“Emotional Labor in Customer Service Professionals: Validation in the Indian Context.”

Abstract

Rationale: Modulating Emotional Reactions to suit the work requirements is a common phenomenon in customer service work. The concept has been termed Emotional Labor by Hochschild (1983). The construct has evolved through the years, and many versions have been proposed (Bono & Vey, 2005). Different approaches to the concept have been generated by various researchers (Asforth& Humpherey, 1993; Grandey, 2000; Morris & Feldman, 1996) which differ from each other in multiple aspects. Therefore, validating the Emotional Labor measurement scales proposed earlier is essential to check their suitability in the Indian Context.

Purpose of the study: The purpose of this study was to investigate the adequacy of the original factor model of the Emotional Labor Scale (ELS) proposed by Brotheridge and Lee (2003), which assesses the frequency of emotional display, the intensity of emotional display, variety of emotional display, surface acting and deep acting as major contributors leading to Emotional Labor at the workplace.

Methods: The study was conducted on 600 customer service professionals who were Doctors, Teachers, Marketing Professionals, and Hospitality Executives working at Indore, M.P. A questionnaire comprising basic Demographic Information and ELS was exercised on the sample. Data collected was then subjected to Reliability Test and Confirmatory Factor Analysis to explore whether the resulting structure was valid for the data collected from Indian Customer Service Professionals.

Findings and Results: Cronbach’s Alpha value for ELS was found to be 0.89. The values from the Confirmatory Factor Analysis on Emotional labor Scale revealed that the model was acceptable as all the critical values (CMIN, CFI, AGFI, RMSEA) fall within the acceptable ranges and was finalized to be included in the final model. Out of the fourteen items, all items were statistically significant with high factor loadings (>0.50) and therefore item discrimination was found acceptable for each item.

Conclusions: The results regarding reliability and CFA Model fit were found to be satisfactory. Thus, the instrument is suitable for the assessment of emotional labor even in the Indian Context specifically with reference to the customer service sector.