How Emotional Labor and Ethical Leadership Affect Job Engagement for Chinese Public Servants

Abstract

Responsiveness is important in public-service delivery. This study explores three elements that contribute to responsiveness—emotional labor, job engagement, and ethical leadership. Three findings emerge: First, in terms of workers and their expression of work-related emotion, authentic emotive expression relates positively with job engagement while pretending to feel the emotion being displayed has a negative relationship. Second, ethical leadership moderates the relationship between pretending and job engagement, in that higher levels of ethical leadership lessen the negative influence of pretense in emotive expression. This means that when employees must mask how they feel, ethical leadership compensates for the deleterious effect of expressing an emotion other than what one is feeling. This, in turn, helps to prevent decreased job engagement. Third, ethical leadership does not affect the relationship between authentic emotive expression and job engagement. The sample surveyed are government employees in China.

Keywords

emotional labor ethical leadership emotive expression job engagement Chinese workers public performance

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abraham

(1998). Emotional dissonance in organizations: Antecedents, consequences, and moderators. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monographs, 124, 229-247.

Ashforth

B. E.

Humphrey

R. H.

(1993). Emotional labor in service roles: The influence of identity. Academy of Management Review, 18, 88-115.

Ashkanasy

N. M.

Härtel

C. E. J.

Zerbe

W. J.

(2000). Emotions in the workplace: Research, theory, and practice. Westport, CT: Quorum Books.

Avey

J. B.

Wernsing

T. S.

Palanski

M. E.

(2012). Exploring the process of ethical leadership: The mediating role of employee voice and psychological ownership. Journal of Business Ethics, 107, 21-34. DOI:10.1007/s10551-012-1298-2

Bakker

A. B.

Heuven

(2006). Emotional dissonance, burnout, and in-role performance among nurses and police officers. International Journal of Stress Management, 13, 423-440.

Baruch-Feldman

Brondolo

Ben-Dayan

Schwartz

(2002). Source of social support and burnout, job satisfaction, and productivity. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 7, 84-93.

Beeri

Dayan

Gadot

E. V.

Werner

S. B.

(2013). Advancing ethics in public organizations: The impact of an ethics program on employees’ perceptions and behaviors in a regional council. Journal of Business Ethics, 112, 59-78.

Biron

Veldhoven

M. V.

(2012). Emotional labour in service work: Psychological flexibility and emotion regulation. Human Relations, 65, 1259-1282.

Brislin

R. W.

(1970). Back translation for cross-culture research. Journal of Cross-Culture Psychology, 1, 185-216.

10.

Brotheridge

C. M.

Grandey

A. A.

(2002). Emotional labor and burnout: Comparing two perspectives of “people work.” Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 17-39.

11.

Brotheridge

C. M.

Lee

R. T.

(1998, August 6-8). On the dimensionality of emotional labour: Development and validation of the Emotional Labour Scale. Paper presented at the First Conference on Emotions in Organizational Life, San Diego, CA.

12.

Brotheridge

C. M.

Lee

R. T.

(2002). Testing a conservation of resources model of the dynamics of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 7, 57-67.

13.

Brown

M. E.

Mitchell

M. S.

(2010). Ethical and unethical leadership: Exploring new avenues for future research. Business Ethics Quarterly, 20, 583-616.

14.

Brown

M. E.

Treviño

L. K.

(2006). Ethical leadership: A review and future directions. Leadership Quarterly, 17, 595-616.

15.

Brown

M. E.

Treviño

L. K.

Harrison

D. A.

(2005). Ethical leadership: A social learning perspective for construct development and testing. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 97, 117-134.

16.

Caillier

J. G.

(2012-2013). Agency retaliation against whistleblowers. Public Integrity, 15, 29-49.

17.

Charles

C. M.

Henry

P. S.

Jr. (1980). Self-management as a substitute for leadership: A social learning theory perspective. The Academy of Management Review, 5, 361-367.

18.

Chen

Z. G.

Sun

H. W.

Lam

Huo

Y. Y.

Zhong

J. A.

(2012). Chinese hotel employees in the smiling masks: Role of job satisfaction, burnout, and supervisory support in relationships between emotional labor and performance. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 23, 826-845.

19.

Chester

A. S.

(1997).Substitutes-for-leadership theory: Development and basic concepts. Leadership Quarterly, 8, 103-108.

20.

Chu

K. H.

Baker

M. A.

Murrmann

S. K.

(2012). When we are onstage, we smile: The effects of emotional labor on employee work outcomes. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 31, 906-915.

21.

Cyril

H. P.

Girindra

(2009). The association between ethical leadership and employee outcomes—the Malaysian case. Electronic Journal of Business Ethical and Organization Studies, 14, 21-32.

22.

Denhardt

R. B.

Denhardt

J. V.

Aristigueta

M. P.

(2013). Managing human behavior in public and nonprofit organizations. Los Angeles, CA: Sage.

23.

Diefendorff

J. M.

Croyle

M. H.

Gosserand

R. H.

(2005). The dimensionality and antecedents of emotional labor strategies. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 66, 339-357.

24.

Diefendorff

J. M.

Erickson

R. J.

Grandey

Dahling

J. J.

(2011). Emotional display rules as work unit norms: A multilevel analysis of emotional labor among nurses. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 170-186. doi:10.1037/a0021725

25.

Duke

A. B.

Goodman

J. M.

Treadway

D. C.

Breland

J. W.

(2009). Perceived organizational support as a moderator of emotional labor/outcomes relationships. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 39, 1013-1034.

26.

Eisenbeiss

S. A.

(2012). Re-thinking ethical leadership: An interdisciplinary integrative approach. Leadership Quarterly, 23, 791-808.

27.

Glomb

T. M.

Kammeyer-Mueller

J. D.

Rotundo

(2004). Emotional labor demands and compensating wage differentials. Journal of Applied Psychology, 89, 700-714.

28.

Goldberg

L. S.

Grandey

A. A.

(2007). Display rules versus display autonomy: Emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and task performance in a call center simulation. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 12, 301-318.

29.

Goodwin

R. E.

Groth

Frenkel

S. J.

(2011). Relationships between emotional labor, job performance, and turnover. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 79, 538-548.

30.

Grandey

A. A.

(2000). Emotional regulation in the work-place: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 95-110.

31.

Grandey

A. A.

(2003). When “the show must go on”: Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery. Academy of Management Journal, 46, 86-96.

32.

Gursoy

Boylu

Avci

(2011). Identifying the complex relationships among emotional labor and its correlates. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30, 783-794.

33.

Guy

M. E.

Newman

M. A.

(2004). Women’s jobs, men’s jobs: Sex segregation and emotional labor. Public Administration Review, 64, 289-298.

34.

Guy

M. E.

Newman

M. A.

Mastracci

S. H.

(2008). Emotional labor: Putting the service in public service. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

35.

Hansen

S. D.

Alge

B. J.

Brown

M. E.

Jackson

C. L.

Dunford

B. B.

(2013). Ethical leadership: Assessing the value of a multifoci social exchange perspective. Journal of Business Ethics, 115, 435-449.

36.

Hochschild

A. R.

(1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press.

37.

Hsieh

C. W.

Guy

M. E.

(2009). Performance outcomes: The relationship between managing the “heart” and managing client satisfaction. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 29, 41-57.

38.

Hsieh

C. W.

Jin

Guy

M. E.

(2012). Managing work-related emotions: Analysis of a cross section of public service workers. The American Review of Public Administration, 42, 39-53. doi:10.1177/0275074010396078

39.

Huhtala

Kangas

Lämsä

A. M.

Feldt

(2013). Ethical managers in ethical organizations? The leadership-culture connection among Finnish managers. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 34, 250-270.

40.

Hülsheger

U. R.

Schewe

A. F.

(2011). On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 16, 361-389.

41.

Hwa

M. A. C.

(2012). Emotional labor and emotional exhaustion. Does co-worker support matter? Journal of Management Research, 12, 115-127.

42.

Jin

Guy

M. E.

(2009). The connection between performance management and emotional labor: An examination of consumer complaint workers. Public Performance & Management Review, 33, 83-100.

43.

Jon

P. H.

Peter

W. P.

(1981). Substitutes for leadership: Test of a construct. Academy of Management Journal, 24, 714-728.

44.

Jordan

Brown

M. E.

Treviňo

L. K.

Finkelstein

(2013). Someone to look up to: Executive-follower ethical reasoning and perceptions of ethical leadership. Journal of Management, 39, 660-683.

45.

Judge

T. A.

Woolf

E. F.

Hurst

(2009). Is emotional labor more difficult for some than for others? A multi-level, experience-sampling study. Personnel Psychology, 62, 57-88.

46.

Jurkiewicz

C. L.

(2006). Soul food: Morrison and the transformative power of ethical leadership in the public sector. Public Integrity, 8, 245-256.

47.

Kacmar

K. M.

Bachrach

D. G.

Harris

K. J.

Zivnuska

(2011). Fostering good citizenship through ethical leadership: Exploring the moderating role of gender and organizational politics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96, 633-642.

48.

Kahn

R. L.

Byosiere

(1992). Stress in organizations. In Dunnette

M. D.

Hough

L. M.

(Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 3, pp. 571-650). Palo Alto, CA: Consulting Psychologists Press.

49.

Kahn

W. A.

(1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33, 692-724.

50.

Karatepe

O. M.

Aleshinloye

K. D.

(2009). Emotional dissonance and emotional exhaustion among hotel employees in Nigeria. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 28, 349-358.

51.

Khuntia

Suar

(2004). A scale to assess ethical leadership of Indian private and public sector managers. Journal of Business Ethics, 49, 13-26.

52.

Kinman

Wray

Strange

(2011). Emotional labor, burnout and job satisfaction in UK teachers: The role of workplace social support. International Journal of Experimental Educational Psychology, 31, 843-856.

53.

Kirmeyer

S. L.

Dougherty

T. W.

(1988). Work load, tension, and coping: Moderating effects of supervisor support. Personnel Psychology, 41, 125-139.

54.

Han

(2013). An empirical study on public service motivation of the next generation civil servants in China. Public Personnel Management, 42, 191-222.

55.

Korea JoongAng Daily. (2013, April 22). Posco official targeted online for hitting flight attendant. Retrieved from http://koreajoongangdaily.joinsmsn.com/news/article/article.aspx?aid=2970489

56.

Loi

Lam

L. W.

Chan

K. W.

(2012). Coping with job insecurity: The role of procedural justice, ethical leadership and power distance orientation. Journal of Business Ethics, 108, 361-372.

57.

Lui

T. T.

Cooper

T. L.

(1997). Values in flux: Administrative ethics and the Hong Kong public servant. Administration & Society, 29, 301-324.

58.

Luk

S. C. Y.

(2012). Questions of ethics in public sector management: The case study of Hong Kong. Public Personnel Management, 41, 361-378.

59.

Mann

(1999). Emotion at work: To what extent are we expressing, suppressing, or faking it? European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 8, 347-369.

60.

Marsh

H. W.

Wen

Hau

K.-T.

Little

T. D.

Bovaird

J. A.

Widaman

K. F.

(2007). Unconstrained structural equation models of latent interactions: Contrasting residual- and mean- centered approaches. Structural Equation Modeling, 14, 570-580.

61.

Maslach

Leiter

M. P.

(2008). Early predictors of job burnout and engagement. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93, 498-512.

62.

Mastracci

S. H.

Guy

M. E.

Newman

M. A.

(2012). Emotional labor and crisis response: Working on the razor’s edge. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.

63.

Mayer

D. M.

Aquino

Greenbaum

R. L.

(2012). Who displays ethical leadership, and why an examination of antecedents and consequences of ethical leadership. Academy of Management of Journal, 55, 151-171.

64.

Mendonca

(2001). Preparing for ethical leadership in organizations. Canadian Journal of Administrative Sciences, 18, 266-276.

65.

Morris

J. A.

Feldman

D. C.

(1996). The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labor. Academy of Management Review, 21, 986-1010. doi:10.2307/259161

66.

Newman

M. A.

Guy

M. E.

Mastracci

S. H.

(2009). Beyond cognition: Affective leadership and emotional labor. Public Administration Review, 69, 6-20.

67.

Nixon

A. E.

Yang

L. Q.

Spector

P. E.

Zhang

X. C.

(2010). Emotional labor in China: Do perceived organizational support and gender moderate the process? Stress & Health, 27, 289-305.

68.

Nunnally

J. C.

Bernstein

I. H.

(1994). Psychometric theory (3rd ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

69.

Piccolo

R. F.

Greenbaum

Den Hartog

D. N.

Folger

(2010). The relationship between ethical leadership and core job characteristics. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31, 259-278.

70.

Pisaniello

S. L.

Winefield

H. R.

Delfabbro

P. H.

(2012). The influence of emotional labor and emotional work on the occupational health and wellbeing of South Australian hospital nurses. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80, 579-591.

71.

Rafaeli

Sutton

R. I.

(1987). Expression of emotion as part of the work role. Academy of Management Review, 12, 23-37.

72.

Report of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. (2012, November 8). 18th National Congress Conference. Beijing, China. Retrieved from http://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2012/1118/c64094-19612151.html

73.

Resick

C. J.

Hargis

M. B.

Shao

Dust

S. B.

(2013). Ethical leadership, moral equity judgments, and discretionary workplace behavior. Human Relations, 66, 951-972.

74.

Rich

B. L.

Lepine

J. A.

Crawford

E. R.

(2010). Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job engagement. Academy of Management Journal, 53, 617-635.

75.

Saban

L. I.

(2011). Looking into the eyes of those we serve: Toward complex equality in public administration ethics. The American Review of Public Administration, 41, 141-156.

76.

Salminen

(2006). Accountability, values and the ethical principles of public service: The views of Finnish legislators. International Review of Administrative Science, 72, 171-185.

77.

Schaufeli

W. B.

Bakker

A. B.

Salanova

(2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66, 701-716.

78.

Schaufeli

W. B.

Salanova

(2007). Work engagement: An emerging psychological concept and its implications for organizations. In Gilliland

S. W.

Steiner

D. D.

Skarlicki

D. P.

(Eds.), Managing social and ethical issues in organizations (pp. 135-180). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing.

79.

Schaufeli

W. B.

Salanova

Gonzàlez-Romà

Bakker

(2002). The measurement of burnout and engagement: A confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3, 71-92.

80.

Schmieder

R. A.

Smith

C. A.

(1996). Moderating effects of social support in shift working nurses. Work & Stress, 10, 128-140.

81.

Seery

B. L.

Corrigall

E. A.

(2009). Emotional labor: Links to work attitudes and emotional exhaustion. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 24, 797-813.

82.

Thibaut

Walker

(1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

83.

Totterdell

Holman

(2003). Emotion regulation in customer service roles: Testing a model of emotional labor. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 8, 55-73. doi:10.1037/1076-8998.8.1.55

84.

Treviño

L. K.

Brown

M. E.

Hartman

L. P.

(2003). A qualitative investigation of perceived executive ethical leadership: Perceptions from inside and outside the executive suite. Human Relations, 55, 5-37.

85.

Treviño

L. K.

Hartman

L. P.

Brown

(2000). Moral person and moral manager: How executives develop a reputation for ethical leadership. California Management Review, 42, 128-142.

86.

United Nations. (2008). People matter: Civic engagement in public governance: World Public Sector Report 2008 (United Nations Publication Sales No. E.07.II.H.11. ISBN 978-92-1-123172-4). New York, NY: Author.

87.

Venezia

C. C.

(2008). Are female accountants more ethical than male accountants: A comparative study between the U.S. and Taiwan. International Business & Economics Research Journal, 7, 1-10.

88.

Walumbwa

F. O.

Mayer

D. D.

Wang

Workman

Christensen

(2011). Linking ethical leadership to employee performance: The role of leader-member exchange, self-efficacy, and organizational identification. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 115, 204-213.

89.

Weiss

H. M.

Cropanzano

(1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 18, 1-74.

90.

West

J. P.

Beh

Sabharwal

(2013). Charting ethics in Asia-Pacific HRM: Does East meet West, ethically? Review of Public Personnel Administration, 33, 185-204.

91.

Wharton

A. S.

(1999). The psychosocial consequences of emotional labor. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 561, 158-176.

92.

White

R. D.

Jr. (1999). Are women more ethical? Recently findings on the effects of gender upon moral development. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, 9, 459-471.

93.

Yanchus

N. J.

Eby

L. T.

Lance

C. E.

Drollinger

(2010). The impact of emotional labor on work-family outcomes. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 76, 105-117.

94.

Yukl

(2002). Leadership in organizations (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.

95.

Zapf

(2002). Emotion work and psychological well-being: A review of the literature and some conceptual considerations. Human Resource Management Review, 12, 237-268.

96.

Zhu

W. C.

Norman

S. M.

Peng

Z. C.

Riggio

R. E.

Sosik

J. J.

(2012). The impact of ethical political leadership on the public: The mediating role of confidence in political leaders. Leadership, 8, 109-124. doi:10.1177/1742715011434745