Experience, Emotion, and Exhaustion: How Unionization Influences Emotional Labor

• Author: Randall S. Davis,Edmund C. Stazyk,Erika D. Kline,Adam C. Green
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211068171
• Published date: 01 June 2023
• Date: 01 June 2023
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X211068171

Review of Public Personnel Administration

2023, Vol. 43(2) 336 –358

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/0734371X211068171

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Article

Experience, Emotion, and

Exhaustion: How Unionization

Influences Emotional Labor

Randall S. Davis1, Edmund C. Stazyk2,

Erika D. Kline1, and Adam C. Green1

Abstract

While HRM scholars have built a rich body of knowledge regarding emotional labor

(EL), we know comparatively less about the social origins of EL components and

individual outcomes in government work contexts. To address this gap, we employ

conservation of resources theory to examine how one prominent social institution

within government organizations, labor unions, influence the process through which

EL shapes one individual-level outcome, emotional exhaustion. We also draw from

the process model of EL developed by Brotheridge and Lee to evaluate one specific

countervailing resource, person-job fit. Results obtained using data from the 2016

U.S. Merit Principles Survey suggest that unionization indirectly increases emotional

exhaustion via increases in the perceived need for false face acting. While unionization

does not have a direct relationship with person-job fit, perceived increases in the need

for false face acting contributes to emotional exhaustion by reducing person-job fit.

Keywords

organizational behavior/development, job stress, labor relations, federal government

HRM, emotional labor, person-organization fit

Introduction

A growing body of evidence suggests that employees’ emotion management efforts at

work offer both promise and pitfalls (Guy et al., 2008; Mastracci et al., 2012). On the

one hand, organizations accrue significant benefits when employees practice emotional

1Southern Illinois University, Carbondale, USA

2University at Albany, State University of New York, USA

Corresponding Author:

Randall S. Davis, School of Management and Marketing, College of Business and Analytics, Southern

Illinois University, 1000 Faner Drive, Faner Hall—Mail Code 4501, Carbondale, IL 62901, USA.

Email: rsdavis@siu.edu

1068171ROPXXX10.1177/0734371X211068171Review of Public Personnel AdministrationDavis et al.

research-article2021

Davis et al. 337

labor (EL) including increased client satisfaction, better interpersonal relationships

within the organization, and heightened organizational performance (Guy & Newman,

2004; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2006; Hsieh & Guy, 2009; Meier et al., 2006). On the other

hand, research often illustrates that, under certain circumstances, EL results in exhaus-

tion, burnout, and other occupational stressors that hinder individuals’ goal attainment

(Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Carlson et al., 2012; Davis & Stazyk, 2021; Grandey,

2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Wharton & Erickson, 1993; Yun et al., 2019). Given

the complex combination of benefits and consequences associated with EL, scholarship

can benefit from understanding how specific social institutions in the public workplace

influence aspects of the work context that translate EL into individual-level outcomes

(e.g., Yun et al., 2019).

Despite its critical importance for public administration theory and practice, the

complexity of EL in the public workplace creates three overlapping challenges. First,

understanding EL’s behavioral outcomes often requires situating its constituent ele-

ments within broader explanatory frameworks. Often, scholars opt for applying theo-

retical frameworks associated with occupational stress (e.g., Adelmann, 1995;

Brotheridge & Lee, 2002; Grandey, 2000; Hur et al., 2016; Park et al., 2014), which

means EL’s behavioral outcomes unfold through complex causal chains including

social institutions that shape work contexts, objective environmental dynamics, and

individuals’ subjective appraisals of work (e.g., Brotheridge & Lee, 2002; Hobfoll,

1989; Lazarus, 2000; Wharton & Erickson, 1993). Second, due to the social and envi-

ronmental precursors of EL, public sector HRM research must isolate contexts unique

to government organizations through which EL demands may be negotiated. Finally,

given the behavioral byproducts of EL stem from complex chains of causality that

include objective work contexts and the subjective process of appraisal, expectations

about EL’s consequences must account for perceptual differences between individuals

within a given work context (e.g., Guy et al., 2008).

We endeavor to address these three complexities to build more robust explanations

regarding the social context of EL and to detail how individuals respond to EL demands

in the public workplace. First, we draw from the general literature on stress developed

in psychology to account for the complex linkages between individual and environ-

ment in the stress process (e.g., Hobfoll, 1989; Hobfoll & Shirom, 2000; Lazarus,

2000). Specifically, we adapt the model articulated by Brotheridge and Lee (2002),

which uses the conservation of resources (COR) approach, to examine the behavioral

outcomes associated with EL. The COR model argues that “people strive to retain,

protect, and build resources and that what is threatening to them is the potential or

actual loss of these valued resources” (Hobfoll, 1989, p. 516). We then employ the

basic concepts of the COR model to connect EL demands to emotional exhaustion via

the depletion of psychological resources and associated threat perceptions.

Next, to address the second challenge, we examine the following question: what

social institutions common in public organizations exert pressures likely to encourage

unrectified dissonant emotions at work? EL researchers often agree that the adverse

consequences associated with certain forms of emotion management stem from emo-

tional dissonance, where emotional dissonance refers to a discrepancy between one’s