Emotional Labour in the Service Encounter

Abstract

Service employee works on the boundary of the organization and performs boundary spanning roles (Tushman, 1977) and their Position during the service encounter can be used as a strategy to gain competitive advantage (Zeithmal and Bitner, 2000). Customer’s perception of the service quality is influenced by how the service employee expresses her/his emotion in service interactions (Pugh, 2001). Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or something. The term “Emotional Labour” was coined by Arlie Hochschild in her book The Managed Heart and she defines emotional labour as. “Inducing or suppressing feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in others.” (Hochschild 1983 p.7). Jobs that involve voice-to-voice or face-to-face interactions often involve emotional labour and in such jobs employees must manage and at times modify their own emotions, while attempting to manage the emotions of the customer (Hochschild 1983). This paper explores the significance of emotional labour in the service encounter.