Emotional Labor Strategies And Service Performance: The Mediating Role Of Employee Creativity

Abstract

This paper theoretically and empirically investigates the effects of different emotional labor strategies on frontline employee creativity in the context of service industry, and it also studies the mediating role of frontline employee creativity in the relationships between frontline employee’s emotional labor strategies and the two aspects of customer service performance. Based on the data of 424 employee–supervisor dyads in China, the empirical results indicate that surface acting decreases employee creativity and extra role performance, while deep acting increases employee creativity, role-prescribed performance and extra role performance; employee creativity mediates both the negative influence of surface acting on extra role performance and the positive influences of deep acting on role-prescribed and extra role performances. The results have some theoretical and practical implications on service creativity and emotion management in service industry.