Linking Emotional Dissonance and Service Climate to Well-Being at Work: A Cross-Level Analysis* Relaciones de la disonancia emocional y del clima de servicio con el bienestar en el trabajo: un estudio transnivel

r e s u M e n Este trabajo analiza las relaciones entre disonancia emocional y clima de servicio con bienestar en el trabajo, siguiendo dos vías. Se realizó un diseño transnivel en el que se analizan variables en diferentes niveles (disonancia emocional a nivel individual y clima de servicio work-unit), como predictores de burnout y engagement. En el estudio participó una muestra de 512 trabajadores pertenecientes a 152 unidades de trabajo. Los análisis multinivel confirmaron la existencia de un modelo donde el clima de servicio está directamente relacionado con los niveles de burnout y engagement de los trabajadores, una vez controlado su nivel de disonancia emocional. La investigación concluye con la discusión de los resultados y las implicaciones de los mismos. Palabras clave Burnout; clima de servicio; disonancia emocional; engagement doi:10.11144/Javeriana.UPSY13-3.leds Para citar este artículo: Carrasco, H., Martínez-Tur, V., Moliner, C., Peiró, J. M., & Ramis, C. (2014). Linking emotional dissonance and service climate to well-being at work: A crosslevel analysis. Universitas Psychologica, 13(3), 947-960. http://dx.doi. org/10.11144/Javeriana.UPSY13-3.leds * Research Paper. The authors are grateful for the financial support of the Spanish Agency of Science and Innovation (PSI2010-21891), the Spanish Agency of Education and Science (CONSOLIDER Project (SEJ2006-14086/PSIC) and the support of FEDER. ** Profesora titular, IDOCAL, University of Valencia, Spain. E-mail: [email protected] *** IDOCAL, University of Valencia, Spain. E-mails: [email protected] , carolina.moliner@ uv.es **** Correspondence concerning this manuscript: José M. Peiró, Departamento de Psicología Social, Universidad de Valencia, Av. Blasco Ibáñez 21, 46010 Valencia, Spain, Phone: +3496 386 46 89, Fax: +34 96 386 46 68; E-mail: [email protected] ***** Universidad de las Islas Baleares, Spain. E-mail: [email protected] Hugo CarrasCo, ViCente Martínez, Carolina Moliner, Jose María Peiró, CarMen raMis 948 Un i v e r s i ta s Ps yc h o l o g i c a V. 13 No. 3 j U l io-s e P t i e m B r e 2014 Introduction The service sector continues having the highest number of jobs in both Europe and the United States (Bureau of Labour Statistics, 2001; European Commission, 2008). With this situation in mind, examining the well-being of service employees is a social research interest topic (Babakus, Yavas, & Ashill, 2009; Cascio, 1995, 2003). In the effort to capture the peculiarities of employees’ well-being in services, scholars have considered differential characteristics of services. Because services are often produced and performed in the presence of customers (Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry, 1994a, 1994b), the service encounter between front-line employees and customers plays a critical role. This social interaction offers opportunities to improve service quality and achieve customer loyalty (Bove & Johnson, 2000), but the service encounter also increases emotional requirements for employees (Borritz et al., 2005) and potentially creates problems related to employees’ well-being (Goldberg & Grandey, 2007). During the service encounter, it is very common that front-line employees develop feelings of being emotionally exhausted by job demands, and they can display depersonalized and insensitive behaviors toward customers (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998). In order to understand the complexity of how well-being develops in front-line employees, different approaches have been taken into account. The study of the emotional regulation process (e.g., Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002) focuses the attention on the employees’ efforts in displaying required emotions. When these emotional demands do not correspond to employees’ real emotions, the experience of emotional dissonance may result (Ashfort & Humphrey, 1993; Hochschild, 1983). Other approaches focus the attention on contextual factors. In the specific field of service organizations, social support has played an important role as a contextual factor (Halbesleben, 2006). Similarly, support climates are also associated with health at work (Makikangas & Kinnunen, 2003). Accordingly, service climate provides information about the availability of supportive resources and facilitative conditions for the interaction between front-line employees and customers (Lam, Huang, & Janssen, 2010, p. 370). When employees perceive that their work activities are supported by the organization through a service climate, their chances of experiencing burnout decrease. With this in mind, we test an additive model where emotional dissonance and service climate are independent predictors of well-being at work. This study contributes to previous knowledge in three ways. First, the consideration of service climate could offer a richer portrait of front-line employees’ well-being in services, especially as the role of this contextual factor is examined simultaneously with internal variables such as emotional dissonance. Second, this joint consideration of emotional dissonance and service climate helps to integrate individual-level and work-unit level constructs in understanding employees’ well-being at work. Although some research efforts have defined service climate at the individual level (e.g., Yoon, Beatty, & Suh, 2001), the majority of scholars have conceptualized service climate as an emergent group’s property (Hui, Chiu, Yu, Cheng, & Tse, 2007). In contrast, emotional dissonance is defined as an individual level construct (Bakker & Heuven, 2003; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Zapf, 2002), where the gap between personal and required emotions at work is considered. The simultaneous examination of both, emotional dissonance and service climate, offers the opportunity to test whether service climate, a description of a specific contextual factor of the work-units’ environment, is able to predict employees’ well-being variance beyond the role of individual emotional dissonance. Third, we distinguish between burnout and engagement as two independent, but related, constructs. Traditionally, scholars have placed the attention on variables predicting burnout. This emphasis on burnout reflects the assumption that the role of psychology is to focus on the reduction of negative symptoms. However, Psychology can also investigate factors to stimulate well-being and human strengths (Aspinwall & Staudinger, 2003; Seligman & Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Therefore, we examine the joint role of emotional dissonance and service climate Linking EmotionaL DissonancE anD sErvicE cLimatE to WELL-BEing at Work Un i v e r s i ta s Ps yc h o l o g i c a V. 13 No. 3 j U l io-s e P t i e m B r e 2014 949 not only in reducing burnout, but we also examine whether individual and contextual factors are able to stimulate energy at work and feelings of enthusiasm, and significance (engagement). Emotional Dissonance and Well-being at Work Work interactions are typically guided by norms. The organization establishes rules (formally and informally) to guide worker behavior, including social interactions. There are many social interactions that require employees to manage their emotions (Hochschild, 1983) in order to fulfill their prescribed roles. The requirement to display specific emotions in front of customers, clients, patients, etc., (Gutek, 1995), and manage one’s emotions to achieve the required display, is conceptualized as emotional labor or emotional work (Grandey, 2000; Hochschild, 1983; Zapf, 2002). Because of the nature of this emotional regulation process, it is possible that many emotions shown during interactions are in fact not felt, but “acted” by employees (Hochschild, 1983; Tschan, Rochat, & Zapf, 2005). When an employee is required to display an emotion that is not genuinely felt (Hochschild, 1983; Zapf, Vogt, Seifert, Mertini, & Isic, 1999), we refer to it as emotional dissonance. Thus, emotional dissonance is defined as a state of discrepancy between public displays and internal experiences of emotions (Côté & Morgan, 2002). It is generally assumed that emotional dissonance is an individual-level construct. Employees of the same work-unit could be subjected to similar rules about the display of emotions to customers. However, these rules are confronted with each employee’s internal emotions. Emotional differences are based on personality traits (e.g., Leikas & Lindeman, 2009), that are interrelated with differential trajectories at work (Judge & Hurst, 2008). These sources of emotions are present in daily work, establishing differences among front-line employees in their levels of emotional dissonance. The connection from emotional dissonance to burnout and engagement is based on self-regulation theory (Hochschild, 1983) and conservation of resources theory (COR) (Hobfoll, 1988, 1989). Self-regulation approaches differentiate between automatic and controlled efforts made in the display of emotions (e.g., Babakus et al., 2009). An automatic display of emotions may occur when required emotions are identical to the emotions front-line employees feel (Babakus et al., 2009). In contrast, control of emotions requires front-line employees to make efforts related to “surface acting” or “deep acting”. Surface acting involves the faking of affective display (e.g., simulating the expression of positive emotions directed to customers). Deep acting requires a modification of the emotions felt in order to make a genuine display of emotions. There are differences between surface and deep acting in terms of well-being at work. Surface acting reflects the tension as front-line employees display emotions they do not feel, while deep acting brings emotions in consonance with expressions (Grandey, 2003). In fact, this author observed significant relations of surface acting with stress, which did not occur with deep acting. She attributed this non-significant relationship to the reduction in emotional dissonance in deep acting, as it is able to restore resources invested by front-line employees (Grandey, 2003). These arguments are congruent with the principles of the COR theory (Hobfoll, 1988, 1989). This theory posits that employees are motivated to obtain resources they should invest as a consequence of work demands. Wright and Cropanzano (1998) argued that the COR theory is a useful framework to explain burnout experiences. These authors indicated that burnout is more likely to occur when there is a resource loss, a perceived threat of resource loss, or the anticipated returns are not obtained on an investment of resources (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998, p. 487). Emotional dissonance involved an effort by front-line employees in service encounters difficult to restore (Grandey, 2003), producing exhaustion and feelings of depersonalization (burnout). In fact, a number of previous research efforts have confirmed the positive and significant relationship between emotional dissonance and burnout indicators (Bakker & Heuven, 2003; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; van Dijk & Kirk Brown, 2006; Zapf, 2002). Hugo CarrasCo, ViCente Martínez, Carolina Moliner, Jose María Peiró, CarMen raMis 950 Un i v e r s i ta s Ps yc h o l o g i c a V. 13 No. 3 j U l io-s e P t i e m B r e 2014 Emotional dissonance is not only connected to burnout but also to the positive side of well-being: engagement. Work engagement is an emerging concept focused on human strengths, optimal functioning, and positive experiences at work (Mauno, Kinnunen, & Ruokolainen, 2007). Engagement is defined as a persistent, positive, affective-motivational state of fulfilment in employees that is characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002). It is reasonable to expect that emotional dissonance reduces engagement, considering the same rationale described for the link from emotional dissonance to burnout. Tension associated with emotional dissonance (Grandey, 2003) and uncompensated efforts (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998) invested in the display of emotions not felt should be incompatible with the feelings of energy and dedication involved in engagement. When employees feel they are forced to display emotions not felt, engagement should be difficult. Nevertheless, few recent studies have explored this relationship between emotional dissonance and engagement (Heuven, Bakker, Schaufeli, & Huisman, 2006; Stringer, Ouweneel, Le Blanc, Cheriakova, & Smulders, 2009) and confirmed that emotional dissonance reduces engagement. In the current study we propose emotional dissonance, an individual-level construct, decrease well-being at work. Service Climate and Well-being at Work Another approach in the study of well-being concentrates its efforts on contextual factors. In this tradition, organizational climate has played an important role. Research studies observed significant relationships between organizational climate and well-being at work. Peiró, González-Romá, and Ramos (1992) found that positive organizational climate, related to mutual support and goal-oriented information flow, reduced tension and increased job satisfaction. Arnetz, Lucas, and Arnetz (2011) obtained significant links from different dimensions of organizational climate to occupational stress and mental health. These are examples of the power of organizational climate to predict different indicators of well-being at work. The first efforts related to the investigation of organizational climate focused the attention on molar or general aspects (see James & Jones, 1974). However, during the last decades, scholars argued that specific climates exist in organizations. These specific climates provide information about specific organizational goals (e.g., safety). Thus, when a topic is important for the organization, a specific climate is created (Dietz, Pugh, & Wiley, 2004). In the service sector, one of the most important specific climates is service climate (Schneider, White, & Paul, 1998). Schneider and colleagues defined service climate as employee perceptions of the practices, procedures and behaviours rewarded, supported and expected with regard to customer service quality. It is generally assumed service climate behaves as a group-level construct (e.g., Hui et al., 2007; Lam et al., 2010; Schneider, Wheeler, & Cox, 2002). Front-line employees share perceptions about service climate. They interact and share similar structures and processes, stimulating consensual views about the importance of organizations attribute to service quality and the degree to which efforts to please customers are supported and rewarded. In the current research study, we propose workunit service climate as a precursor of well-being at work. Unlike general climates, specific climates – such as service climate– have a greater capacity to predict specific outcomes related to important goals of organizations, in our case front-line employees’ well-being. In fact, Schneider, Wheeler and Cox concluded that “strategically focused climate measures produce stronger relationships with specific organizational outcomes than less-focused measures” (1992, p. 705). In addition, the COR theory (Hobfoll, 1988, 1989) allows us to understand the link from service climate to well-being at work. As we anticipated, this theory postulates that employees are motivated to obtain resources in order to restore efforts related to job demands. Front-line employees devote a lot of effort to offering service quality and pleasing customers. According to the Linking EmotionaL DissonancE anD sErvicE cLimatE to WELL-BEing at Work Un i v e r s i ta s Ps yc h o l o g i c a V. 13 No. 3 j U l io-s e P t i e m B r e 2014 951 COR theory, front-line employees will feel happy if this depleting of resources is compensated for, and they can obtain specific resources to match job demands. If not, burnout is likely to occur, given the loss of resources and their inability to cope with service job requirements (Wright & Cropanzano, 1998). Consistent with this idea, Martin (2008) obtained significant links from service climate to job-induced tension and increasing job satisfaction. We extend this work to the relationship between work-unit service climate and burnout-engagement of front-line employees. When employees perceive a good supportive service climate, that burnout will decreases and engagement increases. A Cross-level Approach & Hypothesis The main contribution of this research is the joint consideration of emotional dissonance and service climate as service-related predictors of burnout and engagement in service front-line employees. These constructs pertain to different research approaches. Emotional dissonance is an individual-level construct addressing internal phenomena described by reported discrepancies between shown and felt emotions in service work. In contrast, the workunit service climate research tradition arises from organizational behaviour studies, and it is usually analyzed through work-unit aggregated observations. Because neglecting the hierarchical nature of nested levels in organizations may lead to developing partial models for highly complex phenomena (Kozlowsky & Klein, 2000), the consideration of these different level predictors could improve our understanding of individuals’ outcomes in service work settings, and serve as a step in bridging the individual and work-unit levels in services. More specifically, this research hypothesized that: Work-unit service climate is negatively related to burnout and positively related to engagement, beyond individual emotional dissonance experiences. To this end, a mixed cross-level model (Kozlowski & Klein, 2000) was designed, specifying multi-level predictors (individual-level, emotional dissonance and work-unit level, service climate) and individual level outcomes (burnout and engagement). We are aware that this is a challenge for the predictive power of the work-unit service climate construct for two reasons. First, emotional dissonance is a well-consolidated predictor of well-being in the service sector, while work-unit service climate could be considered an emergent precursor of well-being. Second, both well-being and emotional dissonance share the same level of construct (individual), while service climate is defined as a work-unit level of construct.