To read this content please select one of the options below:

Customer response to employee emotional labor: the structural relationship between emotional labor, job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction

Won-Moo Hur (School of Business Administration, Pukyong National University, Busan, South Korea)
Tae-Won Moon (College of Business Administration, Hongik University, Seoul, South Korea)
Yeon Sung Jung (School of Business Administration, Dankook University, Yong-in, South Korea)

Journal of Services Marketing

ISSN: 0887-6045

Article publication date: 9 February 2015

8798

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to extend emotional labor theories to the customer outcomes by examining a theoretical model of how emotional labor performed by the service worker affects customer satisfaction in a mediated way.

Design/methodology/approach

Structural equation modeling analyses partially support for our hypotheses from 282 dyadic survey data [i.e. service interactions customers (seniors) and service employees (caregivers)] from a home caregiver firm in South Korea.

Findings

The results of our study found that employee’s emotional regulation strategies of deep acting and surface acting differentially affect customer satisfaction, and that employee’s job satisfaction mediates the relationship between employee’s emotional regulation strategies and customer satisfaction. More specifically, the relationship between surface acting and customer satisfaction is fully mediated by employee’s job satisfaction, whereas the relationship between deep acting and customer satisfaction is partially mediated by employee’s job satisfaction.

Originality/value

Our study is the first to provide an empirical test of how employee job satisfaction mediates the relationship between employee emotional labor and customer satisfaction in service interactions. This research sheds light on the crucial role of employee job satisfaction that can be an important consideration to boost service quality and customer satisfaction by facilitating employee emotional labor.

Keywords

Citation

Hur, W.-M., Moon, T.-W. and Jung, Y.S. (2015), "Customer response to employee emotional labor: the structural relationship between emotional labor, job satisfaction, and customer satisfaction", Journal of Services Marketing, Vol. 29 No. 1, pp. 71-80. https://doi.org/10.1108/JSM-07-2013-0161

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2015, Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Related articles