UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ HA THI TRUC MAI EMOTIONAL LABOR, EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND QUALITY OF LIFE: A RESEARCH ON SERVICE EMPLOYEES MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS) Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHI MINH CITY International School of Business ------------------------------ HA THI TRUC MAI EMOTIONAL LABOR, EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AND QUALITY OF LIFE: A RESEARCH ON SERVICE EMPLOYEES MASTER OF BUSINESS (HONOURS) SUPERVISOR: DR. NGUYEN THI MAI TRANG Ho Chi Minh City – Year 2018 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Table of Contents List of acronyms. 3 List of figure. 4 List of table.
8 Theoretical background and Hypothesis development. 13 Emotional labor and employee engagement. 14 Employee engagement and quality of life. 16 Moderating effects of work life balance perception.
18 Moderating effects of customer orientation. 22 Procedure and sample. 25 Data analysis and results. 26 Cronbach’s alpha results.
27 1 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) results. 28 Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) results. 28 Hypothesis Testing Results. 31 Moderating Testing Results.
36 Limitation and direction for future research. 40 Appendix 1: Guideline for Pilot study (qualitative in-depth interview). 46 Appendix 2: Vietnamese questionnaire. 49 Appedix 3: Descriptive statistic of sample.
51 Appendix 4: The results of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of reliability. CFA results for model. 60 Appendix 7: Structural results for model. 65 Appendix 8: Moderating testing results.
68 Appendix 9: The answer of interviewing 10 people for the insignificant moderating role of work life balance perception. 71 2 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of acronyms - HCM: Ho Chi Minh - EFA: Exploratory Factor Analysis - CFA: Confirmatory Factor Analysis - AVE: Average variance extracted - SA: Surface acting - DA: Deep acting - EE: Employee engagement - VI: Vigor - DE: Dedication - AB: Absorption - QL: Quality of life - WL: Work life balance perception - CO: Customer orientation 3 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of figure Figure 1: Conceptual Model………………….22 Figure 2: Research procedure……………………………………………………………23 Figure 3: Structural results (standadized estimates)…………………………………….32 4 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com List of table Table 1: EFA results.29 Table 2: Standardized CFA Loadings of item.30 Table 3: Correlation results.31 Table 4: Results from the structural model………………………………………………32 Table 5: Moderator results……………………………….33 5 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Acknowledgement Firstly, I would like to thank all respondents who helped me finishing questionnaires. Specially, I would like to thank my supervisor Mrs. Nguyen Thi Mai Trang for her guidance and strong support that help me continue to write and research even during the most stressful moments.
Secondly, I would like to thank all teachers who taught me in International school of Business (ISB) during whole course. I have got a lot of knowledge not only useful for my thesis but also for my work and continuous studying. Thirdly, I would like to thank the thesis defense committee: Dr. Tran Ha Minh Quan, Dr.
Nguyen Phong Nguyen for asking questions and advising to give positive arguments and constructive contribution for my thesis. Besides, I would like to send my thankful to my MBUS 7 family, my classmates and my friends gave me good conditions and generous support for completion my thesis. Especially, I would like to thanks Ho Tan Vuong, who is not only my MBUS 7 classmate but also my husband for giving me strong support, advising on the thesis and SPSS data analyzing. Finally, I would like to send thanks to my family for creating good condition to complete this thesis.
Thank you very much for always supporting, encouraging me and standing by my side no matter the circumstances. 6 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Abstract This study investigates the impact of emotional labor including deep acting and surface acting on employee engagement. It also examines the effect of employee engagement to quality of life of service employees in Vietnam. Moreover, the moderator role of customer orientation and work life balance perception on the relationship between deep acting, surface acting and employee engagement is also tested in this study.
A structural equation model is applied and tested using data survey from a sample of 278 service employees in Ho Chi Minh City. The results reveal that surface acting positively impacts on employee engagement whereas deep acting negatively impacts on employee engagement. In addition, employee engagement positively effects on quality of life. Furthermore, the moderating role of customer orientation to the relationship between surface acting and employee engagement is supported whereas deep acting is not significant.
Nevertheless, the moderating role of work life balance perception is not supported in this study. Based on these findings, this study proposes some realistic tactics for management to have suitable strategy to improve employee engagement and employee quality of life through emotional labor and customer orientation. 7 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com Introduction During the past several years, although emotions have been an interest topic for sociologists and psychologists (Hochschild, 1983), increasing organizational scholars have focused on the topic of emotion display in organizations (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993). According to Sutton (1991), the relationship between emotional expression and employee effectiveness has been conducted in many theoretical and empirical researches.
Moreover, increasing competition in the continuous growth service industry has forced organizations to put higher attention on service quality providing to customers (Bowen & Schneider, 1995). Bowen and Schneider (1988) also identified that the direct interaction between customers and employees is the main factor that affect to the perceived quality of service. As a results, managers have had concern about “the images employees create for customers and the quality of interactions between employees and customers” (Morris and Feldman, 1996, p. Following the requirement of organization, service employees can either display fake and inauthentic emotions, pretend, put a mas (surface acting) or make efforts to adjust internal feeling to display sincere emotions (deep acting), that perceived as emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983).
Generally, emotional labor is presented as the act to express required emotions of organization during service transactions (Morris & Feldman, 1996). Diefendorff, Croyle, and Gosserand (2005) indicated that personality variables, emotional expressivity, emotional display rules, frequency, routineness, duration, organizational characteristics, job characteristics (Morris & Feldman, 1996) that are considered the 8 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com antecedents of emotional labor. In addition, a series of behaviors and job attitudes relating to emotional labor were identified in previous studies including job performance, job satisfaction, turnover intention, service misbehavior, job burnout (Karatepe & Choubtarash, 2014) and employee engagement (Yoo & Jeong, 2017). Mostly researchers identify that emotional labor has both negative and positive outcomes, relying on its type (Joo and Lee, 2016).
In recent years, employee engagement has been viewed as the key element for organization to make a success and be more competitive (Gruman & Saks, 2011). Employee engagement is described as the involvement, interest, enthusiasm and satisfaction of employees in work (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002). Numerous empirical researches show that engagement is a “key driver of individual attitudes, behavior, and performance as well as organizational performance, productivity, retention, financial performance, and even shareholder return” (Gruman & Sakes, 2011, p. Macey, Schneider, Barbera, and Young (2011) examined that employee engagement help organizations to achieve competitive advantage.
In Vietnam, according to Center of Forecasting Manpower Needs and Labor Market Information Ho Chi Minh City in 2017, there are many companies have the turnover rate over 10% while the standard rate is 4-6%. This fact put companies in difficult situation that they waste time and money to recruit and train new staffs. Moreover, Bates (2004) indicated that employee engagement is declining whereas the disengagement rate is continuing to increase. As a results, it is crucial for company to satisfy their employees, enhance employee engagement and retain them.
For that reason, this study will be conducted to identify factor that can improve employee 9 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com engagement which in turn develop employee well-being and social economy in Vietnam (Nguyen & Nguyen, 2012). Previous studies illustrated job performance, job satisfaction, intention to quit and organizational commitment (Saks, 2006) are mainly outcomes of employee engagement. However, limited research has been presented the quality of life as the outcome of employee engagement. Empirical researchers have considered quality of life is happiness (Gruman & Saks, 2011).
According to Diener and Biswas-Diener (2011), happy workers are considered as productive workers who are more “active, approach oriented, energetic, interested in their work, sympathetic to their colleagues, and persistent in the face of difficulties” (Joo & Lee, 2017, p. Connolly and Viswesvaran (2000) also evaluated that quality of life related to satisfied employees as well as work performance and health. While a number of previous studies relating to quality of life or employee well-being were conducted in variety fields such as education, public health and criminal justice, the study on quality of life of service employees is still lacking (Joo & Lee, 2017). Additionally, customer orientation and work life balance perception are the importance factors relating to service employees that company should pay attention.
Customer orientation is defined as attitudes and behaviors of employees that passionate concern about the desire and needs of customers (Wu & Shie, 2017). Previous researches showed that customer orientation positively relates to organization success, job satisfaction, customer loyalty whereas negatively relates to burnout and turnover (Wu & Shie, 2017). In addition, work life balance perception is identified as the ability to control time, place and working method. This can help organization to attract qualified employees, lower work life conflict, 10 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail.com improve recruitment and enhance effectiveness (Beauregard & Henry, 2009).
Base on the author’s knowledge, there is quite limited evidence for the effect of work life balance perception and customer orientation to the relationship between emotional labor and employee engagement in Vietnam context. Furthermore, little evidence has mentioned about the link between emotional labor, employee engagement and quality of life with the moderating role of work life balance perception and customer orientation among service employees in Vietnam (Joo & Lee, 2017). In sum, this study was taken in the context of service employees in Vietnam with the purpose is: Examine the impact of emotional labor on employee engagement Investigate the effect of employee engagement on quality of life Test the moderating effects of work-life balance perception and customer orientation to the relationship between emotional labor and employee engagement The structure of this paper is as follows: literature review and hypothesis, research methodology, data analysis, and results; discussion and implications; and conclude with limitations and directions for future research. Theoretical background and Hypothesis development Emotional labor Hochschild (1983) identified in her book named The Managed Heart: The Commercialization of Feeling that emotion is one of the factors of labor.
And since then, many subsequent studies about this subject have been conducted. Although many aspects of emotional labor were researched, there has been no universal standards on emotional 11 TIEU LUAN MOI download : skknchat@gmail. While Hochschild (1983) evaluated it is “the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display” (p.7), Ashforth and Humphrey (1993) saw it as “the act of displaying appropriate emotion” (p. 90) that focus on behavior rather than emotion.
Meanwhile, Morris and Feldman (1996) described emotional labor is effort, plan and control need to show in a desirable way during interpersonal transaction in organization. Additionally, Grandey (2000) mentioned it is a process that control both emotion and expression for the goals of organization. Although there are variation on emotional labor definitions among scholars, they have in common is considering the expression of emotional labor is related to the service workers (Yoo & Jeong, 2017). In addition, in the process to conduct emotional labor, the strategy of employees to minimize stress is considering between deep acting or surface acting (Hochschild, 1983).