VIETNAM

MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY

International School of Business

-Nguyen Anh Phuc

ANTECEDENTS AND OUTCOMES

OF EMOTIONAL LABOR: A STUDY

OF FRONT-LINE EMPLOYEES OF THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN

VIETNAM MASTER OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

SUPERVISOR: Nguyen Thi Mai Trang

Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Firstly, I would like to say thank you very much to Assoc Prof Nguyen Thi Mai Trang (my

supervisor) for her valuable instructions and kind supports in helping me finish this academic

research I also appreciate the members of the thesis defense committee’s comments and

meaningful suggestions to help me to complete this thesis My sincere thanks are given to all of

my professors at International Business School – University of Economics of Ho Chi Minh

City for their teaching during my master course Finally, I would like to express my deepest

thanks for my family, friends for always being my side during studying the master course

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

ABSTRACT

ABBREVIATION

1 Introduction 1

2 Theoretical background and hypotheses 5

2.1 Emotional labor 5

2.2 The relationships among emotional labor and its antecedents and its outcomes 6

2.2.1 The relationship between emotional intelligence and emotional labor 6

2.2.3 The relationship between job autonomy and emotional labor 8

2.2.4 The relationship between emotional display rules and emotional labor 8

2.2.5 The relationship between emotional labor and job burnout 9

2.2.6 The relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction 10

2.2.7 The relationship between job burnout and job satisfaction 10

2.3 Research model 11

3 Method 12

3.1 Procedure and sample 12

3.2 Measurement (see Appendix D) 13

4 Results and discussion 16

4.1 Respondents Characteristics 16

4.2 Scale validation 18

4.3 Results of structural equation modeling analysis (SEM) 21

4.4 Discussion 21

5 Conclusion and managerial implications 25

5.1 Conclusion 25

5.2 Managerial implications 26

5.3 Limitations and future research 29

References 30

APPENDICES 35

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1 Research model……… 10 Figure 2 Standardized coefficient path ……… 24

LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Respondents’ characteristics 17 Table 2 Means, standard deviations, and standardized CFA loadings of items 19, 20 Table 3 Correlations (final measurement model) 20 Table 4 Unstandardized structural paths 21

ABBREVIATION

ABSTRACT

The new trend of successful tourism companies is truly engaging their front-line service employees by applying emotional labor theory to maximize service quality, satisfaction, and behavioral outcomes This study investigates the antecedents of front-line service employee emotional labor in the tourism organizations in Vietnam It also examines the role of emotional labor toward employee job burnout and job satisfaction Employing the CFA & SEM analyses with a sample of 302 front-line employees, the research findings reveal that emotional intelligence, job autonomy, and emotional display rules has the positive relationships with emotional labor and emotional labor has a positive relationship with job burnout Furthermore, emotional labor negatively relates to job satisfaction of Vietnamese employees Finally, job burnout has a negative relationship with job satisfaction

Key words: Emotional intelligence, job autonomy, emotional display rules, emotional

labor, job burnout, job satisfaction, tourism

1 Introduction

The service sector in Viet Nam is identified as one of the key industry to develop the overall economy growth rate In the trend of transitioning to the freedom economy, the service sector, consisting of tourism industry in Vietnam, has always played an important role The World Travel & Tourism Council (2014) mentions that the contribution factors

of Travel & Tourism sectors to GDP will be hotels, airlines, airports, travel agents and leisure and recreation services that deal directly with tourists The total contribution of Travel & Tourism to GDP of Vietnam was VND311, 117 Billion (9.6% of GDP) in 2013 and directly created 1,899,000 jobs (3.7% of total employment) Vietnam is one of the most popular destinations in Asia, the number of international visitors to Vietnam has been rising every year It means that tourism industry will have to focus more on better human resources policies so that they can fare well in the competition and satisfy their customers due to its special feature is an interaction between service providing by the service employees and service accepting by customers

Travel agencies (both traditional and online) dominate the market for Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines with a 62%, 66% and 52% share, respectively However, direct booking is still getting to the most popular booking channel in Vietnam and accounts for significant sales in this country (Thornton, 2016) Therefore, creating the organizations’ reputation is crucial to take advantages the new trend of direct booking channel The main characteristic of a service sector is “the contact and interaction between service providers (employees) and service acceptors (customers)” (Tsaur, Chang

& Wu, 2003, p 435) The main products provided by tourism organizations are services

and the employees who play role as service providers will provide those services to customers Thus, employee in the tourism industry becomes a part of service products and their excellent performance help to form image of organizations (Kusluvan, 2003) Vietnam tourism industry needs to overcome these issues to optimize its potential at least

by using “professional smiling front-line service workers” to be as “country ambassadors”

Today, the new trend of successful tourism companies is truly engaging their front-line service employees by applying emotional labor theory to enhance satisfaction with their external customers As stated by Grandey (2000), interest in emotional labor for research has been gradually started basing on the work of Hochschild (as cited in Grandey, 2000) Nowadays, business in the tourism is very competitive so that travel agencies must focus more on "service with a smile" to improve their reputations basing

on customer satisfaction, employee behavioral outcomes As mentioned above, front-line service worker’s performance is one of the key points to obtain customer service using and royalty Service workers are therefore requested to regulate their feelings well in acting when interacting with customers (Karatepe, 2010) Hochschild (1983) uses the definition of emotional labor to indicate front-line service worker’s actions of trying to regulate both inside feelings and external appearance of showing these feelings to satisfy company’s expected emotions This researcher mentions that emotional labor may involve showing, pretending to express or suppressing emotions (e.g showing smiles and good humor…) and in each case, managing emotions of front-line service workers will

result in more effective workplace interaction Then, emotions have evolved to help employees act adaptively to customer behaviors and working situations (Grandey, 2000)

Additionally, emotional intelligence shows that employees are able to recognize and understand any emotional signal Based on that ability, front-line service employees may use suitable ways to manage their feelings and encourage intellectual growth (Salovey & Mayer, 1990) Therefore, emotional intelligence becomes a critical factors to make emotional issues easier for service workers to regulate While front-line service employees perform their jobs, they always interact to customers face-to-face So they are asked to show appropriate manners and control their feelings well (Karatepe, 2010) Thus, a study of both emotional labor and emotional intelligence for understanding service employee individual emotional expression to help the service employees keep smiling faces is really important

The reality is that front-line service workers in Vietnam are facing to different kind of stresses Vietnamnet (2017) reveals that employees have to deal with a lot of unexpected troubles or customers’ bad attitudes leading to work stress and job burnout Sexual harassments while contacting with the customers is not an easy case for employees to handle and these challenges will hurt employees’ emotion (VOV, 2016) Moreover, these workers admit that they are tired of fixing the frequent bad tourism environment of destinations in Vietnam or tired of how using their relationships with intermediaries to perform the best services for customers (Vietnamnet, 2017) Employees

in the service sector also share their anxieties on balancing their times for families and for working (Tap Chi Du Lich, 2016) Chowdhary and Prakash (2010) show in their study

that the above challenges will create mental and physical pressure resulting job burnout, less job satisfaction and finally low service quality Up till now, there are a lot of researches studying about employees’ emotional labor and emotional labor in developed countries (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Grandey, 2000) (also see appendix G) In scholars’ attempts to search for potential antecedents and outcomes that have high power to explain worker emotional labor in the service industry, Grandey (2000) conceptualizes a model to help employees to regulate their emotions when performing their jobs in the workplace which includes situational cues (e.g interaction expectations, emotional events), emotion regulation process (emotional labor, individual factors, organizational factors), results (e.g individual well-being, organizational well-being) and then other works restrict themselves to identify these factors separately or not

in the tourism industry There is few studies mention the relationships of these factors in one model to have an empirical research in tourism industry As the researcher well searched from previous studies, the study of Hoang (2010) studies the application of emotional labor to distinguish the differences in emotional labor illustration of female employees in the low-end sectors and high-end sectors Very few scholars do the research about this issue in the tourism industry in Vietnam – where front-line tourism workers might be counterfeit in claiming for himself or herself by the line others assume he or she has taken during a particular contact in the contrast of his or her ability to manage emotions due to a saving face culture in working environment, not basing on organizational displays rules (Nguyen, Ladkin & Osman, 2016; Quang, Khuong & Le, 2015) More importantly, due to this saving face culture, Vietnamese tourism front-line

employees often try to control their manners while face-to-face interact with customers for long time They will easily hurt physically or emotionally by stress Thus, this study try to understand and fill in this gap by testing the effects of emotional intelligence, job autonomy, emotional display rules on emotional labor, and subsequently on job burnout and job satisfaction of front-line service workers who are working in the tourism industry

in Vietnam Basing on the research results, this finding provides managers a deep understanding about emotional labor Therefore, findings of this study can be used to develop the suitable human capital management strategies in the tourism organizations

2 Theoretical background and hypotheses

2.1 Emotional labor

Emotional labor refers to “the regulation and expression of organizationally desired emotions at work in order to fulfill the emotional display requirement of the organizations or job” (Diefendorff, Richard, & Croyle, 2006; p.17) The research of emotional labor shows that when front-line service employees are asked to have particular expressions to customers during working might create more pressures to employees’ feelings Grandey (2000) mentions employees experience the process of regulating their manners and showing up to follow the emotional expectations of a job (e.g services) These service workers are expected to regulate their emotions (e.g displaying positive emotions and acting friendly) while working with customers, colleagues and supervisors This study is going to discover the ways that service workers control their emotions to satisfy with their works and to improve work outcomes

Diefendorff et al (2006) and Grandy (2000) study emotional labor by analyzing how to show (e.g surface acting) and control feelings (e.g deep acting) for meeting organizational goals Then, the front-line service employees surely know how to interact with the customers with an enthusiastic and friendly attitude That is why, more learning about this concept is really essential for Vietnamese tourism organizations

2.2 The relationships among emotional labor and its antecedents and its outcomes 2.2.1 The relationship between emotional intelligence and emotional labor

Emotional intelligence is identified as the concept of “social intelligence” to refer the ability to use emotions in both oneself and others to produce beneficial outcomes (Wong

& Law, 2002; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) Emotional intelligence shows that employees are able to recognize and understand any emotional signal Based on that ability, front-line service employees may use suitable ways to manage their feelings and encourage intellectual growth (Wong & Law, 2002; Salovey & Mayer, 1990) It is known as “the ability to recognize and use information in social interactions” (Grandey, 2000, p 106) Characterized by considerable face-to-face interaction with customers, the tourism industry requires front-line employees to manage, regulate, and control their emotions effectively (Karatepe, 2010) Front-line service workers, who have knowledge and understand more about emotional intelligence, are more skillful in using suitable behavior for each social interactions (Balogun, Balogun, & Agesin, 2016) Emotional intelligence should be more employed by front-line service employees to provide excellent services for the customers (Grandey, 2000) Based on that, front-line service employees would

really know how they feel and why Then, they are able to regulate their suitable emotions as requested

Employees understand the ways to control their own emotions and are able to manage when being requested which is defined as emotional intelligence Then, employees’ abilities to recognize their own emotions and others known as emotional intelligence will distinguish from their abilities to regulate their own emotions known as emotional labor Emotional intelligence is an important factor in changing emotional behaviors and it modify employee’s emotional labor (Lee & Ok, 2012) Numerous recent studies has also used emotional intelligence as service workers’ ability for controlling emotion and their capacity to regulate the feelings knowing as emotional labor (e.g Mastracci, Newman & Guy, 2010; Lee & Ok, 2012) Mastracci el al (2010) reveal the knowledge or understanding of employees about emotional intelligence as their abilities that are needed to regulate emotional labor Additionally, emotional labor will have an effect on whether a person engages in surface acting or performs deep acting in case they experience emotional dissonance (Grandey, 2000) As such, these abilities of emotional intelligence may help front-line workers know when to perform emotional labor.Emotional intelligence and emotional labor are always together If there is no existence of one of them, other will be disappearing (Guy, Newman & Mastracci, 2014) Thus, it is proposed:

H1: Emotional intelligence will positively relate to emotional labor

2.2.3 The relationship between job autonomy and emotional labor

Job autonomy is defined by Breaugh (1999), a feeling of having freedom or power to perform the works oneself It allows employees to experience their abilities to make their own decisions and to perform a task without control of anyone else.Job autonomy shows front-line service employees’ willingness to take part in working with freely expressing company’s expected emotions (i.e engage in emotional labor) A front-line service employee (e.g tour guide in the tourism industry…) usually interacts directly to customers, so more job autonomy leads more individual choice and discretion involved in

a job and customers satisfaction In all the situations or circumstances, when front-line service employees are required to regulate their emotions by the travel agencies with freedom or without freedom, they are not themselves anymore Thus, it is hypothesized:

H2: Job autonomy will positively relate to emotional labor

2.2.4 The relationship between emotional display rules and emotional labor

Display rules are a social group's informal norms about when, where, and how one should express emotions (Heuven, Bakker, Schaufeli, & Huisman, 2006; Safdar, Friedlmeier, Matsumoto, Yoo, Kwantes, Kakai, & Shigemasu, 2009) They may be known as the standard behavior requirement in socializing with other people Safdar et al (2009) state that the way to show feelings may be different and from these points to identify one's cultural and social identity Display rules require people to show suitable attitudes in different circumstances While emotional intelligence and emotional labor are employee’s internal abilities to recognize the feelings and manage one’s own emotions, emotional display rules are external requirements of the organizations asking their people

to show feelings The local cultures are surely different with the others Additionally, the Vietnamese front-line service employee (e.g tour guide…) lacks working experience with multi-national customers Thus, the organizations generally use the display rules as the expectations for emotional expression that the employees should show the public (Grandey, 2000) Thus, it is proposed:

H3: Emotional display rules will positively relate to emotional labor

2.2.5 The relationship between emotional labor and job burnout

Burnout is a stress outcome typically found in employees in service industries Burnout occurs when an employee becomes overly emotionally involved in interactions with customers and has little way to replenish those emotional resources being spent (Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998; Grandey, 2000) The signs of burnout are emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and reduced personal accomplishment (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993) When front-line service workers (e.g tour guide…) are usually face to face to customers and in this situation they have to know ways to regulate their emotions

By repeating these actions every day, service workers may be aware of losing emotional feeling or tiredness To deal with this happening problems in emotions, front-line service workers separate themselves from customers by opposing or lying them If these problems are not solved, employees will have bad feelings about themselves, their jobs, and their job performance might reduce as long consequences (Cordes & Dougherty, 1993) Thus, it is hypothesized:

H4: Emotional labor will positively relate to job burnout

2.2.6 The relationship between emotional labor and job satisfaction

Job satisfaction is a positive feeling of love doing job and it is also a way to help employees to evaluate their job performance (Dubinsky & Hartley, 1986) It is said that when front-line service workers are requested to be nice to customers may help them enjoy doing their works (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993) Nevertheless, trying to regulate their emotions for too while service workers have internal emotional conflicts may threaten personal feeling (Hochschild, 1983) Vietnam is a keeping face culture, Vietnamese tourism front-line employees are (e.g tour guide…) usually face to face to customers and in this situation they have to know ways to regulate their emotions By repeating these actions every day, service workers may be aware of losing emotional feeling or tiredness and lower their satisfactions It means the service workers who often try to regulate emotions with customers may have less job satisfaction Thus, it is proposed:

H5: Emotional labor will negatively relate to job satisfaction

2.2.7 The relationship between job burnout and job satisfaction

According to the work of Rothmann (2008), a positive feeling of love doing job will be affected very much by too much stress while working Fairbrother and Warn (2003) state that employees have more job burnout will reduce their pleasant of performing their jobs Furthermore, Rothmann (2008) reaffirms that job satisfaction has been negatively impacted by pressure or worry caused by the problems on jobs It shows that when pressure of work increases and love of doing job will decrease It is a key point of low job involvement for frontline service workers in the tourism industry Additionally, as it

is mentioned above, Vietnamese tourism front-line employees often contact face-to-face

to customers with stress will lower their satisfactions Therefore, the researcher proposed

3 Method

3.1 Procedure and sample

This study were undertaken by an in-depth question qualitative study and a questionnaire survey from employees in Ho Chi Minh Citysince most of travel agencies centralize here (69.7% of Vietnam) & the travel agency creates a link between the customers and service suppliers (Department of tourism Ho Chi Minh City, 2017) Respondents were front-line employees (e.g tour guides…) who are working in the tourism industry The original scales was used in the in-depth interviews to adjust the items being suitable for Vietnamese respondents The main quantitative survey was used to test the measurement and structural models Through the qualitative study, the questionnaires, which were translated into Vietnamese, were used to question six people in order to modify and revise all observed items of the draft questionnaire to make improvement for the official questionnaire From June 7th to June 14th, there were six interviews conducted in Ho Chi Minh City Each question of the measurement scale was alternatively asked for respondents’ understanding and suggestions until every item being fully understood The final measurement scales was slightly modified to be suitable used in Vietnam (see Appendix A, B, & C)

The method of self-administered survey with the convenience sampling approach was employed for this study The measurement scales in this study had forty one items so that the minimum sample size should be: n=41*5=205 samples From July 13th to September 25th, electronic mail (emails of respondents were provided by tour operators and by Saigon tour guide union), Google survey (to Saigon tour guide union) and hard

copies were (to travel agency offices) used to deliver 500 questionnaires to participants who are working as front-line officers for travel agencies in Ho Chi Minh City (via electronic mail was 21%, Google survey was 58% and hard copies were 21%)

After data collection, the researcher collected total 356 responses from 35 travel agencies; the answer rate was 71.2 percent Then, total 54 answer sheets were not used because they were not suitable (13 answers were not from the tourism industry; 8 answer sheets with the same answer for all questions; and the others with missing answer values) Finally, 302 answers were enough to be analyzed comparing with a necessary sample size The data was used to be calculating Cronbach’s alpha, CFA to test the reliability and validity of each measurement scale Then, the model and hypotheses were tested by using SEM analysis

3.2 Measurement (see Appendix D)

Job autonomy

Job autonomy was measured by seven-item scale (adapted from Breaugh, 1999)

Job autonomy (adapted from Breaugh, 1999)

JobAuto1 I have freedom choose the ways to do my job

JobAuto2 I can manage my work timetable

JobAuto3 I can arrange my work activities (when I do)

JobAuto4 It is possible for me to decide when to do specific work activities

JobAuto5 My job allows me change how to be evaluated so that I can highlight my job and play down others

JobAuto6 I am allowed to change my job objectives

JobAuto7 I am allowed to manage what I am asked to achieve by my supervisor

Emotional intelligence

Measurement scales for the four components of emotional intelligence comprised of four components: self-emotions appraisal (3 items); others-emotions appraisal (3 items); use

of emotion (3 items); regulation of emotion (3 items) (adapted from Wong & Law, 2002)

Emotional intelligence (adapted from Wong & Law, 2002)

Self-emotions appraisal

SelfEmoA1 I can often know why I have certain feelings

SelfEmoA2 I understand my own emotions very well

SelfEmoA3 I always know whether or not I am happy

Others-emotions appraisal

OtherEmoA1 I know my friends’ feelings from their external manners all the time

OtherEmoA2 I am a very good person who can see others’ emotions

OtherEmoA3 I can recognize emotions of people surrounding me

Use of emotion

UseEmo1 I always have objectives and have big efforts to get them

UseEmo2 I always trust my competences

UseEmo3 I encourage myself for being well

Regulation of emotion

RegulaE1 I can regulate my manner so that I can control difficulties critically

RegulaE2 I calm down quickly when I lose my temper

RegulaE3 I regulate my own emotions very well

Emotional labor

Emotional labor was measured by two sub-dimensions: Deep acting: 4 items; Surface

acting: 4 items (adapted from Diefendorff et al., 2006)

Emotional labor (adapted from Diefendorff et al., 2006)

Deep acting

DeepAct1 I just want to do my job without being annoyed

DeepAct2 I try to recognize the emotions that I need to show to others

DeepAct3 I try my best to feel the emotions that I need to show to customers

DeepAct4 I try to develop my internal feelings that I need to show to my clients

Surface acting

SurfaceAct1 I give an appropriate action to deal with customers

SurfaceAct2 I just pretend to have the emotions I need to display for my job

SurfaceAct3 I express my emotions to client that are different from what I feel inside SurfaceAct4 I fake a good mood when interacting with customers

Emotional display rules

The measurement scale of emotional display rules was used by four-item scale (adapted from Heuven et al., 2006)

Emotional display rules (adapted from Heuven et al., 2006)

EmoDisplay1 I am requested to only express positive emotions to customers

EmoDisplay2 I am requested to never express negative emotions to customers

EmoDisplay3 I am requested to place myself in the situation of customers

EmoDisplay4 I am requested to be sincere and authentic with customers interactions

Job burnout

Burnout’s measurement scale was used by five items (adapted from Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998)

Job burnout (adapted from Schaufeli & Enzmann, 1998)

JobBurn1 I feel less interested in doing my work since I began doing this job

JobBurn2 My work does not sound enthusiastic to me

JobBurn3 I have uncertain feelings about the importance of my job

JobBurn4 I am more skeptical about my contribution

JobBurn5 I am extremely tired from my work

Job satisfaction

Job satisfaction was measured by five items adapted from Lytle (as cited in Kim, Leong

& Lee, 2005)

Job satisfaction (adapted from Lytle (as cited in Kim, Leong & Lee, 2005))

JobSatisf1 I think my job enjoyable

JobSatisf2 I am quite satisfied with my current job

JobSatisf3 I love my work very much

JobSatisf4 My job is very special

JobSatisf5 I really enjoy doing my job

Likert scale of seven-point from 1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree was used to measure the scales These items were adjusted and refined to be suitable for Vietnamese cultures Then, questionnaires were translated into Vietnamese for the main survey (see Appendix D)

4 Results and discussion

4.1 Respondents Characteristics

The SPSS software was used to analyze data and the findings of the demographic analysis were described in Table 1

Table 1 Respondents’ characteristics Demographic profile Category Frequency Percentage (%)

Female Total

181

121

302

59.9 40.1

100

24 – 30

31 – 45 Over 45 Total

100

Income per month

(million VND)

Less than 6 From 6 to less than 9 From 9 to less than 14 Above 14 Total

100

Experience

(years)

Less than 0.6 From 0.6 to 2 Over 2 Total

100

Initial analysis of data indicated that there were 35 travel agencies in HCM City with 302 respondents including front-line service officers Male rate was 59.9% of respondents and female was 40.1% of the sample More than 62.9% of the participants in this study were from 24 to 30 years old and old participants held very small rate with only 0.7% Income per month was divided in four groups with 93.4% of sample had high salary over 9 million VND

4.2 Scale validation

Scales in this research were evaluated by factor loadings indicators, Cronbach’s alpha indicators, composite reliability (CR) and the average variance extracted (AVE) in confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test the scale reliability, discriminant and convergent validity Each first-order construct and second-order construct was evaluated separately by using CFA methods CFA results showed that some items needed to be removed out of research model to fit with market data (see table 2) Running the CFA for the final measurement model, the author removed EmoDisplay1, JobAuto7 and JobBurn4 because their factor loadings were lower than 5 (.39, 40 and 32 respectively) Emotional display rules was still measured by 3 observed items: EmoDisplay2, EmoDisplay3, EmoDisplay4; Job autonomy was measured by six items (JobAuto1, JobAuto2, JobAuto3, JobAuto4, JobAuto5, and JobAuto6) and job burnout was measured

by JobBurn1, JobBurn2, JobBurn3, and JobBurn5 Thus, the measurement scales of each dimension were still acceptable The model fit of running CFA was good with the minimum discrepancy of 1.889; the probability of getting a discrepancy was 000; the comparative fit index was 947; The Tucker-Lewis coefficient was 942; the probability

of getting a sample RMSEA as large as 054 is 063 Estimates of standardized regression weights of all items were higher than 0.5 with p<.001 Additionally, the scales in this study with average variances extracted indicators over 0.5, composite reliabilities and cronbach’α higher than 0.76 (see Appendix F & G) showed construct reliability,

convergent validity, and discriminant validity of the measurement scales (Fornell and

Larcker, 1981; Steenkamp & Van Trijp, 1991)

Table 2 Means, standard deviations, and standardized CFA loadings of items

Self-emotions appraisal: Cronbach’α=.93; CR=.93; AVE=.82

(Se1) SelfEmoA1 I can often know why I have certain feelings 4.02 1.75 89 (Se2) SelfEmoA2 I understand my own emotions very well 3.92 1.78 89 (Se3) SelfEmoA3 I always know whether or not I am happy 3.90 1.68 94

Others-emotions appraisal: Cronbach’α=.90; CR=.91; AVE=.76

(Oe1) OtherEmoA1 I know my friends’ feelings from their external manners all the time 3.93 1.75 90 (Oe2) OtherEmoA2 I am a very good person who can see others’ emotions 3.86 1.70 86 (Oe3) OtherEmoA3 I can recognize emotions of people surrounding me 3.97 1.71 86

Use of emotion: Cronbach’α=.85; CR=.84; AVE=.75

(Ue1) UseEmo1 I always have objectives and have big efforts to get them 3.82 1.68 87

Regulation of emotion: Cronbach’α=.92; CR=.91; AVE=.78

(Re1) RegulaE1 I can regulate my manner so that I can control difficulties critically 3.59 1.75 90 (Re2) RegulaE2 I calm down quickly when I lose my temper 3.56 1.67 88

Emotional display rules: Cronbach’α=.76; CR=.75; AVE=.52

(Ed2) EmoDisplay2 I am requested to never express negative emotions to customers 4.92 1.45 63 (Ed3) EmoDisplay3 I am requested to place myself in the situation of customers 4.20 1.65 77 (Ed4) EmoDisplay4 I am requested to be sincere and authentic with customers’

interactions

4.29 1.70 76

Job autonomy: Cronbach’α=.97; CR=.96; AVE=.83

(Ja1) JobAuto1 I have freedom choose the ways to do my job 5.21 1.69 93

(Ja3) JobAuto3 I can arrange my work activities (when I do) 5.42 1.68 95 (Ja4) JobAuto4 It is possible for me to decide when to do specific work activities 4.16 1.57 92 (Ja5) JobAuto5 My job allows me change how to be evaluated so that I can highlight my

job and play down others

4.77 1.60 82 (Ja6) JobAuto6 I am allowed to change my job objectives 5.36 1.68 93

Deep acting: Cronbach’α=.93; CR=.93; AVE=.77

(Da1) DeepAct1 I just want to do my job without being annoyed 4.88 1.69 85 (Da2) DeepAct2 I try to recognize the emotions that I need to show to others 4.85 1.77 90 (Da3) DeepAct3 I try my best to feel the emotions that I need to show to customers 4.63 1.75 89 (Da4) DeepAct4 I try to develop my internal feelings that I need to show to my clients 4.57 1.74 88

Surface acting: Cronbach’α=.93; CR=.93; AVE=.79

(Sa1) SurfaceAct1 I give an appropriate action to deal with customers 4.31 1.65 94 (Sa2) SurfaceAct2 I just pretend to have the emotions I need to display for my job 4.33 1.69 89 (Sa3) SurfaceAct3 I express my emotions to client that are different from what I feel

inside

4.19 1.66 93 (Sa4) SurfaceAct4 I fake a good mood when interacting with customers 4.62 1.61 78

(Continued)

Moreover, table 3 presents that estimates of correlations among exogenous variables have number from -.290 to 365, significantly less than 8, showing discriminant validity among exogenous variables in this research Appendix F shows the Pearson correlations between items (see Appendix F)

Table 3 Correlations (final measurement model)

Job satisfaction: Cronbach’α=.94; CR=.94; AVE=.79

(Js2) JobSatisf2 I am quite satisfied with my current job 4.78 1.70 87

Job burnout: Cronbach’α=.91; CR=.90; AVE=.73

(Jb1) JobBurn1 I feel less interested in doing my work since I began doing this job 4.17 1.65 87 (Jb2) JobBurn2 My work does not sound enthusiastic to me 4.09 1.67 88 (Jb3) JobBurn3 I have uncertain feelings about the importance of my job 4.00 1.67 85

Notes: CR: composite reliability; AVE: averaged variance extracted; M: mean, SD: standard deviation,  :

standardized CFA loading

4.3 Results of structural equation modeling analysis (SEM)

The model fit of running SEM analysis was good with the minimum discrepancy of 1.972; the probability of getting a discrepancy was 000; the comparative fit index was 941; The Tucker-Lewis coefficient was 937; the probability of getting a sample RMSEA

as large as 057 is 063.Table 4 and figure 2 show all six hypotheses were supported

Table 4 Unstandardized figure of path coefficients Hypotheses path coefficients Testing

result

Est.(se) CR

P-value H1 Emotional intelligence will

positively relate to emotional

labor

Supported 210(.064) 3.294 ***

H2 Job autonomy will positively

relate to emotional labor

Supported 243(.054) 4.507 ***

H3 Emotional display rules will

positively relate to emotional

labor

Supported 281(.096) 2.914 **

H4 Emotional labor will positively

relate to job burnout

Supported 430(.077) 5.506 ***

H5 Emotional labor will negatively

relate to job satisfaction

sub-components: deep acting & surface acting Consequently, the results of survey were used to discuss below:

H1 Emotional intelligence will positively relate to emotional labor

Hypothesis 1’s test showed that emotional intelligence positively related to emotional labor with standardized coefficient path of 0.21 and p=.001, supporting some researches which indicated that emotional intelligence is an antecedent forming employees’ emotions (Guy, Newman & Mastracci, 2014) Subordinates understand the ways to control their own emotions and are able to manage when being requested which

is defined as emotional intelligence Then, the ability to recognize emotions in one self and in others is known as emotional intelligence distinguishing emotional labor from the ability to regulate one’s own emotions of emotional labor Therefore, hypothesis H1 was supported

H2 Job autonomy will positively relate to emotional labor

The results showed that job autonomy had positive impact on emotional labor

with p= 001 and β =.24 is consistent with research papers which states that emotional labor strongly associates with job autonomy and affected directly by autonomy (Breaugh, 1999) with feeling of having freedom or power to perform the works oneself It allows employees to experience their abilities to make their own decisions and to perform a task without control of anyone else Job autonomy shows front-line service employees’ willingness to take part in working with freely expressing company’s expected emotions (i.e engage in emotional labor) Thus, H2 was supported

H3 Emotional display rules will positively relate to emotional labor

The results displayed a positive relationship between emotional display rules and the ways subordinates show the feeling while performing their jobs The positive indicators of β =.28 and p=.004 proved that hypothesis 3 was supported in the study This positive result was in line with the study of Grandey (2000) Emotional display rules are external requirements of the organizations asking their people to show feelings

H4 Emotional labor will positively relate to job burnout

In terms of investigating the emotional labor’s relationship with job burnout, this study showed the influence of emotional labor on dependent factor It confirmed the results of the study of Schaufeli and Enzmann (1998) about front-line service workers (e.g tour guide…) are usually face to face to customers and in this situation they have to know ways to regulate their emotions By repeating these actions every day, service workers may be aware of losing emotional feeling or tiredness With β = 0.43 and p=0.001, hypothesis 4 was approved

H5 Emotional labor will negatively relate to job satisfaction

According to figure 1, employee emotional labor had a negative influence on job satisfaction at P value of 0.009, with β =-0.22 reporting more requirements of emotion regulation while working face to face to customers may reduce front-line employees’ satisfaction on their jobs Thus, hypothesis 5 was confirmed