Being Recovered as an Antecedent of Emotional Labor
A Diary Study
Abstract
Abstract. Emotional labor is ubiquitous in service work, but little is known about what enables service employees to use desirable strategies such as deep acting. Applying conservation of resources theory, we hypothesized that being recovered is a crucial resource for deep acting, especially for employees with low customer orientation and low positive affectivity, and even needed for surface acting when employees have high negative affectivity. Sixty-five service employees answered 298 daily surveys. Multilevel analysis showed that morning being recovered predicts daily deep acting, but not surface acting. When being recovered, employees with low customer orientation engaged more in deep acting, whereas employees with high negative affectivity engaged more in surface acting. The findings highlight the role of different resources for emotional labor.
Service employees are often expected to provide service with a smile (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Considering that no employee always feels like smiling (Humphrey et al., 2015), displaying the appropriate emotions might be hard work and accordingly has been termed emotional labor (Hochschild, 1983). Two main types of emotional labor strategies exist: deep acting, the proactive modification of feelings resulting in authentic emotional expressions, and surface acting, the reactive suppression or faking of emotional expressions (Grandey, 2000). Although both emotional labor strategies are essential for service performance (Humphrey et al., 2015), deep acting is usually seen as more advantageous, given that surface acting comes along with well-being costs (Grandey & Melloy, 2017; Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). In this study, we take a bright side perspective on emotional labor (Humphrey et al., 2015). We focus on what enables deep acting, aiming to uncover ways to help service employees to engage in it more. Yet, to draw a holistic picture of emotional labor, we also consider surface acting in our investigation.
Emotional labor fluctuates daily, within-person. This variability is described in the dynamic model of emotional labor (Diefendorff et al., 2020), which extends Grandey’s (2000) general model of emotional labor in focusing on within-person processes. Despite this current theoretical attention, most research on the antecedents of emotional labor is focused on stable predictors (e.g., the dispositional model of emotional labor; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013).
Moreover, the few studies that did consider dynamic antecedents of emotional labor investigated external events and circumstances (e.g., customer mistreatment; Diefendorff et al., 2020; see Hur et al., 2020, for a recent exception). This focus on stable predictors and external antecedents is problematic for two reasons. First, static predictors cannot account for the dynamic nature of emotional labor (Gabriel et al., 2019). Second, as any behavior, emotional labor cannot be fully explained by external events alone. Therefore, we investigate a day-specific intrapersonal predictor – being recovered in the morning – toward a more thorough understanding of emotional labor.
More precisely, integrating conservation of resources (COR) theory (Hobfoll, 2001) and the dynamic model of emotional labor (Diefendorff et al., 2020), we suggest that being recovered in the morning, a state of having energy resources for the upcoming day (Binnewies et al., 2009), is a crucial intrapersonal resource needed for proactive emotional labor strategies that require resource expenditure, especially deep acting (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). Additionally, answering calls to enrich organizational theories by “considering the influence of experiential states and their interactions with personal traits” (Ilies et al., 2006, p. 571), we integrate the dispositional model of emotional labor (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013) to investigate if the being recovered in the morning is especially important for engaging in more deep acting for service employees who possess versus lack certain personal dispositions. Although we do not expect a general within-person relationship between being recovered and surface acting, we suppose that some service employees need to be recovered even to engage in surface acting.
Based on the resource-compensation argument in COR theory (Halbesleben et al., 2014; Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987), we suggest that service employees who lack dispositions that enable smooth interactions with customers are in special need for the energetic advantage of being recovered to engage in emotional labor. We focus on dispositional affect (i.e., positive and negative affectivity) and customer orientation, a service-specific disposition (Brown et al., 2002), because these dispositions play a central role for emotional labor according to theoretical models and meta-analytic evidence (Grandey & Gabriel, 2015; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). Precisely, positive affectivity and customer orientation are related to more deep acting and less surface acting. Negative affectivity on the contrary predicts more surface acting and less deep acting (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). We test morning being recovered and its interaction with dispositional affectivity and customer orientation in predicting day-specific deep and surface acting (see Figure 1).
We contribute to the emotional labor literature in several ways. We integrate dispositional and dynamic models of emotional labor (Diefendorff et al., 2020; Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013) with COR theory (Hobfoll, 2001) to gain insights into the occurrence of emotional labor in daily service work, especially into the role that personal dispositions play in this dynamic process. Our focus on being recovered as a predictor of day-specific deep acting adds to recent attempts of incorporating dynamic intrapersonal antecedents into emotional labor research (e.g., Hur et al., 2020; Nesher Shoshan & Venz, 2022).
Furthermore, we contribute to COR theory (Hobfoll, 2001). The theoretical idea of compensation of resources (Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987) suggests that some resources can compensate for others. In our investigation, we extend this idea to resources from different levels (i.e., day level and person level), testing if dynamic resources (i.e., being recovered) and stable resources (e.g., positive affectivity) can compensate for each other.
Finally, although we acknowledge that emotional labor is hard work (Grandey, 2000), we suggest that it is essential for employees and for the proper functioning of organizations (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987). Examining if the energetic state of being recovered relates to deep acting addresses both theoretical calls to study constructs that promote good service and a practical need to advance service employees’ well-being and performance (Humphrey et al., 2015).
State of Being Recovered: A Good Way to Start the Service Day
COR theory defines resources as anything individuals perceive to help attain their goals (Halbesleben et al., 2014). A basic principle of COR is that “those with greater resources are less vulnerable to resource loss and more capable of orchestrating resource gain” (Hobfoll, 2001, p. 117). Accordingly, having resources available, for example, because of being well recovered, is an important precondition of being able to invest resources at work on a given day (e.g., to engage in effective emotional labor; Humphrey et al., 2015; Hur et al., 2020). As an outcome of a successful recovery process, being recovered in the morning reflects a state of being physically and mentally refreshed and having a full battery (Sonnentag et al., 2017). Being recovered predicts positive at-work outcomes (e.g., task performance, work engagement; Binnewies et al., 2009; Venz et al., 2018). Accordingly, we suggest that being recovered will enable service employees to engage in positive emotional labor, precisely more deep acting.
Emotional labor (i.e., deep acting and surface acting) describes effortful emotion management at work (Grandey & Melloy, 2017). Deep acting is considered an antecedent-focused strategy that occurs early in the emotion-regulation process before the emotion is generated (Grandey, 2000; Grandey & Melloy, 2017). When engaging in deep acting toward their customers, employees attempt to actively change their emotions to align them with the kind of emotions needed at work. They may use cognitive reappraisal, imagination, talking to their colleagues, or various other active techniques (Alabak et al., 2020; Beal et al., 2006). Importantly, these attempts must come before the expression of the actual emotion. Deep acting is related to higher levels of customer satisfaction (Brotheridge & Lee, 2003) and employee well-being (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011). However, although deep acting is related to personal and social gains, the way to achieve it is going the extra mile (Grandey & Melloy, 2017). This might be taxing (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013) and will therefore require resources (Nesher Shoshan & Venz, 2022). Accordingly, drawing upon COR theory, we suggest that being recovered in the morning, meaning having energy resources, enables service employees to engage in more deep acting on that day.
There will be a positive day-level relationship between being recovered in the morning and deep acting.
Compared to deep acting, surface acting is considered less favorable (Grandey & Melloy, 2017) as it is related to emotional dissonance, impaired well-being, and lower customer satisfaction (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011; Wiese et al., 2017). Surface acting includes modifying the expression of emotions that were already generated and as such might be seen as a quick and shallow way to comply with organizational expectations (e.g., fake a smile; Humphrey et al., 2015). According to COR theory, when having adequate resources, employees will not have to rely on superficial and nonoptimal strategies such as surface acting (Hobfoll et al., 2018).
Thus, it is not likely that surface acting is the strategy that most employees use when they are well recovered and full of resources (Humphrey et al., 2015). This does not necessarily imply, however, that employees will engage in more surface acting when not being recovered. This is because surface acting will involve further resource loss (Hülsheger & Schewe, 2011) and according to COR theory, when resources are low, people aim to avoid a further loss of resources (Hobfoll et al., 2018). Hence, we do not expect that being recovered will predict surface acting. Indeed, previous studies could not support personal morning resources as predictors of day-specific surface acting (Hur et al., 2020; Nesher Shoshan & Venz, 2022).
For Which Service Employees Is Being Recovered Most Important?
Linking the dispositional model (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013) and the dynamic model (Diefendorff et al., 2020) of emotional labor to COR theory (Hobfoll, 2001), we argue that being recovered is especially valuable for some service employees. According to COR theory (Hobfoll et al., 2018), some people possess stable personal resources (e.g., dispositional positive affectivity; Watson et al., 1988) that enable them to overcome the challenges of their daily life. In service work, besides positive affectivity, customer orientation is such a crucial dispositional resource that makes working with customers easier (Brown et al., 2002). Some employees, however, do not possess these beneficial personal resources or might even have personal dispositions that harden service work (e.g., negative affectivity; Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995).
Fortunately, lacking a particular resource is not necessarily detrimental if the person has other resources to replace or substitute the deficient resource with (e.g., Venz et al., 2018; Venz & Sonnentag, 2015; Xanthopoulou et al., 2013). Put differently, when two resources independently predict a certain outcome, if one of these resources is lacking yet the other resource is available, the outcome still can appear. Following this notion of compensation of resources (Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987), we suggest that starting the workday better recovered is especially important to those service employees who lack personal dispositional resources that make it usually easier to engage in deep acting (i.e., positive affectivity, customer orientation). Being recovered is also of special importance to those who are high in negative affectivity and might find it hard to engage even in surface acting (and generally do not engage in deep acting; Judge et al., 2009).
Dispositional Affectivity and Emotional Labor
The dispositional model of emotional labor, supported by meta-analytic results (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013), suggests that dispositional affectivity is important for emotional labor. Employees who are high in positive affectivity tend to engage in more deep acting because it is easier for them to show positive emotions as required by many service organizations (Grandey, 2000). In contrast, those who are low in positive affectivity might have to fight their nature to show positive emotions and, as a result, will engage in less deep acting.
From a COR theory perspective (Hobfoll, 2001), service employees who are low in positive affectivity can be considered low in a personal resource needed for deep acting (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). However, compensating for a lacking resource by drawing on another resource is possible (e.g., Venz & Sonnentag, 2015). Applying this notion of resource compensation (Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987) to dynamic emotional labor processes, we suggest that service employees who are low in positive affectivity will be in special need of morning being recovered to engage in more deep acting.
For employees low in positive affectivity, the positive day-level relationship between being recovered and deep acting will be stronger than for those high in positive affectivity.
Surface and deep acting do not necessarily have symmetric relations to antecedents and consequences (Judge et al., 2009). Similarly, negative affectivity is not simply the lack of positive affectivity (Watson et al., 1988). People who are high in negative affectivity tend to experience daily situations as more stressful (Bolger & Zuckerman, 1995). For example, they might perceive organizational demands to show certain emotions more negatively (Judge et al., 2009) and deep acting as an unworthy effort (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). Indeed, they might even find it hard to just put on a smile as required by surface acting (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013) and might thus not modify their emotions at all. Instead, they might show customers inappropriate emotions, a behavior termed “deviance” (Dahling, 2017; Grandey, 2003).
Applying the resources-compensation perspective (Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987), we suggest that service employees high in negative affectivity would rely on being recovered as an energy resource that will allow them to engage at least in surface acting if not in deep acting. Accordingly, we suggest that being recovered is positively related to surface acting for service employees high in negative affectivity.
For employees high in negative affectivity, there will be a positive day-level relationship between being recovered and surface acting.
Customer Orientation and Emotional Labor
Customer orientation “speaks to individual employees’ value for customer service quality” (Allen et al., 2010, p. 4). Customer orientation represents a service-oriented dispositional resource that makes employees see value in service work, assist their customers, and provide high-quality service (Brown et al., 2002; Donavan et al., 2004). Service employees high in customer orientation tend to use more deep acting (Allen et al., 2010; Gabriel et al., 2015) because they can take customers’ perspectives easily, see the importance of showing authentic emotions, and have an inner tendency to act toward their customers in “good faith” (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987, p. 32).
Accordingly, customer orientation represents a resource for service employees as it enables them to overcome challenges related to working with customers (Lee & Hwang, 2016). Employees who are low in customer orientation do not possess this resource. They have a lower inner tendency to satisfy customers and, therefore, tend to use less deep acting (Allen et al., 2010). Nonetheless, following the compensation of resources argument (Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987), employees low in customer orientation might still engage in deep acting when having other resources available. Accordingly, we suggest that those who are low in customer orientation will depend more on being recovered in the morning to engage in deep acting.
For employees low in customer orientation, the positive day-level relationship between being recovered and deep acting will be stronger than for those high in customer orientation.
Summing up, we hypothesize three specific cross-level interaction effects theoretically based on the compensation of resources argument (Hobfoll et al., 2018; Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987). Following this argument, we focus on instances in which a daily resource can compensate for a dispositional resource. Specifically, we hypothesize morning being recovered to substitute for positive affectivity and customer orientation in relation with deep acting and for negative affectivity in relation with surface acting. Still, other cross-level interaction effects might be possible. For example, employees high in customer orientation, who usually engage in less surface acting (Allen et al., 2010), might engage in even less surface acting on days when they are better recovered. To test these possibilities, we investigate all possible cross-level interactions in our model (see Figure 1) and pose the following research questions: Are there cross-level interaction effects of positive affectivity and customer orientation with morning being recovered in relation to surface acting? Is there a cross-level interaction effect of negative affectivity with morning being recovered in relation to deep acting?
Method
Procedure
Data were collected as part of a larger project on social interactions at work (Nesher Shoshan & Venz, 2022; Venz & Nesher Shoshan, 2022). The current study is unique in its focus on service employees interacting with customers, whereas the other studies focused on coworker interactions. Accordingly, in this study, we used an exclusive subsample of service employees, a theoretical perspective of emotional labor in service work (Grandey, 2000), and measures focusing on employee−customer interactions (e.g., customer orientation; Brown et al., 2002).
In the research project, participants answered one general survey and two daily surveys over 10 workdays. Four students recruited participants using social media and their personal networks. Participants who responded to at least 50% of the daily surveys could win 1 out of 15 vouchers of 10 Euro each. Participants responded to the general survey before the beginning of the daily survey period. Regarding the daily survey part, morning surveys were accessible daily between 5:00 am and 11:00 am, and afternoon surveys were accessible daily between 3:00 pm and midnight. Participants received an e-mail each time a survey was due.
Participants
A total of 159 people registered for the project. Of them, 69 indicated that they worked with customers and worked only in day shifts, making them eligible for the current study. We included data from 65 participants (70.1% female) with a mean age of 42.23 years (SD = 12.29) who filled in the general survey and both daily surveys on at least two days with customer contact. These participants provided data on 298 days (M = 4.58 days per participant). Participants’ mean job tenure was 16.77 years (SD = 10.7), and mean working hours were 38 hours per week (SD = 10.06). Participants held various occupations (e.g., consultant, administration) and worked in different fields (e.g., health, education, service); 70% worked with customers more than 4 hours a day.
Measures
Table 1 displays the means, SDs, intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs), and multilevel correlations between study variables. For all measures, we used a 5-point scale (1 = not at all to 5 = very much). Surveys were presented in German.
Dispositional Affectivity
We assessed positive and negative affectivity in the general survey with six items each of the German version (Krohne et al., 1996) of the Positive and Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS; Watson et al., 1988). Participants reported how they feel in general. A sample item for positive affectivity is excited. Cronbach’s α was .78. A sample item for negative affectivity is angry. Cronbach’s α was .87.
Dispositional Customer Orientation
We assessed customer orientation in the general survey with the six-item trait customer orientation scale (Brown et al., 2002). Participants indicated to what extent the statements apply to them in general. A sample item is “I really enjoy serving my customers.” Cronbach’s α was .75.
State of Being Recovered
We assessed state of being recovered in the daily morning survey with the four-item scale by Sonnentag and Kruel (2006). Sample items are “This morning I feel well rested” and “This morning I am filled with new energy.” Daily Cronbach’s α ranged from .88 to .96 across days (M = 0.95).
Deep Acting and Surface Acting
We assessed deep acting and surface acting in the daily afternoon survey with the respective three-item subscales of the emotional labor scale (Brotheridge & Lee, 2003) adapted to daily measurement. A sample item for deep acting is “While dealing with my customers today at work … I tried to actually feel the feelings that I had to show the customers.” Daily Cronbach’s α ranged from .46 to .92 (M = 0.68). A sample item for surface acting is “…I pretended to have the emotions that I had to show the customers.” Cronbach’s α ranged from .66 to .95 (M = 0.82).
Control Variable: Day-Specific Customer Treatment
Theoretical models of emotional labor (e.g., Diefendorff et al., 2020) suggest that how customers treat the service employee (e.g., with respect) is a predictor of the emotional labor strategy the employee enacts. Accordingly, to rule out that participants displayed certain emotional labor strategies only because of their customers’ behavior that day (Rupp et al., 2008), we controlled for day-specific customer treatment assessed in the afternoon survey with three items following Zhan et al. (2016). A sample item is “Today, my customers treated me with respect.” Cronbach’s α ranged from .74 to .95 (M = 0.86). In the analysis, we also tested a model without the control variable customer treatment. The results of the hypotheses tests remained unchanged.
Construct Validity
To test the construct validity of the study variables, we conducted two confirmatory factor analyses (see Table 2) using Mplus 6.1 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2011). In one multilevel factor analysis, we tested the day-level variables. A three-factor model (state of being recovered, deep acting, surface acting) on both analytical levels showed an acceptable fit, χ2 = 1,377.668, df = 90, p < .001, scaling correction factor (SCF) = 0.959, comparative fit index (CFI) = 0.944, Tucker-Lewis index (TLI) = 0.924, root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) = 0.06, and fit better than alternative models. In the second factor analysis, we tested the person-level variables. A three-factor model (negative affectivity, positive affectivity, customer orientation) showed an acceptable fit, χ2 = 176.690, df = 132, p < .001, CFI = 0.889, TLI = 0.872, RMSEA = 0.07, which was better than alternative models. The syntax is available online (https://osf.io/ezcpy/?view_only=25e668e206c54038b888315bcabe0bff).
Results
Data Analysis Strategy
We tested our hypotheses with a multilevel path analysis (Preacher et al., 2010) that estimates all paths simultaneously on the day level and the person level. The day-level paths from being recovered to deep acting and surface acting were specified with random slopes, all other paths with fixed slopes. All day-level variables were implicitly person-mean centered because the latent person means were included in the person-level part of the model as well (Preacher et al., 2010).
Variance Decomposition
The ICCs of the day-level variables ranged from 0.41 (state of being recovered) to 0.63 (surface acting), supporting our multilevel approach.
Hypotheses Testing
The results are presented in Table 3. We controlled for daily customer treatment when testing our hypotheses. Customer treatment was not significantly related to deep acting (estimate = −0.05, SE = 0.06, p = .42) nor to surface acting (estimate = −0.08, SE = 0.07, p = .24) on the day level.
Supporting Hypothesis 1, we found a significant positive day-level relationship between morning being recovered and deep acting (estimate = 0.13, SE = 0.05, p = .01). As expected, the day-level relationship between morning being recovered and surface acting (estimate = 0.07, SE = 0.05, p = .12) was not significant.
Hypothesis 2 was not supported. The positive day-level relationship between being recovered and deep acting was not stronger for employees low in positive affectivity (cross-level interaction = −0.08, SE = 0.10, p = .40).
Hypothesis 3 was supported. There was a significant cross-level interaction between negative affectivity and being recovered predicting surface acting (cross-level interaction = 0.15, SE = 0.07, p = .03). As hypothesized, for employees high in negative affectivity (+1 SD), morning being recovered was positively related to daily surface acting (slope estimate = 0.19, SE = 0.07, p < .01), but for employees low in negative affectivity (−1 SD; slope estimate = −0.04, SE = 0.07, p = .59), being recovered was not significantly related to surface acting. The interaction graph is presented in Figure 2.
Hypothesis 4 was supported. There was a significant cross-level interaction between dispositional customer orientation and being recovered predicting deep acting (cross-level interaction = −0.15, SE = 0.07, p = .03). As hypothesized, for employees low in customer orientation (−1 SD), morning being recovered was positively related to deep acting (slope estimate = 0.24, SE = .08, p < .01), but for employees high in customer orientation (+1 SD), the relationship was not significant (slope estimate = 0.01, SE = 0.06, p = .81). The interaction graph is presented in Figure 3.
Research Questions
We found no significant cross-level interaction effects of positive affectivity (estimate = −0.00, SE = 0.09, p = .93) and customer orientation (estimate = 0.04, SE = 0.07, p = .53) with being recovered in predicting daily surface acting. We also did not find a significant cross-level interaction effect of negative affectivity with being recovered in predicting daily deep acting (estimate = −0.04, SE = 0.08, p = .55).
Discussion
Our diary study showed that when being recovered in the morning, service employees engaged in more deep acting (but not in more or less surface acting) at work. For service employees with low dispositional customer orientation, being recovered in the morning was more strongly related to deep acting. For employees high in dispositional negative affectivity, being recovered in the morning was positively related to surface acting.
Theoretical Implications
Our study broadens the knowledge regarding intrapersonal antecedents of dynamic emotional labor bearing several theoretical implications. First, by focusing on being recovered as a key energy resource (Sonnentag et al., 2012), we add to emotional labor models, which acknowledge deep acting as a useful resource investment, but indeed see it as labor that requires energy (Humphrey et al., 2015). By showing that being recovered predicts service employees’ daily deep acting beyond customer treatment as a day-specific external variable, we highlight the value of integrating intrapersonal antecedents into dynamic models of emotional labor (Diefendorff et al., 2020; see Nesher Shoshan & Venz, 2022).
To gain insights regarding how different service employees engage in dynamic emotional labor, we investigated interactive effects between being recovered in the morning and personal dispositions. Adding to a bright side perspective on emotional labor (Humphrey et al., 2015), we found that being recovered enables even those service employees who are low in customer orientation (i.e., a usually critical disposition for service; Brown et al., 2002) to engage in deep acting. This finding adds a multilevel perspective to COR theory’s notion regarding compensation of resources (Hobfoll & Leiberman, 1987), showing that resources from the day level (e.g., being recovered in the morning) may be even more valuable to those who lack resources on the person level (e.g., customer orientation).
In contrast to our hypothesis, being recovered was not more important for deep acting for those service employees low in positive affectivity. Although positive affectivity is a known predictor of deep acting (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013), Gabriel et al. (2015) found that dispositional affect was related weakly to emotional labor in the presence of customer orientation. Together with our finding, this result highlights the need to further investigate which dispositional characteristics are most meaningful for emotional labor.
As expected, supporting findings by Hur et al. (2020), being recovered was unrelated to surface acting. This finding is in line with a comparative perspective that sees surface acting as less effortful than deep acting (Humphrey et al., 2015). It might be that employees need some energy available even to engage in surface acting (see Zapf et al., 2020), but when having adequate energy resources (i.e., when being recovered), they are in fact able to engage in deep acting as the more adaptive emotional labor strategy. Similarly, our finding that being recovered is related to more surface acting for employees who are high in negative affectivity supports a realistic approach that sees surface acting as an integrative part of service employees’ work life (Humphrey et al., 2015; Zapf et al., 2020), even if not an optimal strategy.
To provide a more holistic picture of emotional labor, we addressed whether positive affectivity and customer orientation interact with being recovered in relation to surface acting and if negative affectivity interacts with being recovered in relation to deep acting. Although we did not find significant results, we deem future studies could benefit from further focusing on these relationships. For example, it will be interesting to examine under which circumstances highly customer-oriented employees do engage in surface acting.
Limitations and Future Directions
The current study has some limitations. First, our data are based on self-report measures, which raises concerns regarding common method bias (Podsakoff et al., 2003). To strengthen the design, we separated the measurement of the predictor (i.e., morning being recovered) from that of the outcomes (i.e., emotional labor strategies). Moreover, considering that being recovered is a perception and not an objective state (Binnewies et al., 2009), self-report might indeed be the best measurement option.
Second, we showed that for service employees high in negative affectivity, being recovered in the morning is positively related to daily surface acting. However, we did not study alternative emotional labor strategies, for example, deviance (Dahling, 2017). Thus, future studies could adopt a more comprehensive approach to emotional labor and investigate a broader set of emotional labor strategies, including deviance. In this regard, considering our relatively small sample size at the person level (N = 65), future studies could benefit from larger samples, especially in terms of examining cross-level interaction effects.
Finally, future studies could identify other personal resources relevant to emotional labor. Emotion regulation ability – a dimension of emotional intelligence – was recently suggested as meaningful for emotional labor (Scherer et al., 2020). Daily energy resources (e.g., being recovered in the morning) may also aid those who are low in emotion regulation ability to engage in beneficial emotional labor strategies such as deep acting.
Practical Implications
Our results show the importance of promoting service employees’ energy resources to foster the functioning of service organizations. Specifically, being well recovered in the morning facilitates deep acting, which is related to positive individual and organizational outcomes (Kammeyer-Mueller et al., 2013). Our findings show that it is not only that employees gain from being recovered in general but also that being recovered is in fact more valuable for employees with nonoptimal dispositions in terms of service behavior. This has implications for employee selection. Professional employees (e.g., nurses) could be recruited by their skills and experience even if they do not possess strong service dispositions (e.g., customer orientation) because, if they begin their day well recovered, they can still engage in adaptive emotional labor strategies. Hence, organizations and employees should foster activities and psychological experiences that support good recovery (Sonnentag et al., 2017; Steed et al., 2021), such as physical activities after work and reduced smartphone use in the evening (Lanaj et al., 2014).
In conclusion, our study extends knowledge regarding day-specific intrapersonal resources as predictors of dynamic emotional labor, focusing on how deep acting can be enhanced and identifying who is even in greater need for daily energy resources.
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