Abstract
This study tests the hypotheses that flight attendants’ emotional labor aspects moderate the decreasing propensity of organizational trust in the changing industrial climates where the role ambiguity is likely perceived by the employees. The questionnaire surveys were administered to a total of 827 flight attendants, 414 for a European and 413 for an Asian airline. A 5-point Likert-type scale was employed to assess the aspects of role ambiguity and emotional labor. The results indicate that, first, role ambiguity perceived by the human service employees decreases trust toward the employer. Second, emotional labor aspects moderate or repair the decreasing propensity of trust, when the level of role ambiguity perceived by the employees is low. In the competitive industrial environment, emotional labor aspects practiced by the human contact employees may help the employees harmoniously work with the automated machines and IT in the competitive and stressful workplace.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Schneider, B., Bowen, D.E.: Winning the service game. In: Maglio, P.P., Kieliszewski, C.A., Spohrer, J.C. (eds.) Handbook of service science, pp. 31–59. Springer, San Jose (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1628-0_4
Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L.: Delivering quality service: balancing customer perceptions and expectations. Simon and Schuster, New York (1990)
Robinson, S.L.: Trust and breach of the psychological contract. Adm. Sci. Q. 41(4), 574–599 (1996)
Avers, K.B., King, S.J., Nesthus, T.E., Thomas, S., Banks, J.: Flight Attendant Fatigue, Part 1: National Duty, Rest, and Fatigue Survey (No. DOT/FAA/AM-09/24). Federal Aviation Administration. Civil Aerospace Medical Institute, Oklahoma City, OK (2009)
Sims, R.R.: Human resource management’s role in clarifying the new psychological contract. Hum. Resour. Manag. 33(3), 373–382 (1994)
Okabe, N.: Creating of customer loyalty by cabin crew a study of the relation between emotional labor and job performance. Transp. Res. Procedia 25, 149–164 (2017)
Kahn, R.L., Wolfe, D.M., Quinn, R.P., Snoek, J.D., Rosenthal, R.A.: Organizational stress: studies in role conflict and ambiguity. Wiley, New York (1964)
Briner, R.B.: Themed book reviews: emotions and organizations: a decade of development. Hum. Relat. 57(10), 1333–1334 (2004)
Grandey, A.A.: Emotional regulation in the workplace: a new way to conceptualize emotional labor. J. Occup. Health Psychol. 5(1), 95–110 (2000)
Hochschild, A.R.: The managed heart: the commercialization of human feeling. University of California Press, Berkeley (1983)
Grandey, A.A., Fisk, G.M., Mattila, A.S., Jansen, K.J., Sideman, L.A.: Is “service with a smile” enough? Authenticity of positive displays during service encounters. Organ. Behav. Hum. Decis. Process. 96(1), 38–55 (2005)
Hennig-Thurau, T., Groth, M., Paul, M., Gremler, D.D.: Are all smiles created equal? How emotional contagion and emotional labor affect service relationships. J. Mark. 70(3), 58–73 (2006)
Wharton, A.S.: The sociology of emotional labor. Ann. Rev. Sociol. 35, 147–165 (2009)
Morris, J.A., Feldman, D.C.: The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labor. Acad. Manag. Rev. 21(4), 986–1010 (1996)
Ekman, P., Friesen, W.V.: Unmasking the face: a guide to recognizing emotions from facial cues. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs (1975)
Ashforth, B.E., Humphrey, R.H.: Emotional labor in service roles: the influence of identity. Acad. Manag. Rev. 18, 88–115 (1993)
Diefendorff, J.M., Erickson, R.J., Grandey, A.A., Dahling, J.J.: Emotional display rules as work unit norms: a multilevel analysis of emotional labor among nurses. J. Occup. Health Psychol. 16(2), 170 (2011)
Rafaeli, A., Sutton, R.I.: Expression of emotion as part of the work role. Acad. Manag. Rev. 12(1), 23–37 (1987)
Van Maanen, J., Kunda, G.: Real feelings-emotional expression and organizational culture. Res. Organ. Behav. 11, 43–103 (1989)
Ekman, P.: Cross-cultural studies of facial expression. In: Ekman, P. (ed.) Darwin and Facial Expression: A Century of Research in Review, pp. 169–222. Academic Press, New York (1973)
Wharton, A.S., Erickson, R.I.: Managing emotions on the job and at home: understanding the consequences of multiple emotional roles. Acad. Manag. Rev. 18(3), 457–486 (1993)
Grandey, A.A., Gabriel, A.S.: Emotional labor at a crossroads: where do we go from here? Ann. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 2, 323–349 (2015)
Tsai, W.C., Huang, Y.M.: Mechanisms linking employee affective delivery and customer behavioral intentions. J. Appl. Psychol. 87(5), 1001 (2002)
Grandey, A.A.: When “the show must go on”: surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Acad. Manag. J. 46(1), 86–96 (2003)
Johnson, H.A.M., Spector, P.E.: Service with a smile: do emotional intelligence, gender, and autonomy moderate the emotional labor process? J. Occup. Health Psychol. 12(4), 319 (2007)
Brown, T.J., Mowen, D., Donavan, T., Licata, J.W.: The customer orientation of service workers: personality trait effects on self-and supervisor performance ratings. J. Mark. Res. 39(1), 110–119 (2002)
Brown, C.S., Sulzer-Azaroff, B.: An assessment of the relationship between customer satisfaction and service friendliness. J. Organ. Behav. Manag. 14(2), 55–76 (1994)
Tsai, W.C.: Determinants and consequences of employee displayed positive emotions. J. Manag. 27(4), 497–512 (2001)
Rizzo, J.R., House, R.J., Lirtzman, S.I.: Role conflict and ambiguity in complex organizations. Adm. Sci. Q. 15(2), 150–163 (1970)
Katz, D., Kahn, R.L.: The Social Psychology of Organizations, 2nd edn. Wiley, New York (1978)
Tubre, T.C., Collins, J.M.: Jackson and Schuler (1985) revisited: a meta-analysis of the relationships between role ambiguity, role conflict, and job performance. J. Manag. 26(1), 155–169 (2000)
Baron, R.M., Kenny, D.A.: The moderator–mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. J. Pers. Soc. Psychol. 51(6), 1173 (1986)
Lindley, P., Walker, S.N.: Theoretical and methodological differentiation of moderation and mediation. Nurs. Res. 42(5), 276–279 (1993)
McLellan, R.A., Schmit, M.J., Amundson, M., Blake, R.: Secret shopper ratings as an individual-level criterion for validation studies. In: The 13th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, Dallas, TX Dallas, TX (1998)
Brotheridge, C.M., Lee, R.T.: Development and validation of the emotional labour scale. J. Occup. Organ. Psychol. 76(3), 365–379 (2003)
Williams, L.J., Anderson, S.E.: Job satisfaction and organizational commitment as predictors of organizational citizenship and in-role behaviors. J. Manag. 17(3), 601–617 (1991)
Streiner, D.L.: Starting at the beginning: an introduction to coefficient alpha and internal consistency. J. Pers. Assess. 80(1), 99–103 (2003)
Tavakol, M., Dennick, R.: Making sense of Cronbach’s alpha. Int. J. Med. Educ. 2, 53–55 (2011)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this paper
Cite this paper
Okabe, N. (2019). Role Ambiguity and Trust Repair of Flight Attendants: Emotional Labor of Human Service Employees. In: Kantola, J.I., Nazir, S., Barath, T. (eds) Advances in Human Factors, Business Management and Society. AHFE 2018. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 783. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94709-9_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94709-9_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94708-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94709-9
eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)