What if it is too negative? Managing emotions in the organization

Abstract

Hospitality industry always looks for the exhibition of positive emotions from employees’ side and employees display it through suppressing negative emotions (surface acting) or expressing positive emotions (deep acting). The aim of this study is to examine the impact of emotional labor strategies on emotional exhaustion of employees through moderating effect of perceived organizational support. The study uses a sample of 190 employees of chain hotels situated in Lahore, Pakistan. Results concludes that hotels in hospitality sector should value the emotions of frontline employees to prevent them from getting emotionally exhausted, so they could serve the customers’ productively. Similarly, if organizations develop a mechanism and system that enhance the positive perception of organizational support among employees, it will decrease the adverse consequences of emotional labor. This research could be carried out in other service sectors like education, health, banking, airlines etc. where frontline employees matter a lot for organizational image.