CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR, EMOTIONAL LABOUR AND
EMPLOYEE’S EMOTIONAL OUTCOME IN HOTEL
INDUSTRY IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

A DISSERTATION PAPER
Presented to
the Faculty of the Graduate Program
of the College of Business and Accountancy
Central Philippine University, Philippines
In Collaboration with
Thai Nguyen University, Vietnam

By
MAI VIET ANH

DECEMBER 2016


i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The researcher shows deep appreciation and gratitude for the guidance and
assistance rendered by the following:
- To Professor Lee Song Kun and Professor Reynaldo Nene Dusaran for his
kind help with the idea, guidance, encouragement, and support that I receive during
doing this dissertation.
- To Thai Nguyen University of Economics and Business Administration and
Central Philippine University for the help that I receive to finish my dissertation.
- To my family, classmates, and colleagues with their help and encouragement I
can finish my dissertation in time.

MAI VIET ANH


ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTENTS

Pages

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ii

LIST OF TABLE

iv

LIST OF FIGURES

v

ABSTRACT


vii

CHAPTER 1. THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

1

1.1. Background and Rationale of the Study

1

1.2. Objectives

4

1.3. Theoretical Framework

4

1.4. Conceptual Framework

6

1.5. The Operational Definitions

9

1.6. Significance of the Study

10


1.7. Scope and Delimitation

12

CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

13

2.1. Related Literature

13

2.1.1. Emotions in Marketing

13

2.1.2. Emotion Regulation

13

2.1.3. How employees regulate their emotions

15

2.1.4. Emotion regulation (ER) vs. Emotional intelligence (IE)

22

2.1.5. Antecedents and consequence of emotion regulation


23

2.1.5.1. Antecedents of employee emotion regulation

23

2.1.5.2. Consequences of Emotional Regulation

24

2.1.6. Emotional Labor and Emotional Regulation

27

2.1.7. Factors affecting Emotional Labor

36


iii
2.2. Related Studies

37

CHAPTER 3. METHODOLOGY

43

3.1. Research Design


43

3.2. Population, Sample Size, Sampling Techniques

44

3.3. Research Instruments

44

3.4. Data Gathering Procedures

46

3.5. Date Processing and Data Analysis

47

3.6. Preliminary Analysis

49

3.7. Scale Purifications

51

CHAPTER 4. DATA PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

60


4.1. Measurement Model

60

4.2. Convergent and Discriminant Validity of Scale

66

4.3. Hypothesis Testing

68

CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

73

5.1. Introduction

73

5.2. Discussion

73

5.3. Managerial Implications

77

5.4. Limitations and Suggestions for future research


81

CONCLUSION

83

REFERENCES

84

APPENDIX 1

88


iv

LIST OF TABLE

Table

Name of Table

Pages

Table 2.1.

Some studies about emotional labor

37


Table 3.1.

Characteristics of Sample

49

Table 3.2

The Results of Preliminary Analysis

50

Table 3.3

The Descriptive Statistic Results of Customer Injustice Behavior Scale

51

Table 3.4

Item Purification for Employee Injustice Behavior Scale

52

Table 3.5

The Descriptive Statistic Results of Anger Felt Scale

52


Table 3.6

Item Purification for Anger Felt Scale

53

Table 3.7

The Descriptive Statistic Results of Suppression Scale

54

Table 3.8

Item Purification for Emotion Suppression Scale

54

Table 3.9

The Descriptive Statistic Results of Cognitive Reappraisal

55

Table 3.10 Item Purification for Cognitive Reappraisal Scale

56

Table 3.11 Descriptive Analysis Results for Job Satisfaction Scale


57

Table 3.12 Item Purification for Job Satisafction Scale

57

Table 3.13 Item Purification for Emotional Exhaustion Scale

58

Table 3.14 Item Purification for Emotional Exhaustion Scale

59

Table 3.15 Scale Reliability

59

Table 4.1

Measurement Model Results for Customer Injustice Behavior Scale

61

Table 4.2

Measurement Model Results for Employee Anger Felt Scale

61


Table 4.3

Measurement Model Results for Cognitive Reappraisal Scale

62

Table 4.4

Final Measurement Model Results for Cognitive Reappraisal Scale

63

Table 4.5

Measurement Model Results for Emotional Suppression Scale

63

Table 4.6

Measurement Model Results for Job Satisfaction Scale

64

Table 4.7

Measurement Model Results for Emotional Exhaustion Scale

65



v
Table 4.8

Final Measurement Model Results for Emotional Exhaustion Scale

65

Table 4.9

Final Measurement Model Results

66

Table 4.10 Construct Correlation Matrix

67

Table 4.11 The Regression Results of ANG and INJ

68

Table 4.12 The Regression Results of REAP and ANG

68

Table 4.13 The Regression Results of SUP and ANG

69


Table 4.14 The Regression Results of SAT with REAP and SUP

69

Table 4.15 The Regression Results of EXH with REAP and SUP

70

Table 4.16 Summary of Hypothesis-Testing Results

71


vi

LIST OF FIGURES

Figures

Name of Figures

Pages

Figure 1.1

The interaction between employee and customer in service encounters

5


Figure 1.2

Emotional Self-Regulation Process

5

Figure 1.3

Research Model

8

Figure 4.1

Confirmatory Factor Analysis Results

72


vii
CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR, EMOTIONAL LABOUR AND EMPLOYEE’S
EMOTIONAL OUTCOME IN HOTEL INDUSTRY IN THAI NGUYEN PROVINCE

MAI VIET ANH
THAI NGUYEN UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS AND BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
Supervised by Professor Lee Song Kun and Professor Reynaldo Nene Dusaran

(Abstract)
In Thai Nguyen province, many service firms face with difficulty that sometimes
employees have to deal with unpleasant customers and they easily get angry. In some cases,

employees do not show their suitable emotions that cause customers dissatisfied with services
and switch to other providers. In some situations, employees’ negative emotions cause by
customers behaviors. However, employees do not control their emotional and react in
impolite way may cause situation worse. Many service firms in Thai Nguyen province do not
pay attention to this problem. These situations seem to be true with several hotels in Thai
Nguyen. Because of unsuitable emotional expression in some situation, employees may make
customers feel dissatisfied with services. Understanding the effect of customer behavior on
employees’ emotions and understand deeply the mechanism of emotional regulation and its
outcomes in employees may help hotels increase customer satisfaction and retention.
To achieve the objectives, this study first identifies the effect of customer injustice
behavior on employee emotion. The results show that customer injustice behavior has a
positive effect on employee’s emotion, anger felt. Suffering from anger felt, employee
engages in emotional regulation process through cognitive reappraisal and suppression. The
results from hypotheses testing show that employee anger felt has positive relationship with
cognitive reappraisal and suppression. However, when employees engage more on cognitive
reappraisal they seem to be less emotional exhaustion and feel satisfied with job. Because of
firms’rules, employee also engage more on emotional suppression. This action may induce
employees feel more exhaustion.
This study contributed the theoretical knowledge about the customer behavior as an
important factor affecting employees’ emotion to human resource management literature. By
applying experimental design method, this research clarifies the effect of customer behavior
on employee’s emotions. This study also offers some useful managerial implications for
service firms to improve service quality. By understanding the mechanism in which


viii
employees regulate their emotions, service firms can implement some policies to improve
service quality through increase the ability of controlling emotions in employees.



1
CHAPTER 1. THE PROBLEM AND ITS SETTING

1.1. Background and Rationale of the Study
One of the typical characteristics of services is that customer and employee may
together affect the service quality. Each customer with his/her different needs and wants may
evaluate the service quality differently. The interaction between employee and customer also
affects service quality and customer satisfaction. Because service quality depends on
employee’s feelings when they provide service, employees’ emotions in service encounter are
very important to service transactions.
Emotions have attracted much attention of researchers. Emotion is viewed as the
readout of a system that monitors the rate at which the discrepancy between goal and reality is
being decreased (Carver and Scheier, 1990). When people expose to the emotional stimuli,
they usually express their emotional responses. Some research has considered these actions as
emotion regulation process. Koole (2009) defined emotion regulation as the set of processes
whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions. The prototype of
emotion regulation is a deliberate, effortful process that seeks to override people’s
spontaneous emotional responses. During emotion regulation process, people may increase,
maintain, or decrease positive and negative emotions (Koole, 2009).
Some research in field of human resource management focuses on emotional labor, the
process in which employees regulate their emotions in workplace. In this process, employees
actively change their cognition about situations and modify their actual emotional arousal
states in response to the situation, and they suppress their true emotions and express the
emotional displays differently from their true feelings. However, no study identified the effect
of customer behavior on employees’ emotions regulation process.
Customers’ emotions in service encounters are very important to the service firms. In
service settings, service failures seem to be inevitable, so the understanding customer
emotions and knowing how to impact on their emotions and help them express suitable
emotions during service encounters is very important. For example, when service failures
happen, customers may get furious and express their angry attitudes with employees by

saying something bad or doing some unwanted actions. These actions may cause difficulties
for employees in recovery efforts and lessen other customers believes about service quality. If
the firms can understand how to impact on customer perception and help them express
suitable emotions, the situation may not become worse. Furthermore, when customers get


2
angry and have some unfair actions with employees, it is easy for employees to get angry too,
and the service seems to be worse.
Hochschild (1983) first disclosed this emotional demand on service providers in her
study of flight attendants. She coined the term “emotional labor” to describe this occupational
emotional demand. According to Hochschild (1983), emotional labor is defined as “the
management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display; emotional
labor is sold for a wage and therefore has exchange value” (p.7). This definition explicitly
delineates that service providers are required to regulate or manage their “felt” emotions and
display those emotions for commercial purposes. These “displayed” emotions have economic
value, which can be transformed into wages, salaries, or tips.
Researchers suggested that service employees perform emotional labor using three
acting techniques (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993). One is “surface acting.”
Service providers employ surface acting when they alter their outward appearance to simulate
the required emotions - emotions that are not necessarily privately felt. The second acting
mechanism is “deep acting.” Deep acting occurs when employees change not only their
physical expressions, but also their inner feelings. This can be done through imaging or
recalling similar emotional experiences. The last acting mechanism is “genuine acting.”
Genuine acting occurs when employees’ felt emotions are congruent with expressed emotion
and display rules.
Since Hochschild’s (1983) research, interest in emotional labor has accelerated rapidly
over the past decades. A major reason for this increased attention is due to a change in the
economy. As the economy in most of the developed countries has shifted from manufacturing
to the service industry, the nature of job role requirements has changed. Whereas workers in

factories deal with machines, service providers interact with people. Emotionally charged
employee-customer interactions are essential to product delivery in service job roles.
In the service industry in general, and the hospitality industry in particular, being
friendly or nice to people is a value-added part of the product that employees provide
(Schneider & Bowen, 1985). Most managers in the field assume that the friendliness and good
cheer of employees are strongly related to customer satisfaction and increase customer
commitment, loyalty, and therefore, affect bottom lines (Albrecht & Zemke, 1985; Bowen,
Siehl, & Schneider, 1989). The service literature has documented reasons of how critical
employees’ emotional display is in determining customers’ service quality perceptions. First,
customer-contact employees are the interface between customers and organizations, and thus
represent the organization to customers (Bowen, et al. 1989). If an employee is rude to a


3
customer, this rudeness will leave nothing but a bad impression about the company in the
customer’s mind.
Second, the nature of service (i.e., intangibility, heterogeneity, variability, and
inseparability between service providers and customers) makes the interaction between
employees and customers a critical component in determining customers’ perceptions of
service quality (Bowen, et al., 1989). These factors indicate the premium that is placed on the
behavior of service providers during encounters with customers, and this behavior often
strongly affects customers’ perceptions of product quality, both of goods and services
(Ashforth & Hamphery, 1993).
After Hochschild (1983), much research has been conducted to further explore the
concept of emotional labor on fast-food employees (Leidner, 1993), waitresses (Paules, 1991;
Rose, 2001), amusement park employees (Van Maanen & Kunda, 1989), cashiers (Rafaeli &
Sutton, 1987), 911 dispatchers (Shuler & Sypher, 2000), and police officers (Martin, 1999), to
name a few. Most of the existing literature on emotional labor is in the form of ethnographic
or sociological studies which are more qualitative in nature. Very few researchers (e.g.,
Wharton, 1993; Morris & Feldman, 1996; Kruml & Geddes, 2000a) have used a more

systematic, quantitative approach to explore the dimensions of emotional labor and its
associated antecedents, consequences, and moderators.
While the research on emotional labor gradually has evolved from qualitative studies
to quantitative studies, there are still a number of unresolved issues surrounding the
measurement and definition of emotional labor (Fisher & Ashkansasy, 2000).
Researchers have used different approaches to understand the nature and
dimensionality of emotional labor. Some treat emotional labor as a unidimensional construct
solely concerned with the intensity and frequency of emotional displays (Hochschild, 1983;
Wharton 1993; Abraham, 1998), and others see emotional labor as a multi-dimensional
construct (Morris & Feldman, 1997; Grandey, 1999; Schaubroeck & Jones, 2000; Kruml &
Geddes, 2000a).
In Thai Nguyen province, many service firms face with difficulty that sometimes
employees have to deal with unpleasant customers and they easily get angry. In some cases,
employees do not show their suitable emotional expression that cause customers dissatisfied
with services and switch to other providers. In some situations, employees’ negative emotions
cause by customer’s behaviors. However, employees do not control their emotional and react
in impolite way may cause situation worse. Many service firms in Thai Nguyen province do
not pay attention to this problem. These situations seem to be true with several hotels in Thai
Nguyen. Because of unsuitable emotional expression in some situation, employees may make


4
customers feel dissatisfied with services. Understanding deeply the mechanism of emotional
regulation and its outcomes may help hotels increase customer satisfaction and retention.
Research Questions
In service encounters, employees expose to many sources of stimuli and it is easy for
them to experience negative emotions. When they suffer from emotional situations, they may
react naturally to the stimuli and express their emotions. However, employees usually express
their emotions that different from their true feelings. For example, when an employee has
some trouble with fastidious customers, he/she may feel dissatisfied, however, he has to show

normal face that different to the true feelings. This process is usually known as emotional
labor, in which employees control their emotional expression and feelings. However, because
of emotional regulation, employees may suffer from emotional exhaustion or burnout. They
may feel dissatisfied with their jobs. From above discussion, some questions should be
answered:
- Customer injustice behaviors have impact on employee’s emotions or not?
- What is the effect of employee’ emotions on their emotional labor?
- What is the effect of emotion regulation on employee’s emotional outcomes?

1.2. Objectives
In general, this study intends to identify the effect of customer behavior on employees
emotional outcomes through emotional regulation process and then propose some managerial
implications for service firms in Thai Nguyen to improve service quality by focus on
employees’ emotions during service process.
Specifically, the research objectives which correspond to therefore mention issues are
shown below:
1) To study and clarify the effect of customer injustice behavior on employee’s
emotion in service process.
2) To study the effect of employee’s anger felt on emotional regulation.
3) Identify the effect of emotion regulation on employee emotional outcomes
such as emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction.

1.3. Theoretical Framework
This study adopts Lazarus (1980)’s theory of emotion and adaptation, and Stephens
and Gwinner (1998)’s model to interpret the process of emotion regulation. According to this
theory, appraisal processes of internal and situational conditions lead to emotional responses,


5
these, in turn, induce coping activities: appraisal emotional response  coping (Bagozzi,

1992). Bagozzi conceptualizes that an individual appraises various past, present, and future
outcomes. These outcomes produce particular emotions and subsequently lead to various
coping responses. For example, when an employee anticipates or experiences a pleasant
event, he/she may feel satisfied, which in turn, direct him/her to take the necessary steps to
attain that outcome. Conversely, when he/she anticipates or suffers from unpleasant events
such as injustice behaviors from customers, it may lead to negative emotional responses,
which may direct efforts to reduce or avoid such outcomes.

Customer

Employee

Service quality

Figure 1.1. The interaction between employee and customer in service encounters.

This study adopted appraisal theory to interpret emotion regulation process of
emotional regulation in employees. This process can be considered as emotional labor.

Appraisal process

Emotional reactions

Coping activities

Unpleasant
events

Emotion felt


Emotional
Labor

Consequences

Emotional
Outcomes

Figure 1.2. Emotional Self-Regulation Process

An appraisal is the evaluation of internal or situational conditions as they apply to
one’s well-being. Two appraisal processes can be identified: primary and secondary. In
primary appraisal, one assesses the motivational relevance of conditions leading to the


6
appraisal, the motivational congruence, or the extent to which the conditions thwart or
facilitate achievement of one’s goals, and one’s ego-involvement. A secondary appraisal
addresses the resources or options for coping with internal or situational conditions, which
include attribution to oneself or to another of credit or blame for any harm or benefit, selfefficacy with regard to regulating one’s own internal states, and expectations of forces
operating beyond one control (Bagozzi, 1992).
The results of appraisal will lead to some outcomes: biological urges to act, subjective
experience or affect, and physiological responses, the combination of these outcomes
determines which particular emotion will result from any appraisal (Bagozzi, 1992). Because
of the presence of a particular emotion, two coping responses will appear. Problem-focused
coping consists of efforts to overcome or reduce the effect of an undesirable situation.
Emotion-focused coping refers to cognitive strategies to master, reduce, or tolerate an
undesirable situation. This strategy entails denial, avoidance of thinking about an appraisal, or
reconceptualizing the source of dissonance or its meaning (Bagozzi, 1992).


1.4. Conceptual Framework
Based on the discussion in the previous chapters the basic model of employee emotion
regulation is presented in Figure 1.1. This model follows Lazarus’s theory of emotion and
adaptation, and affective event theory. Affective event theory posits that specific events
generate specific emotions, which in turn translate to affectively driven behaviors. In this
basic model, customer’s injustice behaviors can be considered as a source of negative event.
Injustice perception occurs when outcomes or procedures are seen as unfair in comparison to
certain standards and when interpersonal treatment is discourteous or disrespectful without
justification (Cropanzano and Greenberd, 1997). These events, in turn, generate negative
emotions in employees (anger) and then these emotions lead to coping behaviors in
employees (emotional labor).
The hypothesized model presented in Figure 1.3 expands the basic model by
proposing the effects of cognitive reappraisal and suppression on emotional outcomes. Angry
employees will engage in emotion regulation and in return, affects their emotional outcomes.
Particularly, when employees adopt cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression strategies,
they will be exhaust or job dissatisfaction.
This argument is consistent with research of Folkman and Lazarus (1980) at the point
that problem- and emotion-focused coping strategies can be used in tandem to deal the same
situation. This argument is also associated with research of Duhachek (2005) when classify


7
coping strategies into three types: active coping, expressive coping, and avoidance/denial.
Active coping is aimed at problem solving and resolution. Because employee emotion
regulation can be considered as purposive actions, in which employees actively regulate and
express their desired emotions to achieve their goals, therefore, employee emotion regulation
can be considered as active coping to achieve better service outcomes.
In the model of this research, the hypotheses and procedures will be implemented as
followings: First, from basic model, some hypotheses about the relationships between
employee’s perception of customer’s injustice behaviors and employee anger felt, and the

relationship between employee anger felt and emotional regulation will be hypothesized and
tested empirically. Customer’s injustice behaviors will have a positive effect on employees’
anger felt, then, in turn, employee anger will lead to emotional labor. The review in Chapter
Two supports these relationships among variables.
Second, the hypothesized model will be tested with the role of cognitive reappraisal
strategy and emotion suppression strategy in emotional outcomes. After suffering unfair
treatment, employees may engage in reappraisal process, which in turn increase the emotional
exhaust and decrease job satisfaction. Cognitive reappraisal and emotion suppression will
mediate the effects of anger felt on emotional regulation. However, reappraisal and
suppression process make employees feel stressful, exhaust, and tired. From above discussion,
some hypotheses are proposed as following:
H1: Customer injustice behavior will lead to anger feeling in employees.
H2: Anger feeling will cause employees to engage in cognitive reappraisal strategy to
regulate their emotions.
H3: Anger feeling will cause employees to engage in emotion suppression strategy to
regulate their emotions.
H4: Employees who engage more in cognitive reappraisal strategy will more satisfy
with the job.
H5: Employees who engage more on suppression strategy will less satisfy with the job.
H6: Employees who engage more on suppression strategy will become more exhaust.
H7: Employees who engage more in cognitive reappraisal strategy will more become
exhaust.
In this model, author used structural equation modeling method, some dependent
variables are independent variables of others. For example, employee anger felt can be
dependent variable of customer behavior; however, it is also independent variable of


8
reappraisal and suppression. Reappraisal and suppression are independent variables of
emotional outcomes.


Customer’s
Injustice
Behavior

Employee’s
Anger Felt

Cognitive
Reappraisal

Job
Satisfaction

Emotion
Suppression

Emotional
Exhaustion

Figure 1.3. Theoretical Model

In this theoretical model (Figure 1.3) the two constructs of cognitive reappraisal and
emotional suppression lies in the center, which is the main research interest of this study. In
this study, emotional regulation is conceptualized as “the degree of manipulation of one’s
inner feelings or outward behavior to display the appropriate emotion in response to display
rules or occupational norms.” These two construct emphasizes the “process” of how one
regulates the appropriate emotional display to satisfy the organization’s display rules. As
Grandey (1999) suggested, that when the research goal is to predict individual outcomes of
performing emotional labor, understanding the emotion management process becomes vital

(Grandey, 1999).
In addition, emotional regulation emphasizes the degree of manipulation that service
employees use to generate the appropriate emotional display. Researchers have proposed that
service providers perform emotional labor in one of three ways: surface acting, deep acting,
and genuine acting (Hochschild, 1983; Ashforth & Humphrey, 1993). While these three
acting mechanisms vary in nature, they require different degrees of manipulation of one’s
inner feelings or outward behavior. Some may require a greater degree of manipulation of
one’s inner feelings (i.e., deep acting) than those of others (i.e., surface acting).
In the proposed theoretical model (Figure 1.3), customer behaviors are treated as the
antecedents of emotional regulation. Researchers have suggested that customer behaviors are
the precursors of whether a person will engage in emotional regulation, or whether that
employees will have a detrimental outcome (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989; Grandey, 1999). In this
study, customer behaviors can be considered as emotional events. Specifically, this study
investigates how customer behavior affect the way individuals engage in emotional
management process.


9
Concerning emotional regulation and its consequences, this study then investigates the
effect of emotional regulation on emotional exhaustion and high job satisfaction. Emotional
exhaustion refers to feelings of being emotionally overextended and worn out by one’s work
(Maslach, 1982). Job satisfaction is a positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of
the job (Locke, 1976).
Theory suggests that performing emotional regulation can lead to emotional
consequences. It is then predicted that employees who feel angry with customer will engage
more emotional regulation and experience emotional consequences.

1.5. The Operational Definitions
Customer Injustice Behavior
To test the effect of customer injustice behavior, employees’ perception of customer

injustice behavior was used. Employees’ perception of customer injustice behavior refers to
the understanding of employees about customer behaviors. For example, employees may
perceive that customers have some behavior that may harm employees’ emotions. Perception
of Customer Injustice Behavior can be measured by four items adapted from previous studies
(Appendix 1). Four these items measure the level at which employee perceives customer
injustice behavior. The mean score was used as measure for customer injustice behavior as
perceived by the employees.
Anger Felt
Anger Felt refers to emotional state that employees really dissatisfy with something or
other behaviors. To test the effect of anger felt on emotional labor, the feelings of employees
may show the level of emotions such as happy, dissatisfaction, angry, mad, and crazy. Four
items (7-point scale) used for measure employees’ emotions (anger) after being treated
unfairly were adapted from Bougie et al. (2003) and Weiss (1999) (Appendix 1). The mean
score was used to measure employee anger felt.

Reappraisal
Cognitive Reappraisal refers to regulating emotional experience by changing the
content of thoughts or re-evaluating the emotions. Using the reappraisal strategy, employees
can reduce their emotional reactions toward a stimulus that tends to evoke emotional
reactions. Cognitive reappraisal is mainly utilized to reduce the unpleasant emotional arousal
evoked by a stressful event, it also has the possibility of increasing negative emotions by
allowing an individual to overthink the negative stimulus and perceive it worse than initially.


10
In order to measure cognitive reappraisal, the intention adopt thinking strategy to deal with
stimulus was used. Five items for measuring cognitive reappraisal (7-point scale) were
adapted from Gross and John (2003) and Gabbott (2010). The mean score was considered as
the measure of cognitive reappraisal scale.
Emotional Suppression

Suppression refers to restraining of emotional expression by controlling emotional
behavior in order to regulate emotional expression. In order to measure cognitive reappraisal,
the intention adopt thinking strategy to deal with stimulus was used. Four items for measuring
cognitive reappraisal (7-point scale) were adapted from Gross and John (2003) and Gabbott
(2010). The mean score was considered as the measure of cognitive reappraisal scale.
Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction is a term used to describe how content an individual is with his/her
job. In this study, author use the overall satisfaction with job in general as indicator of level of
satisfaction. In addition, the employees’ level of satisfaction can be measured with some
particular indicators like: Attitude toward present job, Satisfaction with pay, Satisfaction with
promotion opportunities, Satisfaction with coworkers, Satisfaction with supervisor. In this
study, job satisfaction was measured by overall job satisfaction of employee. Four items were
used to measure job satisfaction adapted from study of Schwepker (2001). The mean score
was used as measure of job satisfaction scale.
Exhaustion
Saxton, Phillips, and Blakeney (1988) also pointed out that emotional exhaustion is
related to excessive emotional demand during interpersonal interaction; this causes energy
exhaustion and increased withdrawal. These conditions decrease productivity and increase
certain stress reactions. In the same vein, Maslach and Jackson (1981) found that workers
who had to engage in face to face contact with clients as well as manage emotional expression
for extended periods were most susceptible to emotional exhaustion. Emotional Exhaustion
includes feelings of being emotionally overextended and exhausted by one's work. Seven
items (7-point scale) was used to measure employee exhaustion adapted from Maslach, et al.,
1996. The mean score was used as measure of this variable.

1.6. Significance of the Study
By conducting this research, managers at Hotels in Thai Nguyen can understands the
mechanism of emotional regulation in employees, understand the role of emotional regulation
in service process. By training employees with emotional regulation skill, hotels can avoid



11
some situations in which employees show their unsuitable emotions with customers, increase
customer satisfaction and retention.
This study is an attempt to increase the current level of knowledge of the existing
literature on emotional labor by proposing and empirically testing a causal model of
emotional labor.
In terms of its theoretical contribution, first, this study contributes to the body of
literature on emotional labor by exploring how customer injustice behavior affect the way
service providers perform emotional labor. Specifically, this study explores the mechanism of
what drives individuals to engage in a certain type of acting technique when interacting with
guests. A proposed model of emotional labor (Figure. 1) was developed for the hospitality
industry. Many researchers have suggested that individual characteristic is a major critical
indicator of how one performs emotional labor, and thereafter whether that labor will have a
detrimental outcome (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1989; Wharton, 1993; Grandey, 1999). However,
very few studies have used a systematic approach to empirically test this assumption.
Second, this study provides a better understanding of the emotional labor of
employees in the hotel industry. While much attention to emotional labor has been paid in the
service industries, little research has focused on the nature of emotional labor in the
hospitality field. Most empirical emotional labor studies were conducted on nurses or school
administrators whose authority is over clients; this study contributes to the body of knowledge
about emotional labor by examining hotel employees who deal with the situation where “the
customer is always right.” As many hotels challenge their employees to provide world-class
service, this thrust increases service quality, but adds a burden on employees in terms of
intensified emotional labor. Therefore, this study contributes to the emotional labor literature
by understanding how hotel employees, who endure a high degree of emotional labor,
perform emotional labor and experience the associated consequences.
In terms of its practical contribution, the results of this study could be helpful in
identifying the types of people who can enjoy and endure performing emotional labor. This
information is valuable to the industry in terms of refining employee selection and training

strategies. In addition, as this study also investigates how job autonomy and organizational
social support help alleviate the potential negative consequences of emotional labor, industry
practitioners can benefit from the study results by understanding what the industry can do to
buffer the negative effects of emotional labor.


12
1.7. Scope and Delimitation
This study focuses on studying the effect of customer behaviors on employees’
emotions through emotional regulation process in hotels in Thai Nguyen province. However,
due to time and other resource constraints, author intends to choose randomly some hotels in
Thai Nguyen province to collect the data. This study will use survey as the main data
collection method. The participants will be employees at any Hotel in Thai Nguyen. The
study will be conducted within a limited period of five months.
First, although scenario-based methodology avoids the expense, like any other
experimental studies, a role-playing approach used in this study traded off external validity
for internal validity. This approach minimizes biases due to memory and recall, the limitations
present in survey research. Future observational and experimental studies that observe or
manipulate the employee’s experience of being treated unfairly are warranted to increase the
external validity of the findings.
Second, the service problems used in the scenario were related to hotel and restaurant
services. Future research should examine the effect of emotion regulation in other kinds of
service. Especially, future studies can have examined the effect of emotion regulation in some
service situations in which customer behaviors affect employee’s emotions and employees
perceive they have low ability to control the transaction such as medical services,
administrative services.
Third, customer emotion regulation not only affects job satisfaction and emotional
exhaustion, it also affects employees’ performance. Therefore, further research needs to be
done to identify the effect of emotion regulation on employee’s performance.



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CHAPTER 2. REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

2.1. Related Literature
2.1.1. Emotions in Marketing
Emotions have attracted much attention from researchers. In Frijda’s treatment (1996),
emotions are conceived as the entire process from stimulus event to action and arousal. Above
we known that emotions are mental states of readiness. Positive emotion signals a rate of
discrepancy reduction that is faster than expected, negative emotion signals a rate that is
slower than expected. William James (1884, 1894) regarded emotions as adaptive behavioral
and physiological response tendencies that are called forth directly by evolutionarily
significant situations. Jame’s view of emotions as response tendencies allows that individuals
may modulate their emotional response tendencies. Emotional response tendencies may be
modulated, and it is this modulation that determines the final shape of emotional response
(Gross,1998). However, emotions are different from moods and attitudes in the way emotions
arise. Emotions arise in response to appraisals one makes for something of relevance to one’s
well-being (Bagozzi, Gopinath &Hyer, 1999). Bagozzi et al (1999) have identified the effects
of moods and emotions on evaluation, satisfaction and information processing. Emotions
influence information processing, mediate responses to persuasive appeals, measure the
effects of marketing stimuli, initiate goal setting, enact goal-directed behaviors, and serve as
ends and measures of consumer welfare.
2.1.2. Emotion Regulation
How and why people have to manage their emotions? It is clearly that there are many
factors affect emotions. In everyday life, people are exposed to many sources of emotionarousing stimuli, ranging from their internal sensations to external events. To response to
these stimuli, people usually express their emotions in some ways. In many cases, emotional
expressions may be considered as advantages when people share their emotion with others.
For example, when one person fails his/her examination, and he/she is really sad and
disappointed, his or her friends may show emotional expressions such as unhappy or
disappointed emotions to share the empathy with her/him. The few words of comfort

accompany with true emotional expressions may help him or her overcome difficult
situations.
In other cases, emotional expressions may be regarded as disadvantages when people
show their emotional expressions to others. For instance, when an employee serves one
unpleasant customer, it is easy for him to lose his temper and get angry. Consequently, his


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emotional expressions may be showed as angry appearance. This situation may become worse
that employees feel disappointed and dissatisfied with the jobs. It is necessary for the
employee to manage his/her emotions to achieve customer satisfaction. To do that, he/she has
to suppress his emotional expression of anger during service encounters.
However, in many cases, emotional expressions may be suppressed at the extent at
which other people cannot realize. Even though one’s emotions are so unpleasant but his/her
expressions look the same with different situations. This idea accompanied with the Jame’s
point of view of response tendencies leads to the thought that people can manage their
emotions to achieve their goals without detection by others. Therefore, emotion regulation is
the way to achieve one’s goals.
There are some definitions and points of view about emotion regulation. According to
Gross (1998), emotion regulation refers to the processes by which individuals influence which
emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express these
emotions. Emotion regulatory processes may be automatic or controlled, conscious or
unconscious, and may have their effects at one or more points in the emotion generative
process (Gross, 1998). The emotional changes that are produced by emotion regulation may
or may not bring people closer to the emotional state that they desired (Kool, 2009).
Some approaches have also considered emotion regulation by the external
environment. In each of particular cases, people resist stimuli by the immediate emotional
impact of the situation. In this perspective, emotion regulation can be defined as the set of
processes whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions (Kool,
2009). Emotion regulation researchers also have emphasized that both positive and negative

emotions may be regulated and that both emotion expression and experience may be targeted
(Gross, 1998).
Because emotion regulation is a process, so individuals may regulate their emotions at
some points in the emotion process. Considering about the working environment, emotional
stimuli may come from job environment or a particular work events, these stimuli cause the
emotion response in employees. Consequently, some inappropriate behaviors or attitudes will
appear in the encounters. Response regulation involves modifying the feelings and modifying
expressions.
As above discussion, emotion regulation refers to the processes by which people
manage their emotions to response to the stimuli and seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of
their emotions. Emotion regulatory processes consist of two sub-processes. One of them is the
process that happens before people exposing to the stimuli and the other happens after that.
Gross (1998) also divided the emotion regulatory process in two ones: antecedent-focused


15
emotion regulation, which occurs before the emotion is generated, and response-focused
emotion regulation which occurs after emotion is generated. He also distinguished five sets of
emotion regulatory processes: situation selection, situation modification, attention
deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation ((Gross, 1998; Gross & Munoz,
1995).
2.1.3. How employees regulate their emotions
Emotion regulation and emotional labor are beginning to attract attention of
researchers recently. There are some definitions and points of view about emotion regulation.
According to Gross (1998), emotion regulation refers to the processes by which individuals
influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and
express these emotions. Emotion regulatory processes may be automatic or controlled,
conscious or unconscious, and may have their effects at one or more points in the emotion
generative process (Gross, 1998). The emotional changes that are produced by emotion
regulation may or may not bring people closer to the emotional state that they desired (Kool,

2009).
Some approaches have also considered emotion regulation by the external
environment. In each of particular cases, people resist stimuli by the immediate emotional
impact of the situation. In this perspective, emotion regulation can be defined as the set of
processes whereby people seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of their emotions (Kool,
2009). Emotion regulation researchers also have emphasized that both positive and negative
emotions may be regulated and that both emotion expression and experience may be targeted
(Gross, 1998).
 Mechanism of employee emotion regulation
Because emotion regulation is a process, so individuals may regulate their emotions at
some points in the emotion process. Considering about the working environment, emotional
stimuli may come from job environment or a particular work event, these stimuli cause the
emotion response in employee. Consequently, some inappropriate behaviors or attitudes will
appear in the encounters. Because employees have to follow the organizational rules for
display, behaviors, and attitudes, so they have to regulate their emotion response. Response
regulation involves modifying the feelings and modifying expressions.
Antecedent-focused emotion regulation or deep acting
As above discussion, emotion regulation refers to the processes by which people
manage their emotions to response to the stimuli and seek to redirect the spontaneous flow of
their emotions. From this idea, we can know that emotion regulatory processes consist of two


16
sub-processes. One of them is the process that happens before people exposing to the stimuli
and the other happens after that. Gross (1998) also divided the emotion regulatory process in
two ones: antecedent-focused emotion regulation, which occurs before the emotion is
generated, and response-focused emotion regulation which occurs after emotion is generated.
He also distinguished five sets of emotion regulatory processes: situation selection, situation
modification, attention deployment, cognitive change, and response modulation ((Gross,
1998; Gross & Munoz, 1995). Four of these are involved in deep acting process and response

modulation involves surface acting.
+ Situation selection
Situation selection refers to approaching or avoiding certain people, place, or objects
in order to regulate emotions (Gross, 1998). This action may be considered as the efforts to
prevent being emotional from sources of emotion by actively avoiding certain stimuli. For
example, one employee feels uncomfortable when he/she interacts with certain kind of
customers such as talkative ones; he/she can avoid serving these customers and asks other coworkers for help.
+ Situation modification
Situation modification refers to the active efforts to directly modify the situation so as
to alter its emotional impact constitutes an important form of emotion regulation (Gross,
1998). Such active efforts have been referred to the stress and coping literature as problemfocused coping (Lauzarus & Folkman, 1984) and by Rothbaum et al. (1982) as primary
control. Situation modification is active efforts to prevent emotional arousal by doing some
adjustment about situations one has to cope with. For above example, the employee can
prepare some tactics to treat actively with talkative customers.
+ Attentional deployment
Attentional deployment is one of the first emotion regulatory processes that direct
one’s attention to other focuses. Strategies for changing attentional focus may be grouped
under the beadings of distraction, concentration, and rumination (Gross, 1998). Distraction
focuses attention on non-emotional aspects of the situation (Nix, Watson, Pyszynski, &
Greenberg, 1995) or moves attention away from the immediate situation altogether
(Derryberry & Rothbart, 1988). Concentration is the strategy to focus one’s attention from a
source of emotion trigger instead of other ones. Rumination also involves directed attention,
but attention is directed to feelings and their consequences (Gross, 1998). For instance, an
employee receives the bad news about their family and this news may induce him/her got