Faking it: a conceptual discussion on emotional labor, emotional dissonance and emotional intelligence

• Main Authors: Raja Mustapha, Raja Iskandar Putera, Ibrahim, Mohd Zool Fadli, Mohamad Saber, Joesri, Salim, Azlan, Rohiat, Mohd Akmal
• Format: Article
• Published: Human Resource Management Academic Research Society 2018
• Subjects: HQ The family. Marriage. Woman; HQ503-1064 The family. Marriage. Home
• Online Access: http://eprints.uthm.edu.my/4067/; http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i17/5142
• Institution: Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia

Emotional labor is a construct that is intertwined with the hospitality industry as employees are required to accommodate certain behavior or emotion to conform with the idea of providing excellent and sincere service to guests or customers. The concept of emotional labor will be further investigated and so does the implication of its utilization. In mentioning emotional labor, one would relate it with emotional dissonance as emotional labor has two forms which are surface acting and deep acting. The internal conflict between the inner feeling and displayed emotion is what termed emotional dissonance. The hospitality industry requires their employees to present their selves in a certain way as prescribed by each establishment. Thus, there are bound to be dissonances in the emotions of the employees. Previous literature also supports the idea of emotional intelligence playing a role in emotional labor with emotional labor having a positive relationship with emotional labor. Therefore, this paper is written with the idea of discussing conceptually the two variables and to explore Emotional Labor and Dissonance in detail; with elaboration of how emotional intelligence relates to them.