Saint Mary’s University EDM 306

Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Personnel Mgt/

School of Graduate Studies Human Resources Development

EMOTIONAL LABOR in ACADEME: CHALLENGES FACED

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nelesh Dhanpat
Journal Article Critique
By Jesus T. Velasco
PhD-EDM 1 Student
Mid-Year Term, 2020

a) Problems

1. What do various literature reviews and studies reveals about emotional labor?

2. “What are the demands of emotional labor in the academe and its impact on higher
education institutions (HEIs)?

3. What are the consequences and challenges of emotional labor?

4. How do academics are emotional laborers and what challenges they perceive?

b) Methodology

➢ The research undertaking is both a meta-analysis and qualitative type in nature of research.

➢ It made use of secondary data and reviewed various related literature and studies in context
of the research paper in local and foreign researches on emotional labor, teaching and
higher education institutions, as bases of the conceptual paper presented in the study;

➢ It considers the evaluation of academics in higher education institutions as emotional

laborers.

➢ Literature was further probed to investigate academics, as emotional laborers and the
consequences and challenges were discussed.

c) Key concepts
➢ emotional labor, emotions, academics, university, teaching, higher education institution.

d) Findings:

1. academics are emotional laborers;

2. Academics are prone to dividing their time at work amongst teaching, research and
administration;
3. Table 1 contextualizes the emotions displayed by academics, matched across the type of
work they are involved in.

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 Saint Mary’s University EDM 306
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Personnel Mgt/
School of Graduate Studies Human Resources Development

4. a corresponding type of emotional labor displayed namely, deep acting and surface acting,
is matched according to their work.

5. There is a need for academics to effectively manage their work, and emotions during these
designated areas of work.

6. Academics may experience unique set of challenges in one set area of work rather than
another. i.e., it has been indicated that emotional labor essentially will impact the teaching
effectiveness of academics (Gaan, 2012);

7. Academics need to ensure their emotions are managed during this time and are able to
regulate and monitor their emotions.

8. The occurrence of teaching effectiveness being hampered is likely to impede on student

performance.

9. In a study, conducted by Ozturka, Bahcecikb, Ozcelikb and Kemer (2015), of nurse

academics it was noted that those working in state universities for longer than six years
experienced mid-level emotion labor, described as sincere, natural, and real feelings.

10. Academics working at state universities for at least six years experienced deep acting, as a
result of the academic lifestyle and socialization related to the job.

11. The development in academic work and its intensification (Ogbonna and Harris, 2004).

12. Academics respond to a mix of organizational and occupational expectations.

13. There is a need for academics to develop a form of coping mechanism for such
expectations.

14. The intensification of academic work is brought upon the modification of university
policies and strategies.

15. A study conducted by Bono and Vey (2005) investigated the relationship between
emotional labor and stress, and identified that emotional dissonance, deep acting and
surface acting resulted in emotional exhaustion, to raise the intensification of occupational
expectations.

16. The challenges faced by academe, in terms of emotional display, academics may resort to
surface acting or deep acting.

17. Emotional labor literature has suggested that most employees resort to one of two strategies
to regulate their feelings in compliance with display rules, namely, surface acting and deep
acting (Grandey, 2000, 2003; Hochschild, 1983).

18. It has been noted that employees are able to regulate their emotions by using various
strategies (Cossette & Hess, 2015).

19. The current study theoretically explores the challenges faced by academics. Notably, the
literature and research on emotional labor continue to expand and may well certainly
overlap in to the teaching field

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 Saint Mary’s University EDM 306
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Personnel Mgt/
School of Graduate Studies Human Resources Development

e) Major Contributions

➢ The Emotional Labor Theory (ELT) provides literature for review in academic higher
educational institutions, of both public merged vocational and higher tertiary institutions
and/or state universities as well as private HEIs or universities. (ibid. literature cited pp 575-
580, Problems and Perspectives in Management, Vol 14, 3, 2016)

➢ ELT converged public and private research undertakings of literature reviews globally (ibid
references pp 580-582, Problems and Perspectives in Management, Vol 14, 3, 2016)

➢ ELT provides vicarious perspectives of emotional labor in various fields of service-

oriented industries liked hospitality services, call centres, nursing, hospitality and tourism,
as well as teaching and academic and non-academic scenario (Hochschild, 1979, 1983;
Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Pugh, 2001)

➢ ELT metamorphosed from human service profession to higher level professional groups.
(ibid. p 576, characteristics of emotional labor work)

➢ ELT discloses both the positive and negative outcomes and consequences of emotional
labor.
positive
o Emotional labor theory (ELT) highlights the emotions employees may display in
terms of how they feel, or pretend to feel to meet the requirements of the job (Sturdy,
1998).
o emotions are essential to social interaction and puts forth the need for understanding
and feedback by the interaction of partners and, hence, creates a dual social process
(Cote, 2005);
o desired emotions during interpersonal transactions would require employees to exert
emotional efforts (Morris & Feldman, 1996).
o Organizations that set goals implicitly and explicitly establish the desired and
required emotional display rules (Diefendorff, Richard & Coyle, 2006; Rafaeli &
Sutton, 1987).
o emotional display rules are characterized as organizational expectations for
expressing appropriate emotions in the workplace (Gosserand & Diefendorff, 2005).
o display of positive emotions in the workplace are related to improve social
interactions, namely, promote co-worker trust, job support and affective rewards
(Cheng and Peng, 2008).

negative
o most often cited negative outcomes and consequences of emotional labor have been
associated with job dissatisfaction (Hochschild, 1983; Kahn, 1993; Morris &
Feldman, 1996) and burnout (Hochschild, 1983; Kahn, 1993; Morris & Feldman,
1996).
o Other outcomes include the impact on employee’s psychological well-being
(Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993; Fineman, 1993; Tolich, 1993; Wharton, 1993).
o an inconsistency exists amid the emotional demeanor that is displayed by an
individual and the genuinely felt emotions that would be unsuitable to display are
regarded as the state of emotional labor. Such scenario is common in two-thirds of all
interactions in the workplace (Mann, 1999).

❖ it is essential that work standards are maintained and work targets are
attained, and the way in which it should be performed.

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 Saint Mary’s University EDM 306
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Personnel Mgt/
School of Graduate Studies Human Resources Development

➢ Researched reviewed literature showed various types of strategies to regulate feelings of

employees in an organization or in any industries like in any service-oriented fields of
endeavors, such as surface acting, deep acting and genuine acting.
o emphasis of emotional display have been largely emphasized in the research of
emotional labor (Diefendorff and Richard, 2003; Ekman & Friesen, 1982;
Grandey, 2000; Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989).
o Emotion display rules influences emotional labor and dictates the types of
behavior that employees are required to display in their jobs. It is suggested that
employees’ resort to various strategies to regulate their feelings with display
rules (Grandey 2000, 2003; Hochschild, 1983).
o Research has proposed that employees may perform emotional labor through
three types of acting mechanisms (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey,
1993) namely: surface acting, deep acting and genuine acting.

➢ Emotional labor portrays its role in academia, from the basic to higher education
institutions of learning (White Paper, 2003; Gaan, 2012; Gibbs, 2001. Ibid. 577).

➢ Emotional labor occurs both inside the classroom, as catalyst for change in nurturing and
stimulating the innocent minds of learners; and outside the classroom when maintaining
student interactions in terms of student advisory and counselling (Bellas, 1999); of which
in either case demands emotional labor.

➢ A showcase ‘how academic work’ and ‘emotional labor’ corroborate for a positive teaching
and learning environment.
o Academics carry out multifarious disparate tasks. (Ogbonna & Harris, 2004).

➢ HEIs exists for their students as clientele and customers of learning; hence, the role of
academics can be advocated as a service-provider.

o As academic institutions that are categorized as a service provider, with

customers, means of production and service deliverers. It demands that
academic staff perform emotional labor ensuring that negative emotions are
controlled expecting their performance at the time whilst executing of duties
and thereby ensuring effectiveness towards teaching and learning activities
being experienced by the customers (students). Academic staff, in higher
education, are expected to perform emotional labor in order to achieve the
dual outcomes and hence, the generated outcomes are perceived as customer
satisfaction, and profits for the institution. Hence, the effect of emotional
labor on academic staff can also be extended to teaching effectiveness (Gaan,
2012 and Gibbs, 2001).
f) Weakness and How to addressed these weaknesses?

➢ Emotional labor is described as a double edged-sword (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993).

➢ The pressures placed by emotional labor can be functional for the organization and
dysfunctional for the employee and hence, expose employees to challenges.

➢ The role of academics are fast becoming demanding and stressful in higher education
globally and,

➢ Strong association exists between occupational stress and emotional labor to have negative
effects on the health and well-being of individuals.

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 Saint Mary’s University EDM 306
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Personnel Mgt/
School of Graduate Studies Human Resources Development

➢ The consequences of emotional labor are dependent on the characteristics of the job and
organization and lead to emotional exhaustion (Kruml & Geddes, 2000), emotional
dissonance (Bakker & Heuven, 2006), job satisfaction (Ibanez-Rafuse, 2010; Ozturk,
Karayel & Nasoz, 2008; Sheetal, 2010), workplace stress, and burnout (Mann, 1999b;
Mann & Cowburn, 2005).

Challenges:

1. How to address the quality of work-life of academics within higher education?

2. Increased levels of emotional labor that are found in university calls for a continuous
concern: there is a need for continued investigation into occupational stress and
emotional labor among university lecturers, and within the academe.

g) Recommendations
a. Cossette & Hess (2015) forwarded the following:

1. Researchers should further empirically investigate emotional labor within higher

education;

2. Further research on how academics perceive their challenges of emotional labor

from a personal perspective, and its impact on students.

b. Colley (2006) and Hagenauer et.al. (2015) posits the following (3-7) in their pursuits:

3. Future research on emotional labor of academics should expand on the way which
it impacts higher education institutions, and its employees and students.

4. Future research should provide insights on how academics regulate their emotions,
and is an important factor in providing insights to many aspects of academics and
their careers.

5. An in-depth qualitative research can be carried out to establish ways in which

academics can mitigate the consequences of emotional labor.

6. There is a need for quantitative research to be carried out in this field, notably,
emotional labor in higher education intuitions, which is relatively an understudied
research area.

7. It has been suggested that little attention is given to the implications of emotional
labor in academia, and can be regarded as underexplored area of study.

8. Both academic staff and academic community should utilize emotional labor as a
coping mechanism in facing the demands placed on them as a strategy to cope with
their feelings, in terms of teaching, research and administration fosters a space for
emotional labor.
9. It is imperative that universities pay attention to the emotional demands faced by
newly hired and less experienced university lecturers in terms of staff recruitment,
staff retention and staff wellbeing.

10. lecturers enable to meet changing occupational and organizational expectations due
to an increase emotional labor;

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 Saint Mary’s University EDM 306
Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya Personnel Mgt/
School of Graduate Studies Human Resources Development

11. The management of universities and departments need to be cognizant that

emotional labor features in the career of academics, and may pose a risk.

12. High emotional labor intensity are likely to pose a threat to academic staff job
performance, well-being, teaching effectiveness and job satisfaction. Implications
for student performance may arise.

13. Academics should address the emotional demands of their work to ensure
emotional equanimity maintenance (Grandey, Kern & Frone, 2007; Rupp &
Spencer, 2006).

14. Academic community in higher education institutions need to be cognizant of the

job demands on their emotion.