The Role of Emotions in Organizations - Coursework Example

Emotional Labour in the 21st Century Business Environment Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………3 Relevance of Emotional Labour to 21st Century Business Contexts...................6 Implication of Emotional Labour on Human Resource Management.................8 Conclusion........................................................................................................... 11 Recommendations............................................................................................... 12 Bibliography......................................................................................................... 14 Introduction The role of emotion in organisations has been unvarying though generally an implied issue in literature on organisational behaviour. The interactive outcomes among the individual’s emotional condition, the work content, and the larger business context, commonly conceptualised as intrinsic motivation, mood, stress, and satisfaction, has been explored under such subtitles as physical environment, leadership, group dynamics, culture and climate, innovation and decision making (Humphrey, Pollack & Hawver 2008). Current empirical and theoretical literature has been centred on how emotions are expressed and experienced in the organisation. This essay suggests that the way in which an individual expresses feelings has a powerful effect on the quality of service transactions, and the experience of emotion in the business context. This essay centres on the concept of emotional labour and its implication on organizations. In the past, the role of emotion in organisations was taken for granted in organisational behaviour research. The organisation was perceived as a rational domain, where the affective real would hinder sensible decision (Brief & Weiss 2002). Hence, emotions were not even regarded as illustrations for organisational phenomenon. This perspective is being undermined as more scholars and researchers are discovering how emotions in the organisation help to clarify crucial organisational and individual outcomes. More particularly, researchers are starting to examine how emotions are handled by employees to enhance organisational performance (Grandey 2000). One case in point is an employee altering how s/he feels, or what sentiments s/he expresses, in order to relate with clients or customers in a productive and successful way (Lord & Klimoski 2002). The emphasis of this essay is on the adjustment, management, of emotions as component of the contemporary organisational context. Managing emotions in the workplace has been referred to as ‘emotional labour’ (Callahan 2008, 33). Emotional labour may entail restraining, faking, or reinforcing emotions to change the emotional display. Usually, emotions are managed in reaction to the jobs or organisation’s display rules (Brief & Weiss 2002). These rules concerning requirements for emotional display may be enumerated clearly in recruitment and training materials, or stated by observation of workmates (Humphrey et al. 2008). Numerous job positions have display rules concerning the feelings that employees must show the client/customer. For instance, those who work in service-oriented positions may promote repeat transaction by displaying good humour, comeliness, and smiles, whilst those who work in rigid or ‘hard’ positions, such as law enforcers, may find that a rough behaviour leads to best ‘client’ response (Pugh 2001). For judges or counsellors, a lack of affective reaction may be required when listening to clients. The emotional expression, or inhibition, in each case, leads to more productive workplace relationship. Even though emotional labour may be valuable to business outcomes, there have been current empirical findings indicating that managing emotions for compensation may be disadvantageous to the worker. Hochschild (1983) and other scholars have claimed that emotional labour is taxing and may lead to exhaustion or burnout. Nevertheless, up till now, the particular processes in interpreting the connection of emotional labour with anxiety or stress outcomes have been inconclusive (Coughlan & Connolly 2008). Indeed, the earlier studies and assumptions have not even established a common definition of emotional labour (Ashkanasy 2002). As maintained by Hochschild (1983), work roles involving controlled expressions of emotion have three features: (1) they require voice or facial contact with the public; (2) they require the worker to produce an emotional state or reaction in the customer; and (3) they provide the employer an opportunity to control the emotional activities of the employee (as cited in Brief & Weiss 2002, 279). Showing organisationally-approved sentiments to clients/customers has been claimed to be a variety of ‘labour’ since it entails expectation, preparation, effort, and adjustment to situational aspects so as to openly display feelings that employees may not essentially personally feel (Brief & Weiss 2002). A classification of work roles obliging emotional labour formulated by Hochschild (1983) created the groundwork from which practically every current empirical investigation of emotional labour has since progressed. The argument at this point is that outside stakeholders, or clients and customers, are more expected to fulfil organisational objectives when the emotional ties of respect, trust, and fondness have been established through proper employee conduct (Grandey 2000). Hence, the more a job necessitates interaction with other people, the higher the need of the organisation to depend upon controlled expressions of emotion to guarantee conformity with organisational objectives. Middleton (1989) has referred to the clash between emotions actually felt and feelings to be expressed in organisations as ‘emotional dissonance.’ Employees may encounter emotional dissonance when the sentiments obliged by the organisation, such as display of positive reactions to irritable customers, conflicts with their ‘actual’ or inner feelings, such as showing equal irritability (Middleton 1989). Earlier studies of emotional dissonance have constantly regarded dissonance an outcome of emotional labour (Morrison 2008).Nonetheless, instead of being an effect, emotional dissonance can and must be regarded as an element of the emotional labour concept itself. What renders control of emotional expression more complicated, and hence more labour rigorous, are precisely those very circumstances where in there are clashes between organisationally-mandated emotions and truly felt emotions (Denton & Campbell 2009). In short, the act of showing obliged emotions during interpersonal dealings becomes more stressful when it entails greater exertion to regulate genuine sentiments. In summing up this first section, it should be emphasised that other researchers have proposed that range of emotions and level of emotion are perhaps other domains of emotional labour. Relevance of Emotional Labour to 21st Century Business Contexts In the contemporary business environment, managing emotions is a vital component of sustaining repeat business and loyal customers. Due to the fact that emotional regulation may be carried out in a variety of ways, it is probable that a number of techniques are more productive than others and may hence affect job performance (Dougherty & Drumheller 2006). As a way of showing an encouraging image of the organisation and provoking the proper sentiments in clients/customers, according to De Vita (2010), managing emotions may lead to excellent customer service outcome. Emotional display such as congenial remarks and smiles can result in good job performance as determined by tips for attendants (Dougherty & Drumheller 2006). Pugh (1998) discovered a positive connection between emotional expressions of bank clerks and customer satisfaction. These investigations propose that constructive emotional displays will lead to more positive customer service outcome. Nevertheless, the personal attempt of generating those expressions may reveal a different reality. Researchers of emotional regulation discover that emotional embellishment and inhibition may undermine cognitive functioning (Brief & Weiss 2002). Little is known about how techniques of employees of controlling emotions are linked to customer service outcome. A number of researchers have cited the value of emotional expressions being observed as ‘sincere’ in contemporary business contexts (Pugh 2001). Emotional displays that are seen as artificial may detrimentally affect customer service. Emotion studies have discovered that when individuals ‘fake’ sentiments, or are superficially behaving, there appears to be ‘leakage’ so that receivers can notice the insincerity (Pugh 2001). This indicates that superficial performance is negatively connected to service outcome. Yet, antecedent-oriented emotion control, or deep acting, persuades employees that they actually feel that way they are attempting to show. Even though this mechanism is still difficult, it may result in an expression that is seen as more sincere than when a worker superficially acts (Grandey 2000). Emotional control leads to physiological stimulation that, over the long run, may influence unfavourable conducts such as turnover, absenteeism, and abandoning the work floor. These are the common outcomes that are of specific concern to contemporary service-oriented work roles, and hence it is important to understand the effect of emotional labour (Morrison 2008). In service-oriented work roles nowadays, it is important that employees be accessible and available to clients/customers. If workers leave the workplace to deal with their sentiments, this may weaken the feeling the customer has of the company. According to Bailey (1996), chatting with workmates and abandoning the work floor were mentioned means of dealing with challenging clients/customers for 36 out of 49 participants in different work roles. According to the article by Employee Benefits (2004), sooner or later, employees may also choose to leave the company. Levels of emotional labour may forecast those who want to leave the organisation. Employees who have to take part in high intensities of superficial acting may be predisposed to aspire for a new job (Grandey 2000). In reality, the requirement to control emotions repeatedly at work may operate as a pointer to the worker that this setting is not compatible to the individual. Based on the literature on burnout, it is probable that serving in jobs that require high extents of emotional control may lead to withdrawal responses (Denton & Campbell 2009) in the contemporary business environment. Implication of Emotional Labour on Human Resource Management According to Ashforth and Humphrey (1993), there are several other factors that may affect customer service apart from the worker’s emotional labour practice. The literature on emotional regulation has indicated several factors but not particularly work-directed or people-oriented factors. For broader appreciation of the relevance of emotional labour to human resource management (HRM), organisational variables and individual differences should be considered in future studies (Bushell 1998). There are numerous individual variations that may be linked to emotional labour. Researchers of emotional labour have to incorporate the personality factors into the emotional labour paradigm, so as to understand the implication of emotional labour on HR performance more clearly (Lord & Klimoski 2002). Are particular types of individuals better at controlling their feelings? Are other types of individuals better at dealing with complicated circumstances without becoming pressured or stressed? These are relevant questions that should be addressed in future research on emotional labour and HR management. As proposed by Morris and Feldman (1996), and substantiated by literature on emotion regulation, the work environment is an extremely vital factor in understanding the process of emotion management. It is exceptionally possible that the setting where in employees work may influence the form and level of emotional labour in which they take part in. HR people should be reminded that feeling a lack of control over occurrences has been recognised as a root of life anxiety, as well as job stress (Morris & Feldman 1996). A number of studies have verified the assumption that job autonomy lessens the strain of the emotion regulation practice. Wharton (1993) discovered that those who revealed enhanced autonomy had lower affective fatigue in both low and high emotional labour-intensive occupations. Morris and Feldman (1996) revealed that work autonomy was negatively connected to emotional burnout and emotional dissonance. A current court trial with a large grocery store chain concerns, particularly, emotional autonomy: customer service staffs are taking legal action against the company because they are obliged to show friendly response to customers although that has resulted in sexual aggravation by customers (Grandey 2000). Companies that remove emotional autonomy may encounter detrimental outcomes. Another issue that HR management should consider with regard to emotional labour is the assumption that the environment is an indication of the emotional reaction that follows. According to Newman (2009), encouragement and assistance from supervisors and colleagues should generate a constructive working atmosphere. For instance, the supermarket giant Tesco realised that a worker’s view that s/he functions in an accommodating setting relates to higher group performance, turnover intentions, reduced stress, and job satisfaction (Harrison 2008). In customer service contexts, where sociable expressions are required, feeling enthusiastic about the social setting may imply that less emotional labour is needed (Harrison 2008). One may truly experience the feelings that are required in a service setting if the interpersonal interactions are accommodating and positive. In some way, support may aid workers to deal with demands of service occupations. Bailey (1996) proposed that interacting with other people was a technique of dealing with challenging customers. The literature on stress demonstrates quite clearly that admission of emotional episodes helps people deal with anxiety and safeguard against health risks (Abraham 1998). Social support in the service environment appears to help safeguard people from needless stress. There is only one known investigation, thus far, that has verified support as a mediator of emotional labour and effects. Abraham (1998) discovered that social support worked with emotional dissonance to safeguard against job disgruntlement. Conclusion “Customers ‘catch the effect of employees through emotional contagion processes” (Pugh 2001, 1018). As stated from the above passage, with the present speed of enhancement in the presence of services in the economy, and enlarged customer expectations, businesses cannot afford anymore to consider emotional labour as merely display rules that they can impose, and suppose to be able to control their workers into satisfying customers’ needs and demands and attaining competitive leverage and success. Customers would prefer to communicate with people with the enthusiasm and capability to express their feelings, as well as their thoughts and bodies, as component of their work roles. Furthermore, regardless of how much businesses attempt to control their workers’ emotional expressions, each worker’s individual attributes and cognitive functioning, and each circumstance’s emotional dealings, will determine the proper pattern of emotional display. However, the good news is that it is more productive and successful in this manner. The more businesses lessen their control over their workers’ emotional display, the more favourable organisational and individual outcomes will be gained. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily imply that organisations should completely avoid meddling with their workers’ emotional expressions. As suggested in this essay, the function of management in forming expectations about emotional display is to arise indirectly through the business environment, involving workplace norms and values, job design, rewards and punishments, socialisation, and recruitment and selection. Nonetheless, the objective of these contextual forces should not be to influence workers’ superficial displays of emotions, but to guarantee that workers socially recognise with the organisation, take benefit from supportive social relationships, have an organisational identity, and possess adequate self-efficacy ideas to contribute to the expectations of the organisation about emotional displays, through coping with them, influencing them, sustaining them, and altering then when needed. Recommendations This essay emphasises specifically three domains of emotion research in business contexts that have crucial repercussions for managers. Primarily, emotional events assumption informs managers that the seemingly unimportant pressures and boosts that individuals experience at work day after day build up to determine the emotional conditions of organisational members, and these conditions can consequently influence their behaviours and attitudes in the workplace; also, research on emotional intelligence is pioneering a new understanding of the function of emotional view, recognition, and management in organisations; and lastly, managers nowadays are becoming increasingly appreciative of the advantages and disadvantages of emotional labour in business contexts, and the repercussions of these for organisational management. This essay suggests techniques for better emotion management. First, organisations are not passive sites that individuals enter merely to work. Managers have to build a supportive and encouraging emotional atmosphere, and to pattern this through their own attitude and behaviour. Second, selection of groups and employees has to be rooted on, partly, on a favourable emotional outlook. Managers must choose workers based on their record for creating an encouraging emotional outlook in their work groups. Third, rather than viewing work roles as completely practical endeavours, managers have to evaluate the emotional influence of each worker’s job, and to create job designs that consider this. And lastly, managers must attempt to train their workers to enhance their emotional competence and to take part in positive emotional display at work. Bibliography Abraham, R. "Emotional dissonance in organisations: Antecedents, consequences, and moderators." Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs (1998): 229-246. Ashforth, B. & R. Humphrey. "Emotional labour in service roles: The influence of identity." Academy of Management Review (1993): 88-115. Ashkanasy, Neal M. 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"Dementors in our Midst: Managing the Highly Productive but Morale-Killing Employee." Journal of Applied Management and Entrepreneurship (2009): 3+. Dougherty, D.S. & K. Drumheller. "Sensemaking and Emotions in Organisations: Accounting for Emotions in a Rational(ised) Context." Communication Studies (2006): 215+. Harrison, Nicola. "Study Tesco-- A Big Break for Work-Life Balance." Management Today (2008). Hochschild, A.R. The managed heart: Commercialisation of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983. Humphrey, R.H., J.M. Pollack & T. Hawver. "Leading with Emotional Labour." Journal of Managerial Philosophy (2008): 151-168. Grandey, Alicia. "Emotion Regulation in the Workplace: A New Way to Conceptualise Emotional Labour." Journal of Occupational Health Psychology (2000): 95-110. Lord, R.G. & R.J. Klimoski (eds). Emotions in the Workplace: Understanding the Structure and Role of Emotions in Organisational Behaviour. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002. Middleton, D.R. "Emotional Style: The Cultural Ordering of Emotions." Ethos (1989): 187-201. Morris, J.A. & D.C. Feldman. "The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labour." Academy of Management Review (1996): 986-1010. Morrison, Rachel L. "Negative Relationships in the Workplace: Associations with Organisational Commitment, Cohesion, Job Satisfaction and Intention to Turnover." Journal of Management and Organisation (2008): 330+. Newman, Martyn. "Emotional capital: engage the emotions and intellect of staff to deliver business performance." Management Today (2009). Pugh, D. "Service with a smile: Emotional contagion in the service encounter." Academy of Management Journal (2001): 1018-1027. "The Rise of Emotional Labour." Employee Benefits (2004). Vita, Emma De. "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" Management Today (2010). Wharton, A.S. "The affective consequence of service work: Managing emotions on the job." Work and Occupations (1993): 205-232. Read More