Descripción general

As is often the trend with numerous psychological constructs, scholars tend to agree on the preceding conceptualisation of EL, but are less consistent in the operationalisation of the construct (Bono & Vey, 2005; Erickson & Ritter, 2001).

Ashforth and Humphreys (1993, p. 90) defined EL as, “…the act of displaying the appropriate emotion (i.e. conforming to a display rule)”. This definition, according to Bono and Vey (2005), has defined EL in more behavioural terms than Hochschild (1983), as the authors, in their conceptualisation of EL, chose to focus more on observable behaviour than on internal feelings or emotional states. The advantage of this approach is that it focuses on observable behaviour. However, by focusing only on observable behaviour rather than on internal emotional management, this conceptualisation of EL fails to demonstrate a theoretical link between EL and its proposed outcomes such as stress and burnout (Bono & Vey, 2005). In addition, Bono and Vey (2005) highlight a vital shortfall of the Ashforth and Humphreys (1993) conceptualisation of EL. They argue that by failing to take note of internal emotional states, Ashforth and Humphreys (1993) failed to concede that the mere existence of display rules would not always mean that an individual would engage in EL (i.e. the individual may not always feel the need to “conform” to a display rule, and the feeling or emotion may occur and be displayed naturally) (Bono & Vey, 2005). For example, Hochschild (1983) recognised that emotional dissonance did not follow if an employee spontaneously felt what they were required to feel with no conscious effort. She called this passive deep acting and did not see it as part of the compensatory strategies used

when people engage in EL. Diefendorff et al. (2005) disagree with this operationalisation and argue that EL consists of surface acting, deep acting and a third independent factor, similar to Hochschild’s (1983) passive deep acting, which they define as “the display of naturally felt emotions”. However, despite the views of Diefendorff et al. (2005), the most commonly held view is that the internal state of emotional dissonance is central to the concept of EL and is indeed one of the crucial ingredients in the development of negative outcomes (Bono & Vey, 2005). For this reason, passive deep acting falls outside the scope of EL.

Researchers Morris and Feldman (1996, p. 987) view EL as, “…the effort, planning and control needed to express organisational desired emotion during interpersonal interactions”. Morris and Feldman (1996) expanded on Hochschild’s (1983) definition of EL as a consequence of emotional dissonance by proposing that the nature of a job, or the nature of the interactions required in a job, also plays a role in defining EL (Bono &

Vey, 2005). They conceptualised the EL construct in terms of four dimensions that would affect the experience of EL, namely (Morris & Feldman, 1996):

• The frequency of the interpersonal interactions that involved expressing organisationally sanctioned emotions. The higher the frequency of the emotional display, the more employees would be overtaxed;

• The degree of attentiveness to display rules required by the job. The more attentiveness to display rules required, the more psychological energy and physical effort would be demanded from the employee. This dimension consists of two sub-dimensions:

o The intensity of the emotions expressed, namely how strongly the emotion has been expressed. This will depend on the type of emotion expressed.

For example, joy is considered a more intense emotion than satisfaction;

o The duration of interactions. The longer the interaction the greater the effort expended, increasing the likelihood that EL will be engaged in;

• The variety of emotions required to be displayed during interpersonal interactions.

The greater the variety of emotions the more psychological effort is required, so increasing the degree of EL engaged in; and

• The degree of emotional dissonance generated by having to express organisationally desired emotions that were not genuinely felt.

Later empirical research conducted by Morris & Feldman (1997) reduced EL to three dimensions, namely frequency and duration of interactions and emotional dissonance, which they operationalised in an attempt to measure EL.

Kruml and Geddes (2000) offer a different perspective on the operationalisation of EL.

They argue that EL is a two-dimensional concept consisting of emotive dissonance and emotive effort. Emotive dissonance is believed to be the degree to which employees’

displayed emotions are in alignment with their true feelings. This dimension would capture Hochschild’s (1983) “surface acting” and “passive deep acting” behaviours, placing them on opposite ends of a continuum (Kruml & Geddes, 2000). Emotive effort measures the degree to which employees actively try to change their internal feelings to match those they are required to express to clients. This dimension incorporates Hochschild’s (1983) “active deep acting” behaviour. Kruml & Geddes (2000) do not view active deep acting as the preferred emotional management strategy. They argue that engaging in active deep acting requires so much emotive effort (i.e. EL) to consciously align displayed feeling with those felt and that this “effort” could result in negative consequences for the individual (Kruml & Geddes, 2000). Passive deep acting (acting naturally and spontaneously and expressing true feelings) is viewed as the most appropriate emotion management strategy, as it requires no effort and results in EL that is adaptive and healthy for individuals (Kruml & Geddes, 2000). The views expressed by Kruml and Geddes (2000), albeit interesting, are contrary to the generally accepted view that passive deep acting is not part of the EL construct and that active deep acting is the more favourable emotional management strategy when compared to surface acting.

Brotheridge and Grandey (2002), in an effort to integrate previous perspectives of EL, restructured it into two categories: job-focused EL and employee-focused EL. Job-focused EL focuses on the characteristics of the job (i.e. frequency, intensity and variety of emotional displays, the duration of the interaction with the client and the type of display rules required by the nature of the job). Employee-focused EL is concerned with

the emotion management processes used by employees during their interactions with clients (i.e. surface and deep acting). Following from this conceptualisation of EL, Brotheridge and Lee (2003. p. 365) incorporated both job- and employee-focused EL into the development of the Emotional Labour Scale (ELS), wherein they defined EL as the process where employees, “…regulate their emotional display in an attempt to meet organisationally-based expectations specific to their roles”. In terms of this definition EL is operationalised into six dimensions of emotional display in the workplace. These include: the frequency, intensity and variety of emotional display, the duration of interaction, surface acting and deep acting. Emotional dissonance was not viewed as a separate component of EL but was seen as being associated with whether one engaged in either surface or deep acting (Brotheridge & Lee, 2003). The current research will utilise Brotheridge and Lee’s (2003) conceptualisation and operationalisation of EL to measure the extent to which CCRs engage in EL.

2.3.3 Antecedents of Emotional Labour