Employee Emotional Labour and Quitting Intentions Moderating Effects of Age and Gender

European Journal of Marketing
Employee emotional labour and quitting intentions: moderating effects of gender and age
Gianfranco Walsh Boris Bartikowski
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Employee
Employee emotional labour and quitting
quitting intentions: moderating intentions
effects of gender and age
1213
Gianfranco Walsh
Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Jena, Germany, and Received 30 April 2011
Boris Bartikowski Revised 13 November 2011
Accepted 21 February 2012
Euromed Management, Marseille, France
Abstract
Purpose – Service employees frequently engage in emotional labour to express emotions to
customers that conform with organizational display rules. Previous studies report equivocal findings
regarding the relationships among emotional labour, job satisfaction, and quitting intentions. This
paper aims to shed additional light on the links by distinguishing two dimensions of emotional labour
and predicting that job satisfaction mediates its relationship with quitting intentions, while gender and
age moderate its relationship with job satisfaction.
Design/methodology/approach – Cross-sectional survey data from German service employees,
entered into a structural equation model, test the study’s hypotheses.
Findings – Job satisfaction partially mediates relationships between emotional labour and quitting
intentions. Deep acting positively affects the job satisfaction of male but not female service employees.
The surface acting-job satisfaction link is negative for female but not male service employees. The
deep acting-job satisfaction link also is stronger for younger than for older service workers.
Research limitations/implications – Conservation of resources theory complements and extends
previous service research focused on employee-related outcomes of emotional labour.
Practical implications – The findings improve service managers’ understanding of how
employees’ emotional labour drive job satisfaction and employee turnover.
Originality/value – This study is the first to consider both gender and age as moderators that help
explain employee quitting intentions, as well as the first to find a positive effect of deep and surface
acting on quitting intentions.
Keywords Age groups, Emotional labour, Gender, Quitting intentions, Job satisfaction, Moderation,
Germany, Service industries, Employees turnover
Paper type Research paper
Increasing research in marketing and management considers the role of emotional

labour performed by frontline service employees (e.g. Bono and Vey, 2005; Groth et al.,
2009; Humphrey et al., 2008; Judge et al., 2009; Rupp et al., 2008). Frontline service
employees are critical resources who influence important customer outcomes, such as
satisfaction and loyalty. As the “face of the service firm,” these employees must reveal
certain positive emotions (e.g. friendliness, good mood) while suppressing others
(e.g. anger, antipathy) in their daily interactions with customers (Hochschild, 1983;
Rupp et al., 2007). This emotional labour induces a “process of regulating both feelings European Journal of Marketing
Vol. 47 No. 8, 2013
pp. 1213-1237
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
The authors would like to thank Jason J. Dahling for his very helpful comments on a previous 0309-0566
draft of this paper. DOI 10.1108/03090561311324291
EJM and expressions for the organisational goals” (Grandey, 2000, p. 97). Because the
47,8 deployment of emotions affects employees’ own emotional experiences, much research
has focused on how emotional labour relates to employee well-being, acknowledging
its potentially draining effects (e.g. Bozionelos and Kiamou, 2008; Dallimore et al., 2007;
Diefendorff and Gosserand, 2003; Dorman and Zapf, 2004; Goodwin et al., 2011; Zapf,
2002). Thus emotional labour can yield detrimental organisational outcomes, including
1214 employees’ increased intentions to quit (Chau et al., 2009; Goodwin et al., 2011; Seery
and Corrigall, 2009) and turnover, which likely diminishes service quality and hurts the
bottom line through the loss of tacit knowledge, decreased productivity, and
considerable replacement costs (e.g. Jackson and Sirianni, 2009; Wright and Bonett,
2007).
Despite this attention to emotional labour and evidence of its challenges, previous
research provides only equivocal findings regarding how two dimensions of emotional
labour, deep and surface acting, relate to employees’ quitting intentions. For example,
Chau et al. (2009) report a negative deep acting-quitting intention link, but Goodwin
et al. (2011) find no such effect. On the flipside, Chau et al. (2009) find an insignificant
surface acting-quitting intention link, whereas Goodwin et al. (2011) find a significant
one.
Deep acting involves a profound manipulation of emotional states. Through a
redefinition of the situation (e.g. thinking of a drunk passenger as a frightened
first-time flier), physiological manipulation (deep breathing), or a shifted perceptual
focus (concentrating on positive aspects of a bad situation), employees can change their
feelings to conform with mandated or appropriate behaviours (Hochschild, 1983). With
surface acting, they simply adjust their expression of emotion to match normative
patterns, pretending an emotion they do not really feel (Hochschild, 1983). In
integrative service occupations (Wharton and Erickson, 1993), employees must express
positive emotions and suppress negative ones during interactions with customers, as is
the case in most customer service jobs. We focus on these settings rather than on
differentiating service occupations, which require the suppression of positive
emotional displays and the expression of negative ones (e.g. bill collectors, police
officers).
With this focus, we extend previous research to offer new insights into how
emotional labour may affect quitting intentions. First, we investigate job satisfaction
as a potential mediator of the relationships between both deep and surface acting
dimension of emotional labour and quitting intentions, which provides a more
complete picture of the processes linking service job requirements to employee
behaviours. Thus we also contribute to the literature on the antecedents of job
satisfaction, beyond studies that focus mostly on differences in individual personality
(e.g. Connolly and Viswesvaran, 2000; Judge et al., 2002), relationships with supervisors
and co-workers (Babin and Boles, 1996), or job characteristics (e.g. Rich et al., 2010;
Russell et al., 2004), without acknowledging the role of emotional labour ( Judge and
Klinger, 2007).
Second, we investigate employee gender and age as likely moderators of the
relationship between emotional labour and job satisfaction. Significant research
attention has centred on gender as a cause of variation in job satisfaction (e.g. Bender
et al., 2005; Hodson, 1989) and age as an antecedent (e.g. Bedeian et al., 1992), yet we
know little about how employee gender and age influence the relationships between
emotional labour and job satisfaction. To the best of our knowledge, no study has Employee
investigated employee age as a moderator in this relationship, and though Syed (2008) quitting
and Johnson and Spector (2007) both predict a moderating role of gender, only the latter
authors test their assumption empirically. They find that the effect of surface acting on intentions
job satisfaction was greater among female than male employees, but the relationship
between deep acting and job satisfaction unexpectedly was not moderated by gender,
which has raised questions for further research. Johnson and Spector (2007) also note 1215
that their study might have suffered reduced power to detect significance in the gender
moderation for deep acting, because male employees were underrepresented in their
sample (n ¼ 176; 36 per cent of these were men). Moreover, their sample included
employees from only eight service firms (and about one-third came from the same
university), so their results could be biased by company- or context-specific display

rules typical of educational services. To complement and extend these insights, we
consider both employee gender and age as potential moderators of the links between
both dimensions of emotional labour and job satisfaction, then examine the effects
using data from a cross-section of service workers.
Theoretically, we draw on Hobfoll’s (1989) conservation of resources (COR) theory
and previous research to develop our hypotheses. A surface acting strategy likely
poses a threat to service employees’ psychological resources, such as well-being,
because it is emotionally draining. Employees work to minimize the threat of resource
losses; quitting ultimately enables the employee to avoid resource depletion
completely. That is, we predict that surface acting-induced threats to psychological
resources reduce job satisfaction but heighten quitting intentions. Pugliesi (1999)
similarly finds a strong relationship between emotional labour (conceptualised as a
one-dimensional construct) and job satisfaction. Judge et al. (2009) report a negative
surface acting-job satisfaction link but no significant effect for deep acting; Chen et al.
(2011) find that surface acting is negatively and deep acting positively related to job
satisfaction. None of these studies has considered employees’ quitting intentions as
well, though they represent a key result of emotional labour. Moreover, moderators of
the relationships among emotional labour, job satisfaction, and quitting intentions
remain poorly researched. In this sense, we investigate an important service
management issue that has not been fully clarified.
Background and hypotheses development

Prior literature
Employees’ quitting intentions have long provided an important area for investigation
in management and organisational behaviour literature. Noting the high costs
associated with employee turnover, previous studies have focused on possible
antecedents of employees’ intentions to quit (e.g. Alexandrov et al., 2007; Hong, 2007;
Siong et al., 2006). For example, Firth et al. (2004) identify workload, job commitment,
locus of control, and job satisfaction as drivers of quitting intentions. Related research
highlights social stressors within the organisation, such as tension with the supervisor,
that can lead to quitting intentions (e.g. Harris et al., 2009; Jawahar, 2002), though no
studies consider stressors external to the organisation.
Organisational behaviour and service management research also alludes to
different employee-related outcomes associated with emotional labour. For example,
interacting with customers can harm employee well-being (e.g. Walsh, 2011; Wegge
EJM et al., 2007), because this task is psychologically draining. The consequences include
47,8 job stress, job dissatisfaction, emotional exhaustion, and, ultimately, absenteeism or
quitting intentions (Brotheridge and Lee, 2003; Grandey et al., 2004; Lewig et al., 2007).
Studies of employee outcomes also link them to job-related antecedents, such as role
conflict, nepotism, job discrimination, or sexual harassment (e.g. Houkes et al., 2001).
Scholars in management and organisational behaviour further assume that
1216 emotional labour relates to quitting intentions, though findings remain equivocal. Chau
et al. (2009) examine how emotional labour affects emotional exhaustion, turnover
intentions, and actual turnover. Although they find a negative relationship between
deep acting and quitting intentions, they uncover no direct relationship for surface
acting, which might be attributable to their sample of bank tellers. These service
employees engage in medium levels of customer contact, in contrast with services

characterised by high or low levels of such contact (Bowen, 1990). With data from call
centre agents and actual measures of employee turnover, Goodwin et al. (2011) find that
surface acting directly and positively affects employee turnover but reveal no
significant deep acting-turnover behaviour link. Abraham (1999) shows that emotional
dissonance (i.e. discrepancy between employees’ emotional display and inner feelings)
can prompt quitting intentions. However, none of these authors investigate boundary
conditions of the relationships between different emotional labour strategies and
employees’ quitting intentions.
In line with Chau et al. (2009) and Goodwin et al. (2011), we propose that emotional
labour, in the form of surface acting, constitutes a job stressor and potential antecedent
of job satisfaction and quitting intentions. We extend this assumption by positing that
job satisfaction is a mediator of the relationship between the two dimensions of
emotional labour and quitting intentions.
For our formal hypotheses, which also include the moderating effects of employee
gender and age, we rely on insights from Hobfoll’s (1989) COR theory. It offers two
important predictions: people strive to acquire, build, and protect valuable resources,
and psychological stress occurs when these resources get lost or threatened. According
to Hobfoll (1989), resources can be objects (e.g. home, car), personal characteristics
(e.g. skills, positive outlook), conditions (e.g. good marriage, tenure, financial security),
or energies (e.g. time, money, knowledge) – though he acknowledges that these four
kinds may not be comprehensive. Generally, social relations constitute “a resource to
the extent that they provide or facilitate the preservation of valued resources” (Hobfoll,
1989, p. 517).
Service employees likely value resources such as autonomy, tenure, supervisory
support, self-esteem, and general satisfaction or well-being associated with the work
domain (Karatepe and Olugbade, 2009). However, these resources can become depleted
through emotional labour, especially if the demands exceed employees’ coping
resources. Service scripts also require employees to absorb negative customer
emotions (e.g. rudeness, unfriendliness), so they already experience demands on their
psychological resources and must engage in coping strategies. These notions in
combination lead to our proposed conceptual model in Figure 1.
Hypotheses
Direct effects. Service firms require frontline service employees to display certain
emotions (e.g. friendliness) and suppress others (e.g. anger) (Hochschild, 1983; Rupp
Employee
quitting
intentions
1217
Figure 1.
Conceptual model
et al., 2007) to enhance the customer experience and improve customer loyalty (Giardini
and Frese, 2008; Groth et al., 2009). However, an “always smile” approach can be
emotionally draining for service workers, because it creates feelings of dissonance,
emotional exhaustion, and job dissatisfaction (e.g. Abraham, 1999; Brotheridge and
Grandey, 2002; Côté and Morgan, 2002).
Drawing on Goodwin et al. (2011), we predict variation in the relationships between
deep acting or surface acting and employee satisfaction. In deep acting, employees
attempt to modify their felt emotions to create a genuine emotional display, so they
express true emotions that they have summoned (Groth et al., 2009; Hochschild, 1983).
However, in surface acting, they fake or amplify emotions by changing their outward
appearance, without altering how they actually feel (Hochschild, 1983; Pugh et al.,
2011). Employing either strategy to serve customers could increase or decrease
emotion-situation fit (Hochschild, 1983), which would have differential effects on
employees’ job satisfaction and thereby affect their quitting intentions in different
ways.
According to Hochschild (1983), if feelings do not fit the situation, employees can
engage in emotion regulation to deal appropriately with customers. For example, they
might draw on their training or past experience to achieve appropriate emotions. In
COR theory, this process of creating emotions represents an attempt to protect
psychological resources, because increasing feeling-situation fit minimizes emotional
drain. We similarly argue that engaging in deep acting is less psychologically draining
for service employees than is surface acting.
Although employees engage in emotional labour strategies to cope with display rule
requirements and varying levels of customer demands, they prefer to avoid drains on
emotional resources (Côté, 2005). Therefore, they likely work to minimize the gap
between their felt emotions and those they display (i.e. deep acting). When service
employees engage in such deep acting, the gap between expected and displayed
emotions diminishes, compared with surface acting, so deep acting should lead to more
positive experiences for employees (Goodwin et al., 2011). Grandey (2003) even finds
that deep acting is not related to job stress. Insofar as deep acting represents an
emotion-focused coping tactic that evokes an authentic emotional display and offers
EJM service employees a means to reduce the strain of dealing with customers, it should
47,8 relate positively to job satisfaction.
Building on previous research that suggests different levels of psychological strain
associated with deep and surface acting (e.g. Brotheridge and Grandey, 2002), we posit
that surface acting has negative psychological effects, because the process of
displaying fake emotions is emotionally draining and takes a toll on the employee’s
1218 psychological resources (e.g. Grandey, 2003; Judge et al., 2009). With surface acting,
employees change only their outward appearances and behaviours to exhibit the
required emotions (e.g. smiling and pretending to be friendly toward a customer), such
that they likely experience role conflicts that create emotional dissonance (Ashforth
and Humphrey, 1993; Julian, 2008; Phillips et al., 2006). Employees may interpret such
dissonance in terms of job underperformance, leading to lower job satisfaction and

ultimately greater quitting intentions. Kim (2008) finds that surface actors also are
more exhausted. Maintaining a positive emotional display, instead of acting
authentically, is an uncomfortable experience that can lead to withdrawal cognitions
and behaviours (Goodwin et al., 2011):
H1. Employee deep acting positively affects employee job satisfaction.
H2. Employee surface acting negatively affects employee job satisfaction.
We adopt Spector’s (1985, p. 695) definition of job satisfaction as an “emotional
affective response to a job or specific aspects of a job,” such as the gratification that the
employee gets from the job. Various studies examine job stressors and other
determinants of employees’ intentions to quit; robust support indicates that job
satisfaction, a positive resource that affects employee performance, is a key antecedent
of quitting intentions (e.g. Carsten and Spector, 1987; Firth et al., 2004). Therefore,
service employees’ job satisfaction, as influenced by positive emotion regulation
(i.e. deep acting) and job stressors (i.e. surface acting), should affect intentions to quit:
H3. Employee job satisfaction negatively affects intentions to quit.
Deep and surface acting also should affect employee quitting intentions differentially.
Goodwin et al. (2011) argue that continuous deep acting likely increases employees’
positive emotional experiences. Although deep acting requires some self-regulation, it
does not necessitate the cognitively demanding process of self-monitoring or the
suppression of internal feelings and displays of false emotion that typically accompany
surface acting. This notion is consistent with Grandey’s (2003) and Philipp and
Schüpbach’s (2010) findings of no effect of deep acting on emotional exhaustion.
Although not empirically confirmed (Goodwin et al., 2011), Chau et al. (2009) report a
negative deep acting-quitting intention link, such that employees who deep act are less
inclined to develop cognitions about turnover, whereas employees who surface act and
suppress their felt emotions engage in such cognitions. As we noted previously, surface
acting creates dissonance between the employee’s display and his or her internal
experience (Côté, 2005; Grandey, 2000), which may have a more immediate negative
effect on job satisfaction and a cumulative positive effect on quitting intentions:
H4. Deep acting negatively affects intentions to quit.
H5. Surface acting positively affects intentions to quit.
Moderating effects. We investigate employee gender and age as moderators of the Employee
relationship between deep or surface acting and job satisfaction. These two variables quitting
are particularly useful for explaining variation in job-related behaviours (e.g. Brewer
and Shapard, 2004; Erickson and Ritter, 2001; Gyllensten and Palmer, 2005; Johnson intentions
and Spector, 2007; Roxburgh, 1996). An underlying assumption of our theoretical
framework is that all service employees may use both emotional labour strategies in
any given service situation. 1219
Considerable research suggests that women and men differ in the way they interact
with relevant others. Because young girls tend to be socialized for interpersonal
sensitivity, women tend to display warmth and liking, emotions that constitute a
successful means to maintain relationships (Brody, 1985; Rafaeli and Sutton, 1987).
Also, women tend to develop nurturance and relatedness to a greater degree than do
men (e.g. Eagly, 1987) and provide more social support to others than do men
(e.g. Wellman, 1992). In contrast, men use emotional displays to maintain norms and
rules in support of control and status (Brody, 1985; Grossman and Wood, 1993). In
dealing with customers, service employees must “read” customers (Donavan and
Hocutt, 2001), which implies the ability to be empathetic and having good listening
skills. Social norms further dictate that women focus more on feelings than men
(Hochschild, 1983). Even in the same occupation, women often are expected to perform
more emotional labour than men (Morris and Feldman, 1996). Consequently, women
engage in more emotion regulation in their everyday lives (Hochschild, 1983; Wharton
and Erickson, 1993) and generally are more responsive than men to display rules about
managing emotions at work (Kruml and Geddes, 2000).
Moreover, research suggests that female service employees have more empathy and
social competence (Wellman and Wortley, 1990) and use more emotions in their
interactions with customers (Grandey, 2000) more than do men. In professional and
management jobs, women are better at suppressing negative feelings and displaying
positive feelings; men report suppressing positive feelings and displaying negative
feelings more than women (Simpson and Stroh, 2004). These findings suggest that
women are more experienced at evoking authentic emotional displays, such that they
should suffer less of a draining effect. In contrast, men must make greater efforts to
avoid resource depletion, regulate their emotions, and create positive emotions.
We therefore posit that male service employees feel a greater sense of achievement
than female service employees when they engage in deep acting – a prediction in line
with self-efficacy theory (Bandura, 1977), which posits that a person’s belief in his or
her effectiveness in performing specific behaviours affects his or her feelings and
thoughts. A sense of achievement should enhance male service employees’ job
satisfaction; for women, for whom deep acting comes more naturally and creates less
discomfort, it should evoke a lesser sense of achievement, and the deep acting-job
satisfaction link might be weaker for women than for men. The relationship between
surface acting and job satisfaction likely is negative for both genders, because of the
emotional dissonance associated with surface acting, but again, we assert that this link
will be stronger for women, who “suffer” more when they are urged to display
emotions that they do actually not feel. Johnson and Spector (2007) argue specifically
that women seek to bring congruence between their felt and expressed emotions, more
so than men:
EJM H6a. The positive impact of deep acting on job satisfaction is greater for male than
for female service employees.
47,8
H6b. The negative impact of surface acting on job satisfaction is greater for female
than for male service employees.
On the basis of evidence relating emotional displays to age, we further predict that age
1220 moderates the links between the two emotional labour strategies and job satisfaction.
Kim (2008) argues that older employees are better able to control their emotions and
outward displays. Dahling and Perez (2010) find that older service employees seek to
maximize positive and minimize negative emotional experiences. These findings
concur with Hochschild’s (1983) argument that age relates positively to emotion
management. Older employees can draw from broader emotional memories than
younger employees and are better able to perform deep acting (e.g. Kruml and Geddes,
2000). Cheung and Tang (2010) show that older people actually engage more in deep
acting than younger people. Therefore, for older employees, evoking authentic
emotional displays (i.e. deep acting) should be less psychologically draining than
displaying inauthentic emotions (i.e. surface acting). Paralleling our reasoning for H6a
and H6b, we argue that younger service employees derive a greater sense of
achievement and job satisfaction, and experience less emotional dissonance, from
being able to deploy positive emotions during service interactions. Accordingly, the
negative influence of surface acting on job satisfaction should be particularly strong
for older employees, because faking emotions is a more uncomfortable experience for
them. Bakker et al. (2003) accordingly report that older employees with more work
experience have more job demands and fewer resources, suggesting they might be less
able to surface act.
Older employees’ preference for displaying authentic emotions implies a greater
demand placed on them if they must deploy inauthentic emotions. According to
Erickson and Grove (2007), older employees (aged 30 years or older) are more likely to
engage in emotion regulation to manage negative emotions in customer interactions. If
they believe they must resort to surface acting (e.g. keep smiling during stressful peaks
in customer traffic), they may be less satisfied with their work, because they know they
otherwise display authentic feelings (Hochschild, 1983). Surface acting raises conflicts
for older employees in terms of emotional dissonances and implies negative
self-representational beliefs:
H7a. The positive impact of deep acting on job satisfaction is greater for younger
versus older service employees.
H7b. The negative impact of surface acting on job satisfaction is greater for older
versus younger service employees.
To determine whether these hypothesized relationships are affected by other causes,
we include job tenure as a control variable. Job tenure may influence employees’ use of
emotional labour strategies (Groth et al., 2009; Wharton, 1993). Specifically, in
emotionally demanding service jobs, tenure might allow an employee to build up
emotional resources (Muraven and Baumeister, 2000), which they can draw on when
interacting with customers. Job tenure therefore may influence service employees’
coping strategies, as well as their level of job satisfaction and quitting intentions. In our
cross-sectional sample, we expect that all endogenous and exogenous variables are
independent of job tenure though. By investigating service workers from various Employee
fields, the context effects that may otherwise explain an antecedent role of job tenure quitting
should be phased out, enabling us to test our hypotheses, independent of job tenure.
intentions
Method
Procedure and sample
We collected data from German service employees in a cross-section of service 1221
industries that involve regular, face-to-face customer contacts. Cross-sectional data
ensure representations of varying levels of emotional labour. Research assistants
distributed online questionnaires to an initial sample of 36 service employees, using a
snowballing approach (Salganik and Heckathorn, 2004). Groth et al. (2009) used a
similar snowballing data-collection approach in their study of customer-related

outcomes of employee emotional labour strategies. The research assistants were
briefed about the research purpose and equipped with cover letters for respondents
that explained the academic nature and purpose of the study, as well as instructions
about the data collection procedures. Study participants needed to work in high or
moderate contact service environments (Bowen, 1990). Approximately one-third of the
respondents worked in retailing and one-third in the hospitality industry. Other
participants came from health care services, consulting, utilities, and IT services. The
final sample of 237 service employees had a mean age of 32 years (SD ¼ 11.2), 54 per
cent of them were women, and the average job tenure was approximately eight years
(see Appendix 1 for sample characteristics).
Measures
The questionnaire contained multi-item measures to assess the two emotional labour
strategies, job satisfaction, quitting intentions, and items that captured job tenure,
demographic characteristics (gender and age), and service industry type. We used
five-point Likert-type scales (1 ¼ “fully agree” to 5 ¼ “fully disagree”) to assess items
pertaining to the constructs of our theoretical model (see Appendix 2).
To assess employee deep and surface acting, we adapted three items from Grandey
(2003) that focus on typical service interactions from an employee perspective. The
respondents indicated the extent to which they generally engaged in either deep or
surface acting during a typical service encounter, with the following stem: “During a
typical interaction with the customer . . . ”. Job satisfaction was measured with three
items from Rich (1997), and the intention to quit measure consisted of three items
adapted from Good et al. (1996). Although actual quitting behaviour is of primary
interest to employers and researchers, intentions to quit are strong surrogate indicators
of such behaviour (Chau et al., 2009; Firth et al., 2004). Job tenure, which served as the
control variable, was measured as the number of years and months the respondent had
worked for the same employer. The questionnaire was successfully pretested with 13
service employees.
Measurement model
Before analysing the structural model (Figure 1) and testing the study’s hypotheses, we
assessed the quality of the employed measures using confirmatory factor analysis
(Anderson and Gerbing, 1988) in the AMOS 18 program with the maximum likelihood
estimator. We specified a measurement model with the four latent variables of our
EJM theoretical measurement model, with x2 ¼ 82.54, df ¼ 56 (x2/df ¼ 1.47; p , 0.05),
47,8 confirmatory fit index (CFI) ¼ 0.98, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) ¼ 0.97, and root mean
squared error of approximation (RMSEA) ¼ 0.047. The standard loadings, average
variance extracted (AVE), and factor reliabilities exceeded recommended thresholds, in
support of the overall validity of the measures (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Fornell and
Larcker, 1981). The high construct reliabilities (r) ranged between 0.84 and .88 (see
1222 Table I). The AVEs per construct were greater than 0.5, so the variance due to
measurement error was lower than the variance captured by each construct, in support
of measurement reliability. The AVEs for each construct also were greater than the
squared correlations of each construct with other constructs (Table I). Therefore, the
construct indicators captured a greater portion of the variance in their focal construct
than in other constructs, in support of discriminant validity (Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
Using bootstrapping with bias-corrected confidence intervals, we found that deep acting
and surface acting were statistically unrelated (r ¼ 0.07, ns); that is, the two emotional
labour strategies are not reciprocal. In agreement with Johnson and Spector (2007), our
results suggested that service employees did not choose one strategy over the other but
rather engaged in each emotional labour strategy independently.
Because our study employed the same method to measure all the constructs in the
conceptual model, the constructs may share systematic covariance. To determine if
common method variance (CMV) threatened the validity of our results (e.g. Podsakoff
et al., 2003), we performed two empirical tests. We also note that previous studies have
confirmed that CMV does not create artificial moderating effects, a central focus of our
study (e.g. Evans, 1985; Homburg et al., 2010). Consequently, we assessed whether the
postulated direct effects between the four manifest model variables (two dimensions of
emotional labour, job satisfaction, and quitting intentions) could be biased by CMV.
First, we conducted Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff et al., 2003). If CMV poses a
threat, a single latent factor should yield an adequate fit. However, our examination
indicated a notably worse and unacceptable fit for a single-factor model (x2 ¼ 777.88,
df ¼ 54 [x2/df ¼ 14.41; p , 0.01], CFI ¼ 0.45, TLI ¼ 0.33, RMSEA ¼ 0.248) compared
with our four-factor model. Second, we applied Lindell and Brandt’s (2000) post hoc
approach to the marker variable technique, which according to Malhotra et al. (2006,
p. 1879) can “serve as a convenient, yet effective, tool for accounting for CMV.” The
smallest (and more conservatively the second smallest) correlation among the model
variables can function as a proxy for CMV (Lindell and Brandt, 2000; Lindell and
Whitney, 2001); in turn, CMV may threaten the validity of results if any significant
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 r
1 Employee deep acting 0.71 0.88

2 Employee surface acting 0.07 0.66 0.85
3 Job satisfaction 0.15 2 00.34 0.64 0.84
4 Intention to quit 0.13 0.38 200.67 0.65 0.85
5 Job tenure * 0.03 0.1 200.11 0.01 1 NA
6 Gender 2 00.15 0.0 0.05 200.04 200.16 1 NA
Table I. 7 Age 0.01 0.23 200.15 0.05 0.63 2 00.10 1 NA
Correlations, construct
reliabilities and average Notes: Values on the main diagonal are the average variance extracted (AVE); values below the
variances extracted diagonal are non-squared correlations; *values are based on z-scores (cross-sectional data)
positive correlations reduce to statistical non-significance after correcting for this Employee
correlation. We therefore discounted the second-smallest observed correlation from the quitting
uncorrected correlation matrix using Lindell and Whitney’s (2001) approach. No
significant differences appeared across the patterns of observed and adjusted intentions
correlations, and all previously significant correlations remained significant, so CMV
bias was not substantial in this study.
1223
Structural model
In our initial analysis, we estimated the structural model in Figure 1, with job tenure as
a control variable. The model fit was good. Job tenure was not related to either
emotional labour strategy, job satisfaction, or quitting intentions. To control for
potential effects of job tenure on our dependent variables, we employed multi-group

modelling, first with the two gender groups and then with two age groups, as we define
subsequently. For each model, the fit was good, but in none of the subsamples was job
tenure related to either exogenous or endogenous variables. This finding is
advantageous for our study, but we also recognise that the lack of relationships
between job tenure and other model variables could be due to the cross-sectional nature
of our data, as we discuss subsequently. For our main analyses, we excluded job tenure
as an exploratory variable.
Our model assumes direct and mediated (through job satisfaction) relationships
between the two emotional labour dimensions and quitting intentions. Full mediation
exists if the two dimensions affect quitting intentions only indirectly through job
satisfaction; partial mediation occurs if the data also support direct effects of emotional
labour on quitting intentions (Baron and Kenny, 1986). The specification of a full
meditational model showed good fit with the data, with x2/df ¼ 1.76, CFI ¼ 0.97,
TLI ¼ 0.96, and RMSEA ¼ 0.059. The RMSEA value did not differ significantly from
0.05 (considered a close fit), as indicated by a PCLOSE value of 0.22 (i.e. greater than
0.05; Browne and Cudeck, 1993). The model variables explained 45 per cent of the
variance in employees’ intentions to quit their jobs, which compared favourably with
the 29 per cent explained variance reported by Chau et al. (2009). We next specified an
alternative model of partial mediation, which provided excellent model fit, with
x2/df ¼ 1.46, CFI ¼ 0.98, TLI ¼ 0.98, and RMSEA ¼ 0.046. Again, RMSEA did not
differ significantly from 0.05, and the PCLOSE value was 0.58. This model explained
52 per cent of quitting intentions. Using a bootstrapping procedure with 2000
re-samples and 95 per cent confidence intervals, we found that the indirect effect
between deep acting and quitting intentions was not significantly different from zero
( p . 0.05), but the indirect effect between surface acting and quitting intentions
differed significantly from zero ( p , 0.05). The mediating role of job satisfaction thus
can be statistically confirmed in the relationship between surface acting and quitting
intentions, though not for the relationship between deep acting and quitting intentions.
Our results suggested that the partial mediation model fit the data better than the
previously specified full mediation model, as supported statistically by a chi-square
difference test comparing the two models (Dx2 ¼ 18; Ddf ¼ 2; p , 0.05). Our
subsequent tests of the hypotheses thus rely on the specification of a partial mediation
model, as summarised in Table II.
In H1, we predicted that deep acting would have a positive effect on job satisfaction.
Although our results suggested a weak positive relationship (g ¼ 0.14), the regression
47,8
EJM
1224
Table II.
comparisons
Direct effects and group
Regression weights
Direct effects Male Female Younger Older Dx2 (Ddf) Hypothesis
NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC supported?
(A) Overall
Direct effects
H1: Deep acting ! Job
satisfaction 0.138NS 0.166 No
H2: Surface acting ! Job
satisfaction
2 00.288 * * 0.351 Yes * *
H3: Job
satisfaction ! Intention to
quit
2 00.756 * * 2 00.656 Yes * *
H4: Deep
acting ! Intention to quit 0.212 * * 0.221 No
H5: Surface
acting ! Intention to quit 0.135 * 0.143 Yes *
(B) Group comparisons

Gender differences
H6a: Deep acting ! Job
satisfaction 0.306 * * 0.366 0.002NS 0.002 5.55 1 Yes *
H6b: Surface acting ! Job
satisfaction 2 0.126NS 2 0.173 2 0.423 * * 2 0.462 5.04 1 Yes *
Job satisfaction ! Intention
to quit 2 0.502 * * 2 0.548 2 1.01 * * 2 0.787 – – –
Deep acting ! Intention to
quit 0.292 * * 0.381 0.100NS 0.090 – – –
Surface acting ! Intention
to quit 0.084NS 0.125 0.063NS 0.054 – – –
(continued)
Regression weights
Direct effects Male Female Younger Older Dx2 (Ddf) Hypothesis
NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC NSC SC supported?
Age group differences

H7a: Deep acting ! Job
satisfaction 0.269 * * 0.348 2 0.014NS 2 0.016 5.09 1 Yes *
H7b: Surface acting ! Job
satisfaction 2 0.240 * * 0.319 2 0.332 * * 2 0.361 0.48 1 No
Job satisfaction ! Intention
to quit 2 0.653 * * 2 0.662 2 0.812 * * 2 0.647 – – –
Deep acting ! Intention to
quit 0.176 * * 0.231 0.163 * * 0.147 – – –
Surface acting ! Intention
to quit 2 0.050NS 2 0.067 0.415 * * 0.360 – – –
Notes: NS=not significant; NSC ¼ Non-standard coefficients; SC ¼ Standard coefficients; *p , 0.05; * *p , 0.01
quitting
intentions
Employee
1225
Table II.
EJM weight did not differ significantly from zero ( p . 0.05), so we lack sufficient support
47,8 for H1. With H2, we assumed a negative effect of surface acting on job satisfaction, as
clearly confirmed by the data (g ¼ 2 0.29; p , 0.01). The differential effects of deep
and surface acting may have emerged because service employees generally preferred
deep acting as less psychologically draining when dealing with customers, even if it
did not prompt higher levels of job satisfaction per se. However, deep acting still
1226 induced some psychological drain, as the positive, direct relationship with quitting
intentions indicated. As we predicted in H3, job satisfaction had a significant negative
effect on intentions to quit (b ¼ 2 0.76, p , 0.01), suggesting that it reduced intentions
to leave a company.
Overall, deep acting appeared positively related to quitting intentions (g ¼ 0.21,
p , 0.01); greater deep acting led to higher quitting intentions, and we must reject H4,
with its prediction of a negative relationship. Consistent with H5, our results showed
that surface acting also directly and positively affected quitting intentions (g ¼ 0.14,
p , 0.05).
Next, we employed multi-group specifications of the structural model to test the
moderating effects of employee gender and age. Hair et al. (2006) recommend subgroup
analysis to test moderator effects when logical groups can be justified. The analysis
with male and female employees as subgroups produced an excellent model fit, with
x2/df ¼ 1.17, CFI ¼ 0.99, TLI ¼ 0.98, and RMSEA ¼ 0.028 (PCLOSE ¼ 0.97). The
regression coefficients indicated a highly significant positive relationship between
deep acting and job satisfaction for male employees (g ¼ 0.31, p , 0.01) but an
insignificant, nearly null relationship between these variables for female employees
(g ¼ 2 0.00, p . 0.05). These findings attenuated our previous result indicating no
impact of deep acting on job satisfaction. In addition, for surface acting, we found an
insignificant negative relationship with job satisfaction among male employees
(g ¼ 2 0.13, p . 0.05) and a highly significant negative relationship for female
employees (g ¼ 2 0.42, p , 0.05). To test the significance of the assumed group
differences, we constrained the hypothesised relationships to equality across gender
groups and conducted x2 differences tests. The results showed that employee gender
moderated the effects of deep acting on job satisfaction (Dx2 ¼ 5.55, p , 0.05), such
that the effect was stronger among male compared with female employees, in support
of H6a. Employee gender also moderated the relationship between surface acting and
job satisfaction (Dx2 ¼ 5.04, p , 0.05), with a stronger effect for female than male
employees, in support of H6b.
Another subgroup analysis enabled us to test for the moderating effect of age.
Employees younger than 28 years represented the younger subgroup, and those
between 28 and 50 years constituted the older subgroup. These two groups reflected
two generational cohorts, often designated Generation X and Generation Y (e.g. Howe
and Strauss, 1991). The results again suggested excellent model fit, with x2/df ¼ 1.41,
CFI ¼ 0.97, TLI ¼ 0.96, and RMSEA ¼ 0.043 (PCLOSE ¼ 0.74). The regression
coefficients revealed a strong, positive relationship between deep acting and job
satisfaction for younger employees (g ¼ 0.27, p , 0.01) but a non-significant
relationship between these variables for older employees (g ¼ 2 0.01, p . 0.01).
That is, deep acting had a significant, positive impact on job satisfaction for younger
but not for older employees. The relationship between surface acting and job
satisfaction was significantly negative for both younger employees (g ¼ 2 0.24,
p . 0.01) and older employees (g ¼ 2 0.33, p . 0.01). Consistent with COR theory, a Employee
greater use of surface acting lowered job satisfaction for both younger and older quitting
service employees. To test these moderation hypotheses statistically, we again
performed x2 differences tests; age group moderated the effects of deep acting on job intentions
satisfaction (Dx2 ¼ 6.15, p , 0.01), in support of H7a. That is, the positive effect of
deep acting on job satisfaction was significantly stronger for younger than for older
employees. Regarding the effect of surface acting, the regression coefficients were in 1227
the hypothesised direction (greater for younger than older employees), but the x2
difference between groups was not significant (Dx2 ¼ 1.43, p , 0.01), so we cannot
confirm H7b.
Discussion
Frontline service employees, the “company’s main shock absorbers” (Hochschild, 1983,
p. 175), deal with a wide range of emotions when they interact with customers. This
effort can be psychologically draining and create intentions to quit. Service firms
understand that their human resources represent an important competitive advantage,
and losing good performers will have serious repercussions (Hong, 2007). Therefore,
improving job performance and retaining employees represent critical success factors
for service firms. Despite a wealth of studies into the employee-related consequences of
emotional labour, previous work in this field has provided inconsistent results, without
determining the boundary conditions of the effects of employees’ deep and surface
acting behaviour on their job satisfaction and intentions to quit.
In addressing these issues, we have developed and empirically tested a theoretical
model of the differential effects of employees’ deep and surface acting behaviour on
employee outcomes in service interactions. It builds on and extends research that has
explored and found support for a relationship between emotional labour and employee
quitting (Abraham, 1999; Bozionelos and Kiamou, 2008; Chau et al., 2009; Goodwin
et al., 2011). From our literature review, we have developed a conceptualisation of the
emotional labour strategy of surface acting as a job stressor, which leads to employee
resource depletion (Hobfoll, 1989). This view of surface acting as a job stressor
enhances understanding of service workers’ quitting intentions and extends research
that highlights the negative relationship between job performance and perceived job
stressors (e.g. Goolsby, 1992). However, in contrast with predictions, deep acting
directly affects quitting intentions, so perhaps it has a cumulative rather than
immediate effect. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to find direct
positive effects of surface acting and deep acting on quitting intentions, whereas
previous studies have reported negative (Chau et al., 2009) or insignificant (Goodwin
et al., 2011) effects of deep acting. The direct effect we find does not exist among female
employees though (Table II), which confirms the notion that the management and
deployment of emotions is more draining for male employees.
Our findings also show that deep acting has no impact on job satisfaction overall,
whereas surface acting does. These findings concur with previous research that
suggests suppressing negative feelings is more damaging than evoking positive
emotions (e.g. Erickson and Ritter, 2001; Goodwin et al., 2011; Groth et al., 2009).
However, it seems insufficient to refer simply to emotional labour when describing
employees’ job-related emotion regulation; rather, researchers and practitioners should
acknowledge the differential effects of deep and surface acting. Only surface acting
EJM brings about immediate negative feelings that detrimentally affect job satisfaction.
47,8 Acting inauthentically or deceitfully toward customers strains employees, affects their
job satisfaction, and eventually increases their intentions to quit. In contrast, if
employees engage in deep acting and use sincere emotions in interactions with
customers, they suffer negative effects to a lesser extent, as evidenced by the
insignificant relationship with job satisfaction (also see Judge et al., 2009).
1228 In addition, using Hobfoll’s (1989) COR theory, we suggest that service workers
respond to customers with the acting strategy that best conserves their resources.
Kinman (2009) also argues that compliance with organisational display rules might
make interactions with customers more structured and predictable; employees who
engage in deep acting then might find service less psychologically demanding.
However, we should bear in mind that deep acting directly affects quitting intentions
and thus still places demands on employees.
Our results suggest that employee gender and age moderate the links between
emotional labour strategies and job satisfaction, so they must be considered. Deep
acting positively affects the job satisfaction of male but not female service workers; the
surface acting-job satisfaction link is significantly negative for female but not male
service workers. These results confirm the notion that men feel a greater sense of
achievement and are more satisfied with their job performance when they use deep
acting. However, we find evidence of a positive effect of deep acting on quitting
intentions only among male employees. Female service employees appear to find
surface acting more draining than male employees, possibly because for them, emotion
regulation through surface acting leads to feelings of inauthenticity and contradicts “a
social identity linked to forthright and open communication of emotional states”
(Simpson and Stroh, 2004, p. 717). These differentiated skills and abilities to manage
emotions may help explain why women tend to be overrepresented in service jobs that
require responsiveness and a caring attitude (Guy and Newman, 2004). However, the
negative effect of surface acting on job satisfaction among female employees does not
carry through to quitting intentions. Perhaps this finding suggests women’s better
ability to cope with the emotional demands associated with surface acting, which
prevents a cumulative effect from ultimately leading to quitting intentions.
Consistent with our predictions, the deep acting-job satisfaction link is stronger for
younger than for older service workers, though we find no age difference in relation to
surface acting. Although not hypothesised, we find a direct positive effect of surface
acting on quitting intentions for older but not for younger employees. Perhaps coping
ability wanes over time, making older employees more vulnerable to the negative
effects of emotion regulation.
Limitations and further research

This study has several limitations that offer avenues for future research. First, we used
cross-sectional data. Although we purposefully surveyed service employees from
many different service contexts, such that their interactions represent the full range of
customer contact frequency and intensity conditions, the cross-sectional nature of our
data prevented us from measuring true causality. Second, with our non-probability
sampling technique (i.e. snowball sampling), we required that the surveyed service
employees engage in significant customer interaction as a part of their job, so our
sample should be representative of customer service employees across various service
organisations. However, the snowball sampling approach might limit the Employee
generalizability of our findings. Snowball sampling is a cost-efficient means of data quitting
collection, but it bears the risk that respondents share certain important characteristics,
such as job type or hierarchical position in the organisation, which also may limit the intentions
generalizability of our findings.
In addition to gender and age, research should identify other moderators that might
influence the emotional labour-outcome relationship. For example, as the amount of 1229
customer contact and service customisation increases, customers can better perceive
sincere emotions and employees’ emotional effort associated with deep acting (Groth
et al., 2009). Hartline and Ferrell (1993, p. 62) observe that frontline service employees
tend to be “underpaid, undertrained, overworked and highly stressed.” An extension of
our work thus might investigate other moderators of these studied relationships –
preferably variables over which service firms maintain control (e.g. employee salary,
level of training given to employees).
Our conceptual model derives from extant literature but is not based on qualitative
fieldwork. An approach involving interviews with service employees and managers
might provide additional insights that current literature does not offer (Song et al.,
2008). We also considered only two outcome variables – job satisfaction and intention
to quit – whereas it would be interesting to determine how deep and surface acting
affect other non-monetary and monetary variables. For example, Shaw et al. (2005) find
that staff turnover reduces the amount of sales per employee in a restaurant chain but
does not affect other performance indicators. Research might include such outcomes to
improve understanding of employee-related effects and emotional labour strategies.
Beyond addressing some limitations, additional research might consider not just
employees’ self-reported likelihood of using emotional labour strategies but also their
ability and motivation to do so. An underlying assumption of most emotional labour
studies is that employees are capable of emotional labour strategy deployment during
service interactions. For example, Goodwin et al. (2011) refer to the effectiveness of
employees’ engagement in surface and deep acting, which suggests that employees
differ in the extent to which they do so, without questioning employees’ actual ability
to engage in emotional labour as such – probably because of the widely accepted
notion that people engage in some form of emotion regulation almost all the time
(Davidson, 1998). Most service employees likely can surface act and deep act, though
Pugh et al. (2011, p. 384) stress that emotion regulation “is effortful and consumes
resources” and that some employees might be motivated not to engage in it during
service interactions. That is, some employees avoid using either emotional labour
strategy and instead just act naturally (cf. Dahling and Perez, 2010), in which case they
experience no psychological strain. Peccei and Rosenthal (2000) explicitly identify a
group of employees whom they call “rejectors,” who neither commit to customer
service nor display customer-oriented behaviour. Such service employees make no
effort to engage in emotional labour, because of their utter lack of motivation.
Therefore, ascertaining the level of use of emotional labour, and employees’ motivation,
is an obvious next step for theoretical and empirical investigations. Studies also should
investigate if the “no acting” strategy relates to job satisfaction or quitting intentions.
We controlled for the effects of job tenure on all the model variables and found that
tenure had no effect. However, job tenure may play no role in our study because of the
cross-sectional nature of our data. It is reasonable to predict that the speed with which
EJM employees “learn” service scripts depends on the type of the service, which may affect
47,8 how they deal with emotional labour. For example, employees in services with highly
standardised processes, such as fast-food restaurants, may develop routines to serve
customers more quickly than employees in highly individualized services with widely
varying customer expectations, such as medical services. Accordingly, job tenure
should have different meanings with regard to learning service scripts and could have
1230 unique consequences for how employees regulate their emotions over time. This
question suggests an interesting area for future investigations.
Finally, research could explore the existence of reverse relationships between
emotional labour and job satisfaction. Poor person-environment fit is associated with
lower employee well-being and job satisfaction (e.g. Kristof-Brown et al., 2005;
Maslach, 2003), and some service employees might adjust to resource depletion that
results from a challenging work environment by avoiding emotional labour or
favouring one emotional labour strategy over the other. Research to address this issue
might consider situational factors that are likely to be associated with employee mood
and well-being, such as workload or customer friendliness (Walsh, 2011).
Managerial implications
High employee turnover is a serious problem for many members of the service
industry. It leads, among other things, to diminished customer service, productivity,
and financial performance (Kacmar et al., 2006). In our investigation of relationships
between employee emotional labour and employee-related downstream variables,
including quitting intentions, we have uncovered several important implications for
managers. In particular, because both deep and surface acting ultimately relate to
quitting intentions, they deserve more managerial attention. From a managerial
point-of-view, surface acting is a double whammy: It is more psychologically draining
for employees and may lead to quitting through reduced job satisfaction, especially
among women (who represent the numerical majority of service employees), even as it
is less likely to induce customer loyalty (Groth et al., 2009). To minimize surface
acting-related quitting intentions, service managers should manage
employee-customer interactions more effectively. Moreover, knowing that deep
acting relates positively to job satisfaction among male and younger employees,
managers can invest in employee training to ensure their employees have sufficient
deep acting skills. Goodwin et al. (2011) propose that employees can learn to
distinguish between deep and surface acting through role-playing emotional labour
strategies, which may help employees avoid surface acting. However, service
managers also should bear in mind that deep acting can increase quitting intentions,
especially among male employees. The challenge therefore is to equip employees with
deep acting skills that induce greater job satisfaction while avoiding the concomitant
higher quitting intentions.
Alternatively, employees might be trained to use mood management tactics
(e.g. Knowles et al., 1993) to diffuse the negative feelings and psychological drain
associated with surface acting. Service managers who intend to pre-empt quitting
might think about improvements to the service delivery processes or changes to the
servicescape (e.g. music, colours) to create a mood-enhancing environment. Examining
the effectiveness of such improvements and changes with regard to quitting intentions
could be a next step for theoretical and empirical investigations.
The effective allocation of employee resources to frontline positions can provide a Employee
strategic advantage for the firm. In jobs that require surface acting, because of high quitting
customer throughput or service productivity goals, it may be advantageous to assign
service employees to customer contact positions early in their shifts (when they intentions
presumably are less fatigued and better able to manage their emotions). Later in
employees’ shifts, managers might temporarily rotate them to back-office jobs,
especially during peaks in customer traffic, to avoid too much customer contact and the 1231
need to employ more time-efficient but psychologically draining surface acting
strategies. Organisations also might encourage employees to avoid surface acting or
hire employees who appear less likely to surface act (e.g. Chau et al., 2009).
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Appendix 1237
Overall (n ¼ 237) Females Males
Job tenure (SD) 8.1 years (9) 7.4 (8.8) 8.9 (9.4)
Mean age (SD) 31.7 (11.2) years 30.8 (10.7) years 32.7 (11.8) years
Gender (%) 53.6 46.4
Table AI.
Notes: SD=Standard deviation Sample characteristics
Standardized
coefficient
Employee deep acting (Grandey, 2003)

I try to actually experience the emotions I have to show to the customer 0.76
I work hard to feel the emotions that I need to show to the customer 0.88
I make a strong effort to actually feel the emotions that I need to display toward the
customer 0.88
Employee surface acting (Grandey, 2003)
I just pretend to have the emotions I needed to display to the customer. 0.85
I put on a “mask” to display the emotions my manager wants me to display 0.84
I put on a “show” or “performance” when interacting with the customer 0.73
Job satisfaction (Rich, 1997)
All in all, I am satisfied with my job 0.81
In general, I like working at my company 0.88
My overall working situation is very satisfying 0.69
Intention to quit (Good et al., 1996)
I frequently think about quitting my current employer 0.79
I have decided to quit this company 0.85 Table AII.
I intend to leave this company within a short period of time 0.79 Items and results of
confirmatory factor
Notes: n ¼ 247; All factor loadings are significant at p , 0.01 analysis
Corresponding author
Gianfranco Walsh can be contacted at: walsh@uni-jena.de
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Increasing research in marketing and management considers the role of emotional

university), so their results could be biased by company- or context-specific display

Background and hypotheses development

employees engage in medium levels of customer contact, in contrast with services

dissonance in terms of job underperformance, leading to lower job satisfaction and

similar snowballing data-collection approach in their study of customer-related

1 Employee deep acting 0.71 0.88

potential effects of job tenure on our dependent variables, we employed multi-group

(B) Group comparisons

Age group differences

Limitations and further research

intention to quit?”, Journal of Managerial Psychology, Vol. 19 No. 2, pp. 170-187.

No. 3, pp. 201-212.

relationship between organizational antecedents and outcomes”, Journal of Applied

Measurement, Vol. 64, pp. 878-893.

Overall (n ¼ 237) Females Males

Employee deep acting (Grandey, 2003)

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