Effects of Emotional Labor On HR Managers and Organizations

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being:
Effects of Emotional Labor on HR Managers and Organizations
Matthieu Wargnier
Executive Master Thesis

INSEAD
January 2014
Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Abstract
The concept of emotional labor the regulation of feelings and expressions for organizational
purposes has shown exponential attention since its naming by sociologist Arlie Russel
Hochschild in 1983. However, most of the studies on this subject focus on employees on nonprofessional jobs in the service sector. Over the same 30 years, following the realization that
competitive advantage could be seized and sustained through the wise utilization of human
resources, the HR profession has emerged as a strategic partner and is more and more
expected, beyond its original people care role, to regulate others feelings, as a change and
culture champion or supporting managers who lack the skills, energy or time to perform
emotion management. So far the impact of these emerging emotional responsibilities on the
psychological well-being of HR professionals has not been explored. This study examines the
effects of the full human resources emotional labor on HR Managers and organizations.
Results from the analysis of semi-structured interviews of HR Managers in large corporations
confirmed the transferability of several findings made on other professions. It was in
particular established that emotional labor was a key constituent of current HR Management
and that its impact on the psychological well-being and performance of the HR manager was
correlated to several individual differences and contextual factors. Further, practical
suggestions are proposed to increase the effectiveness of HR emotional labor in organizations
and reduce its psychological impact on HR Managers.
Keywords:
Emotional Labor, Interpersonal Emotional Regulation, Human Resource Manager, Wellbeing, Dissonance, Change Management, Toxin Handler, Authenticity, Personality Traits,
Social Support

Introduction:
The focus and context of human resources management, both in its practice within
organizations and in its study within academia, have undergone major development in the past
30 years (Schuler & Jackson, 2007). The successive HR evolutions to business partnership
(Ulrich, 1998) and human capital management (Ulrich, Younger, Brockbank, & Ulrich, 2013)
have deeply modified the responsibilities and required competencies of the HR profession. A
large part of these emerging requirements are extending the emotion regulation activities of
HR managers beyond their historical caring for the people key contribution : change and
culture management, employee engagement and support to leaders who lack the skills, energy
or time to perform emotion management with their teams.
Recent studies (Kulik, Cregan, Metz, & Brown, 2009) have leveraged the work of Frost
(2003) on toxin handling, i.e. the managerial activities associated with helping
organizational members cope with difficult, volatile emotions in the workplace, to start
exploring the psychological impact of HR emotion management at work while caring for the
people.
However, no work has so far captured that the extension of the emotional requirements on HR
managers made the profession move further to a true context of emotional labor. This concept
was described by Hochschild (1983) as the regulation of feelings and expressions for
organizational purposes and its psychological impacts have been well documented, albeit
mostly for non-professional jobs in the service sector. Emotional labor, as opposed to emotion
management at work, occurs when emotion regulation is performed in response to job-based
emotional requirements in order to produce emotion towards and to evoke emotion from
another person to achieve organizational goals (Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2013).

This study therefore takes a unique approach in that it explores the current human resources
management job requirements through the emotional labor lenses to identify how they impact
the HR manager and the organization in terms of well-being and performance. As
organizations are striving to make the HR function leaner and more strategic (Francis &
Keegan, 2006) and as their much needed strategic agility appears increasingly related to
emotion management (Huy, 2011), the exploration of HR emotional labor is critical to
maintain the well-being and performance of HR managers despite the changes in job
requirements and therefore to ensure, through transformation and employee engagement, the
realization of organizational goals.
In this study the literature on emotional labor (EL) will be reviewed through the main lines of
research to propose an integrated view. A specific attention will be given to the transposition
of EL beyond non-professional service jobs, to its impact on well-being, and to its relation
with individual differences.
Findings from the analysis of semi-structured interviews of HR Managers in large
corporations will be discussed with respect to the extent to which emotional labor is actually
experienced by HR managers and in what way contextual and individual factors affect the
psychological impact and effectiveness of HR emotional labor. Coping strategies by HR
managers and social support by their managers will be examined. The impact of emotional
labor on the feeling of authenticity by HR managers and organization members will be
discussed.
Finally, implications of these findings will be suggested and areas for future research
identified. It is proposed that the impact of emotional labor on HR managers can be reduced
through the integration of personality traits in selection and development of HR managers, if

specific social support measures are put in place, if the emotional requirements are formalized
or if HR managers are trained to antecedent based emotion regulations and relaxation.
Research aims and objectives:

This study aims to confirm the existence of emotional labor in the role of modern HR
managers, to explore how it is experienced by the HR managers themselves and to identify
the main factors that influence the effectiveness and psychological impact of HR emotional
labor. This will allow us to draw practical recommendations for HR managers and their line
managers with regards to the selection, development, support and training of HR managers.
Literature Review:
Emotional Labor
Three decades ago, sociologist Arlie Russel Hochschild published a seminal and
groundbreaking book: The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feelings (1983). In
this book she was proposing that the growth of the service sector and the increased attention
to interpersonal job demands gave birth to a new type of occupation called emotional labor,
a parallel concept to cognitive labor or physical labor. The term labor allowed to
differentiate emotional labor (i.e. managing feelings and expressions in exchange for a wage)
from emotion management that could be performed for personal use and potentially in a
private context.
Three main perspectives have been used to study EL (Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2013):

The original view of Hochschild, seeing EL as occupational requirements, identifying

EL jobs that require managing feelings and expressions (display rules) in exchange for
a wage, by opposition to emotion work done in private for personal motives. It shows
EL to be functional for the organization but dysfunctional for the employee.
Seeing EL as emotional displays (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987) (active or effortless

expression of work role-specified emotions) that can be congruent or incongruent with
feelings and can be authentic or inauthentic. It shows EL as functional for organization
and employee, unless it is highly effortful and inauthentic.
More recently, seeing EL as as intrapsychic processes (Morris & Feldman, 1997)

(Grandey, 2000) to effortfully manage ones feelings (deep acting) or expressions
(surface acting) when interacting with others at work. It shows EL as functional for
organization and employee in the case of deep acting but dysfunctional in the case of
surface acting, when there is a tension (emotional dissonance) between feelings and
expressions.
Proposed integrative model

For the purpose of this study, we propose to integrate these views in the following model
(Chart 1), building on previous attempts (Diefendorff & Gosserand, 2003) (Holman,
Martinez-Iigo, & Totterdell, 2011) (Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, Bringing Emotional
Labor into Focus, 2013).
First, display rules (or emotion requirements) are set, implicitly or in a formalized way, by the
organization for a given job. The emotions that are required to be displayed can be either
integrative (such as love, loyalty and pride that bind groups together), differentiating (such
as fear, anger or contempt that cause group differences) or masking (such as emotional
neutrality and restraint) (Wharton & Erickson, 1993).

Chart 1: Proposed integrative Emotional Labor Model
Employees are then constantly comparing their feelings with the display rules associated with
their job. In case of congruence, they can release a genuine expression of their feelings or
automatically regulated emotions and are said to be in emotional harmony (Ashforth &
Humphrey, 1993).
Otherwise, there is an emotion-rule dissonance (Holman, Martinez-Iigo, & Totterdell, 2011)
that can result in either the employee not complying with the display rules, putting oneself in
emotional deviance which is dysfunctional for both the organization and the individual.
Complying with the display rules creates an emotion-display dissonance (Grandey,
Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2013) that can be solved through:
-
Antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategies also called deep acting to modify

feelings before they are fully present, through cognitive reappraisal of the event that

generated the feeling or through refocusing ones attention. These strategies are
functional for the organization and the employee.
-
Response-focused emotion regulation also called surface acting to suppress, amplify or

fake the observable expression while fully keeping the original feeling internally. Such
regulation is dysfunctional for the employee and often for the organization due to its
perceivable inauthenticity.
The service sector has been the primary focus of EL research, mainly around professions such
as flight attendants, health care providers, teachers, paralegal or call center workers (Erickson
& Ritter, 2001). However, more recent work consider EL to be a central component to other
jobs requiring interpersonal contact (Diefendorff, Richard, & Croyle, 2006) and leadership
roles (Humphrey, Pollack, & Hawver, 2008).
Human Resources
Although some recent research (Kulik, Cregan, Metz, & Brown, 2009) has started
investigating the emotion regulation activities of HR managers in their traditional toxin
handler role (helping organizational members cope with difficult, volatile emotions in the
workplace) (Frost & Robinson, 1999), the EL component of HR roles as not been studied yet
and literature only refers to HR as a factor to the EL of other organizational members. In
particular, the academic literature is silent on the potential psychological impact of the
successive extensions of the HR mandate to business partnership (Ulrich, 1998), human
capital management (Ulrich, Younger, Brockbank, & Ulrich, 2013) and the associated
emotion regulation requirements: change and culture management, employee engagement and
support to leaders who lack the skills, energy or time to perform emotion management with
their teams (Huy, 2011).

Methodology:
Beyond the confirmation that EL is a key component of the HR Manager role, the main goal
of this study is to identify the individual and contextual factors that can affect the
effectiveness and psychological impact of HR EL and to propose theoretical and practical
implications for the HR profession. That interest led to a qualitative research methodology
being chosen and in particular to the use of the grounded theory approach which provides
flexible, successive analytic strategies for constructing inductive theories from the data
(Charmaz & Henwood, 2008) and are particularly well-suited to developing theoretical
models from unstructured data (Harper, 2008).
The basis was the collection, through recorded semi-structured interviews, of grounded
events, i.e. actual incidents that could potentially require emotional labor from HR
Managers. The incidents were then analyzed to reveal patterns.
Data Collection
Interviews were led following the critical incident technique (CIT), a set of procedures for
collecting direct observations of human behavior (Flanagan, 1954). Incidents can be any
specifiable human activity sufficiently complete in itself to permit inferences and predictions
about a particular activity (Silvester, 2008). In organizational and job analysis, CIT has been
used to collect role-related behavior information from role incumbents directly and from
managers of role incumbents.
Critical incidents were defined as any event, combination of events, or series of events,
between an HR Manager (the interviewee or one of his subordinates) and one or more
interlocutors, that caused the HR Manager to regulate his/her feelings and expressions for
organizational purposes.

Interviews were performed either face to face or remotely through phone or video and audio
recorded with interviewees consent. The sample size was determined using a post hoc
method, considering that adequate coverage was achieved when the addition of critical
incidents to the sample was not adding critical behaviors anymore.
Flanagan suggests that if full and precise details are given, it can usually be assumed that this
information is accurate. Vague reports suggest that the incident is not well remembered and
that some of the data may be incorrect. Interviewees were therefore probed to provide details
and, when situations remained vague, the incidents were removed from the data collection.
Following the analysis of the main wave of interviews, personality traits appeared to be a
potential significant factor of the nature, effectiveness and impact of HR EL. Several studies
on other professions have established a relationship between Emotional Labor and some of
the Big Five personality traits, in relation with Emotional Intelligence (Chi, Grandey,
Diamond, & Royer Krimmel, 2011) (Joseph & Newman, 2010). All interviewees were
therefore asked to complete a web based Big Five personality trait inventory (Potter, 2009)
based on the works of UC Berkeley psychologist Oliver John (John & Srivastava, 1999).
Data Analysis
Following Glasers guidelines (Glaser, 2012), the coding of incidents and subsequent
grounded theory generation was made in an inductive way, progressing as the interviews were
performed and analyzed in four successive waves: informal discussions, first pilot interviews,
main series of interviews, verification interviews.
As the term critical incident can refer either to a complete story or to discrete behaviors
contained within a story, the first step was to delineate the unit of analysis. It was determined
that discrete behavior would better preserve the specificity of the data. Therefore, main
10

incidents were, when applicable, coded into separate critical behaviors. For instance, when an
HR Manager was experiencing different emotional stages during a same meeting, each stage
was recorded as a separate incident. For each incident, four emotions were described: the one
required to be displayed by the HR Manager (Required), the one experienced by the HR
Manager (Felt), the one expressed by the HR Managers interlocutors (Received) and the
one actually expressed by the HR Manager (Actual).
In order to categorize the different incidents, the four previously mentioned emotions were
classified as per:
-
their expected effect on groups, either integrative, differentiating or masking (Wharton

& Erickson, 1993)
and their nature, based on Robert Plutchik's circumplex model (Chart 2). Plutchiks
psycho-evolutionary theory of emotion is one of the most influential classification
Chart 2: Robert Plutchik's circumplex model
11

approaches for general emotional responses. It considers that all emotions occur as
combinations, mixtures, or compounds of eight primary emotions: anger, fear,
sadness, disgust, surprise, anticipation, trust, and joy.
The emotional work performed by the HR Manager is then described as:
-
the emotion-rule relation, either harmony or dissonance
and the kind of emotional work performed by the HR Manager, as per the integrative
EL model proposed above : Genuine expression, auto regulated expression, antecedent
focused emotion regulation, response focused emotion regulation or emotional
deviance.
Finally, for each incident, the strategies used by the role incumbent to manage the situation
and/or to later recover from it, are captured.
Description of the Research Setting:

In order for interesting patterns to emerge from the data, following a grounded theory
approach, interviewees have been carefully identified and selected to have a wide variety of
experiences. For convenience, potential informants have been selected from my professional
network with the goal to interview generalist HR Managers whom have been expected to
perform significant emotion regulation (through change management, restructuring, heavy
industrial relations or working with dysfunctional leaders) and/or have shown signs of
potential psychological distress (burnout, excessive stress, refusal to comply or to continue as
HR) or visible emotional serenity and/or dont have an HR boss to support them (remote jobs
or Chief HR Officer roles). Given my experience in large multinational corporations, all
potential informants had experience mostly in large organizations. This bias was actually
thought to be positive as large companies are the most likely to reflect the HR evolutions to
12

business partnership (Ulrich, 1998) and human capital management (Ulrich, Younger,
Brockbank, & Ulrich, 2013) described above.
Potential interviewees were then categorized according to known information (experiences or
profiles) that could be predictors of a wide enough variety of experiences: showing strong
emotional stability or not, having showed signs of stress or burnout or not, having considered
or decided to leave the HR function or not, having worked previously in other functions or
not, having experienced intensive labor relations or not, having experienced restructuring or
not, having HR peers in the location or company or not, working in different industries, being
from different countries.
From this list, 21 potential informants were identified as covering a wide enough range of
profiles and were invited for interview. The first 15 of them to be available were actually
interviewed before the sample was considered adequate.
Pilot wave
The first two people to answer were invited for pilot interviews for the calibration of the
questions. Both were former colleagues and had been informally discussing work situations
before this study. Interviews respectively lasted 60 and 90 minutes and confirmed the
necessity of emotional labor in the HR Manager function and the existence of an impact on
the psychological well-being of the role incumbent. Ten critical incidents were described
during these two interviews. The interview notes and recordings were later analyzed with the
goal to codify the incidents. Due to a lack of details in the description of the situations, this
first classification would not have been possible without the information gathered before the
interviews and my knowledge of the described organizations. This realization led to a revised
interview structure for the second wave.
13

Main wave
Building on the return of experience from the pilot wave, subsequent interviews consisted of
open-ended questions and individually adapted follow up questions. Participants were asked
to report stories (critical incidents) when they thought their role elicited them to manage the
level or nature of their emotional displays, whether they actually did it or not. The expected
elements of the story were:
-
the emotional landscape of the organization and of the HR function in the organization
(what emotions were promoted, accepted or proscribed)
the context for the role incumbent and in particular the stakes, antecedents and
availability for support
the stakeholders
the factual events
the emotional displays of various stakeholders
the felt emotions of the informant
the impact on the informant and the strategies used to manage, mitigate or recover
from the incident.
When not covered in the narratives, open ended questions were asked to clarify the
context of the situations and to include enough details.
Eleven HR managers were interviewed in this phase, for 45 to 90 minutes each, and 39
critical incidents were captured, coded and analyzed. The various levels of impact on the
psychological well-being of the incumbents and the diversity of the strategies used by
different people to manage, mitigate or recover from similar situations were an obvious
learning from this wave but could not immediately be linked to the critical incident categories
identified at that stage. As extraversion and emotional stability had been spontaneously
14

discussed by participants, these personality traits appeared as promising factors but

interviewees were difficult to categorize accurately on such scales. Rather than guessing or
relying on auto-evaluation from interviewees, it was decided to ask all informants to take a
personality test inventory. For reason of scientific validity, convenience for the respondents
and free availability, a web based Big Five Personality Test (Potter, 2009) based on the work
of Oliver John (John & Srivastava, 1999) has been selected. The URL was sent to all
interviewees, asking them to return the test results by email.
All received answers were incorporated in the coding of the critical incidents for analysis.
Validation wave
To validate the findings of the first two waves, two more participants were interviewed and
ten critical incidents were captured.
Demographics of interviewees
All interviewees were from the HR function although three had previously worked in other
functions. All could be described as HR Managers although at different level : 3 held the top
HR role in large international corporations and, at the other end, two were professionals and
individual contributors. In terms of age, two interviewees were below 35 and five above 50
years old. Five were women and ten were males. Although most respondents had international
roles and experience, only one was not a French citizen and was German.
Out of fifteen interviewees, twelve accepted to communicate their Big Five test results. The
results are displayed below (Chart 3 and Table 1). Each full line represents the percentile
scores of one respondent on each one of the five personality dimensions: Openness to
Experience/Intellect (O), Conscientiousness (C), Extraversion (E), Agreeableness (A) and
Neuroticism (N). The red dotted line represent the median score of all respondents.
15

Chart 3: Big Five Personality Traits of Interviewees

Openness
Median
Standard Deviation
Mean
Coefficient of variation
35,0
23,4
40,8
0,6
Conscientiousness Extraversion
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
66,0
56,0
50,0
23,1
26,5
23,0
62,8
57,8
51,8
0,4
0,5
0,4
18,0
19,6
23,4
0,8
Table 1: Analysis of Big Five Personality profiles of interviewees
Three personality dimensions of the respondents significantly differ from the comparison
sample (general population):
-
only 18% of the comparison sample have a lower Neuroticism score than the median
of the interviewees. Although the standard deviation is quite high (19,96 for an
average score of 23,42), only two respondents have a Neuroticism percentile above 50
and none have a percentile above 60. We can consider that there is a significant
prevalence of low neuroticism scores among the respondents compared to the general
population.
16

only 34% of the comparison sample have a higher Conscientiousness score than the
median of the interviewees. Only three respondents have a Conscientiousness
percentile below 50 but the standard deviation is too high (23,09 for an average of
62,75) to consider the high conscientiousness prevalence as significant.
only 35% of the comparison sample have a lower Openness score than the median of
the interviewees. Only four respondents have a Openness percentile above 50 but the
standard deviation is too high (23,41 for an average of 40,75) to consider the low
openness prevalence as significant.
Specifications of critical incidents

Fifty nine critical incidents were recorded. They were categorized by type of main
interlocutor, i.e. who the interviewee is facing during the critical incident, and by type of
situation (Table 2):
-
Crisis : facing life threat, accidents or death of employees
Dismissal : managing the departure of employees through individual or collective

redundancy or dismissal
Integrity : being confronted to divergent values or ethical dilemmas
Interviews : face to face discussions with employees or candidates for any other
purpose than dismissal
Labor relations : dealing with employee representatives, trade unions and authorities
Communication : communication or retention of information and opinions
17

Interlocutor /
Situation
Crisis
Boss
Candidate
Coachee
Employee
Ext. stakeholder
Managers
Representatives
Total
Labor
Dismissal Integrity Relations Communication Interviews Total
3
2
2
7
2
2
2
2
3
12
1
7
1
24
1
1
2
2
21
21
3
15
3
22
11
5
59
Table 2: Number of narratives by type of interlocutor and type of situation
The settings of the stories are, due to the demographics of interviewees, quite balanced in
term of industry but with, in terms of country, a clear over representation of France (Table 3).
Country / Industry
Algeria
France
Germany
Morocco
Sweden
Switzerland
USA
Total
Construction High Tech

Industrial
Insurance
Total
1
1
19
22
4
4
1
1
1
4
1
3
23
29
4
1
46
4
1
1
5
1
59
Table 3: Distribution of narratives by country and industry
Data Gathering and Analysis

As the interviews were performed and analyzed, multiple dimensions progressively appeared
as promising for a better understanding of the emotion regulation strategies during these
situations. The contextual dimensions are:
-
C1: Purpose of felt, required and actually displayed emotions : integrative,

differentiating or masking (Wharton & Erickson, 1993)
18
C2: Nature of received (C2r), felt (C2f), required (C2q) and actually displayed (C2a)
emotions as per Robert Plutchik's circumplex model

C3: The kind of emotional response performed, in line with the proposed integrative
model above (Chart 1): genuine expression, auto-regulated expression, antecedent
focused emotion regulation, response focused emotional regulation or emotional
deviance
C4: The type of interlocutor: boss, candidate, coachee, employee, external stakeholder,
managers or representatives
C5: The type of situation: crisis, dismissal, integrity, labor relations, communication or
interviews
C6: The estimated relative level of emotional intensity during the critical incident:
low, medium or high. This ranking was based on the description of the emotional
display of the interlocutor or of the emotional state of the interviewee, based on Robert
Plutchik's circumplex model. For instance, the emotional intensity was ranked as high
when the interviewee used words of the same level as in the center of the model such
as rage, terror, admiration or grief or when the interviewee directly described
the intensity level (e.g. fear was everywhere, palpable or there was an extreme
tension in the room or he suddenly became purple and threw away the report across
the meeting room).
C7: The estimated relative level of impact of the critical incident on the emotional
well-being of the interviewee: low, medium or high. This classification was based on
either direct or indirect feedback. For instance, a situation was ranked with a high
impact when the interviewee directly stated the impact (e.g. this situation deeply
impacted me and my colleagues) or described consequences of the impact (e.g. I
started to develop phobias or I could not concentrate for the rest of the day or For
the first time in many years, I completely lost my temper) or was showing obvious
signs of agitation and stress when referring to the incident during the interview.
19

C8: The main HR competency put in practice or expected from the interviewee during
the critical incident, based on the Ulrich model (Ulrich, Younger, Brockbank, &
Ulrich, 2013): capability builder, change champion , credible activist, HR innovator
and integrator or strategic positioner.
C9: The availability or not of another HR person in the workplace, either a peer or
above in the hierarchy of the corporation but excluding subordinates.
The individual dimensions are:

-
I1: The type of strategy to deal with the emotional situations in general: either
congruence, ie. when respondents were seeking a full alignment between the
opinions and emotions of their personal and professional selves, or separation when
respondents were seeking to dissociate the emotions and opinions of their personal
selves from their professional ones. This classification was based on direct statements
(e.g. I am someone else when I am at work or There is no such thing as an HRD
me or a personal me, there are no boundaries) or indirect indications (I tend to
protect my family and friends from anything that is work related or although it is not
always appropriate, it is usual that my political opinions are known at work).
I2: The Big Five personality profile of the interviewees and especially Agreeableness
(I2a) and Neuroticism (I2n)
I3: The experience of the interviewee across companies and/or functions
I4: The demographics of the interviewees: age (I4a) and gender (I4b).
The categorization of all incidents on each one of these dimensions was made based on the
careful analysis of the interviews and of the biographies of the interviewees. The results were
then consolidated in a database in order to perform crossed analysis of all parameters.
20

Several interesting patterns emerged around five main angles : the interlocutors faced, the
type of situations, the HR dimension at stake as per the Ulrich model, the personality traits of
the HRM and finally the Emotion Regulation strategy used.
Analysis by interlocutor
As shown above, Employees and Representatives are the two most recurring interlocutors
(C4) in the narratives, followed by bosses. It is also interesting to note that these three
categories of interlocutors are also the only ones associated to situations with high Intensity
(C6) or high Impact (C7), as shown below (Table 4 and Table 5). Unsurprisingly, the results
indicate that although interactions with representatives are the most often involving intense
emotions, interactions with bosses are the ones most often highly impactful: more than half of
the highly intense situations are involving representatives but only one third of them have a
high impact while more than 70% of narratives with bosses resulted in a high impact.
Interlocutor / Intensity
Boss
Candidate
Coachee
Employee
External stakeholder
Managers
Representatives
Total
High
4
Medium
1
10
1
7
13
27
1
5
15
Table 4: Distribution of narratives by interlocutor type and intensity level
Low
2
2
1
7
1
1
3
17
Total
7
2
2
24
1
2
21
59
21

Interlocutor / Impact
Boss
Candidate
Coachee
Employee
External stakeholder
Managers
Representatives
Total
High
5
Medium
12
7
17
1
7
20
Low
2
2
2
7
1
1
7
22
Total
7
2
2
24
1
2
21
59
Table 5: Distribution of narratives by interlocutor type and impact level
Analysis by Situations
Given the frequent occurrence of Representatives in the narratives, Labor Relations is the
main type of highly intense and highly impactful situation (C5), followed by Dismissals.
Communication situations, although representing more than 18% of the situations, are never
described as highly intense or having a high impact (Table 6 and Table 7).
Situation / Intensity
Communication
Crisis
Dismissal
Integrity
Interviews
Labor Relations
Total
High
3
8
2
1
13
27
Medium
3
Low
8
1
1
3
4
17
Total
11
3
15
3
5
22
59
Low
5
1
3
1
4
8
22
Total
11
3
15
3
5
22
59
1
5
15
Table 6: Distribution of narratives by situation type and intensity level
Situation / Impact
High
Communication
Crisis
Dismissal
Integrity
Interviews
Labor Relations
Total
2
5
2
1
7
17
Medium
6
7
7
20
Table 7: Distribution of narratives by situation type and impact level
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For a deeper understanding of the situations, it is interesting to identify the nature of the
emotions (C2) involved in each one of the four emotional components of a narrative: the
emotion received from the interlocutor (C2r), the one required (C2q) from an HRM (e.g. the
rule), the one spontaneously felt (C2f) by the HRM as a person and finally the one actually
displayed (C2a) by the HRM.
Interlocutor
Emotion /
Labor
Situation
Communication Crisis Dismissal Integrity Interviews Relations Total
Aggressiveness
1
2
1
15
19
Disapproval
3
2
2
7
Interest
3
2
2
7
Fear
1
5
6
Apprehension
2
1
3
Sadness
2
1
3
Optimism
1
1
2
Anger
1
1
2
Vigilance
2
2
Acceptance
1
1
2
Neutrality
1
1
2
Surprise
1
1
Disgust
1
1
Annoyance
1
1
Joy
1
1
Total
11
3
15
3
5
22
59
Table 8: Distribution of narratives by received emotion and situation
The most often received emotion (C2r) is by far aggressiveness and in close to 80% of the
cases it comes in Labor Relations situations (Table 8). Given the wide range of seniority and
industries, this could come as a surprise if such a large portion of the narratives would not
have taken place in France where Labor Relations is marked by a culture of class conflict
(Morvan, 2013) and relative impunity from courts and companies in case of verbal or physical
abuse towards management in general and HR management in particular (Canonne, 2014).
Recently, current of former French HR executives have started disclosing the personal impact
of these situations on them (Vergne, 2013) (Lhoumeau, 2013) (Grenet, 2011). Beyond
23

aggressiveness in labor relations, other recurrently received emotions are fear in cases of
dismissal, disapproval for what has to be communicated and interest for what cannot be
communicated.
A joint analysis of required (Table 9) and felt (Table 10) emotions by situations shows the
most frequent emotional dissonance experienced by HRMs. For instance, in Communication
situations, the most frequent dissonance is when HRMs are expected to display optimism, for
instance about the company strategy but feel disapproval. In cases of dismissal, the most
frequent dissonance is when the required emotion is acceptance, for instance of the rationale
of the termination, while the felt emotion is remorse. In Labor Relations situations, more than
half of narratives reported feelings of anger, contempt or fear while neutrality and restraint
was required.
Despite significant differences by type of situation for received, required and felt emotions, it
is interesting to note that more than half of the actually displayed (C2a) emotions are
Neutrality, Restraint or Acceptance (Table 11). This is true in general but also for each one of
the main types of situations: communication, dismissal and labor relations. It should also be
noted that anger is the fifth most frequently displayed emotion but should not be interpreted as
deviance as, in 75% of the cases, it is in a labor relations context and in line with the expected
behavior.
24

Required
Emotion
/
Situation
Communication Crisis
Acceptance
Optimism
6
Restraint
3
Neutrality
Submission
1
Interest
Trust
2
Anger
Calm
1
Annoyance
Joy
Sadness
1
Serenity
Total
11
3
Dismissal Integrity Interviews

6
1
1
1
2
3
2
1
3
15
Labor
Relations
3
1
4
5
2
1
3
2
1
1
1
22
Total
10
8
8
7
6
6
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
59
Table 9: Distribution of narratives by required emotion and situation
Felt Emotion
/ Situation
Labor
Disapproval 6
4
3
2
15
Anger
1
7
8
Remorse
6
6
Contempt
1
4
5
Fear
1
3
4
Annoyance
1
1
1
3
Apprehension
1
2
3
Trust
2
1
3
Interest
1
1
2
Boredom
1
1
2
Disgust
1
1
2
Sadness
1
1
Joy
1
1
Serenity
1
1
Optimism
1
1
Disaproval
1
1
Distraction
1
1
Total
11
3
15
3
5
22
59
Table 10: Distribution of narratives by felt emotion and situation
25

Displayed
Emotion
/
Situation
Neutrality
3
Restraint
4
Acceptance
Interest
1
Anger
Trust
3
Submission
1
Annoyance
1
Calm
1
Disapproval
Serenity
Joy
Annnoyance
Total
11
3
Dismissal Integrity Interviews

4
2
1
5
1
2
1
1
1
Labor
Relations
6
5
1
1
4
1
1
2
1
15
1
1
5
22
Total
15
10
7
5
4
4
3
3
3
2
1
1
1
59
Table 11: Distribution of narratives by displayed emotion and situation
Analysis based on with Ulrichs HR competency model

Classifying the narratives according to the main required competency domain (C8) and the
type of situation (C5) shows several associations (Table 12):
-
Almost all Labor Relations situations are linked to the Change Champion competency
domain. This counter intuitive result is a strong indication of the labor relations
dynamics in France where the legal requirement to consult representatives for any
significant change of strategy, organization, method or tool has led to opposition to
change being often used by representatives to gain negotiation power, popularity or
status (Morvan, 2013).
All Dismissal situations are linked to the Credible Activist competency domain. Ulrich
defines HR credibility as a combined result of execution, trust and reliability and
expects an activist to show consistent integrity (Ulrich, Younger, Brockbank, &
Ulrich, 2013). Many emotional dissonance narratives for dismissals refer to a
26

perceived disconnect between credibility requirements (e.g. the commitment or

obligation to execute dismissals efficiently) and activist role (e.g. showing respect,
care and attention to employees or refusing unfair dismissals).
-
Communication situations are linked to three competency domains: Credible Activist,

Change Champion and HR Innovator and Integrator. This reflects the wide variety of
information and opinions HR Managers are expected to push throughout the
workforce: values, strategy, HR practices, etc. Most interviewees have underlined that
the HR Manager, when in a generalist role, always need to control his communication,
even during moments that seem informal as all other people in the workplace are
employees and therefore potential subjects for HR activities.
Ulrich
Competency
/ Situation
Capability
Builder
Change
Champion
Credible
Activist
HR
Innovator
and
Integrator
Strategic
Positioner
Total
Labor
2
3
21
11
15
24
27
15
1
22
1
59
Table 12: Distribution of narratives by HR Competency and Situation
As Dismissals and Labor Relations narratives are the ones with the highest intensity and
impact, the associated Credible Activist and Change Champion competency domains are the
ones involved in high intensity (C6) or high impact (C7) situations (Table 13 and Table 14).
27

Ulrich
Competency
/
Intensity
Capability Builder
Change Champion
Credible Activist
HR Innovator and Integrator
Strategic Positioner
Total
High
13
12
2
Medium
1
6
9
1
27
17
Low
1
5
6
2
1
15
Total
2
24
27
5
1
59
Table 13: Distribution of narratives by HR competency and intensity
Ulrich Competency / Impact

High
Capability Builder
Change Champion
Credible Activist
HR Innovator and Integrator
Strategic Positioner
Total
Medium
Low
7
9
1
9
9
2
17
20
Total
2
8
9
2
1
22
2
24
27
5
1
59
Table 14: Distribution of narratives by HR competency and impact
Analysis by personality traits

Given the significant prevalence of low neuroticism scores among the interviewees and the
impact of this personality trait on emotional stress (Schneider, 2004), we tried to verify its
correlation to the impact of emotional labor on the psychological well-being of the HR
manager. In order to do so, interviews were scanned to detect all references to either burn out
syndromes, psychological distress or situations where the HRM felt he had to leave his job,
company or the HR function, in relation to the emotional narratives. Crossing this analysis
with previously known situations allowed to list impacted HRMs, i.e. HRMs who, at any
point in their career, had their psychological well-being damaged or seriously threatened. We
called this dimension I5. This list was then crossed with the Neuroticism (I2n) score,
expressed both in absolute terms versus the general population (i.e. compared to the score of
50) and in relative terms versus the group of interviewees (i.e. compared to the median score
of the sample, 18).
28

Although the numbers are too small to draw final conclusions, it is striking to see that the two
interviewees having a high neuroticism score in absolute terms have been impacted and that
out of the ten having a low neuroticism (I2n) score in absolute terms, nine have not been
impacted (I5) (Table 15). Given the very low median, the results in relative terms are less
polarized but still in the same direction: the proportion of impacted interviews is doubled
when the neuroticism score is high in relative terms.
This is confirmed by a positive correlation coefficient of 0,501 (Chart 4).
Neuroticism / Impacted
Absolute : High
Relative : High
Absolute : Low
Relative : High
Relative : Low
Total
Yes
2
2
1
No
Total
2
2
10
4
6
12
9
4
5
9
1
3
Table 15: Distribution of interviewees by neuroticism score and past well-being impact
70
Neuroticism Score
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
0
0,2
0,4
0,6
0,8
1,2
Impacted : 0=No, 1=Yes
Chart 4: Distribution of neuroticism scores by past well-being impact
As per a recent study (Diefendorff, Croyle, & Gosserand, The dimensionality and antecedents
of emotional labor strategies, 2005), Agreeableness (I2a) is, among the Big Five personality
traits, the only disposition to be uniquely related to all three emotional labor strategies (C3):
29

genuine expression, antecedent focused emotion regulation and response focused emotion
regulation. We could not replicate these results with significant correlation levels, although
the direction of the correlation is the same: agreeableness is slightly positively correlated to
antecedent based emotion regulation (Pearsons r = +0.06) and slightly negatively correlated
to response focused emotion regulation (r = -0.14). The weakness of the correlation could
well be explained by the fact that rather than assessing general behavior of participants we
were focusing on specific critical incidents identified by the interviewees when they were
asked to think about different kinds of situations. This could have very well led them to
artificially re-balance their emotion regulation strategies despite their natural disposition to
one approach.
In order to assess the impact of Agreeableness on HRMs emotional labor strategies, a crossed
analysis was made with the overall congruence/separation strategy (I1) of interviewees,
showing a positive correlation of agreeableness to congruence (r = +0.42). This result would
tend to confirm that individuals who tend to value highly positive interpersonal relations are
more likely to seek authenticity through the unity of their professional and personal opinions.
As several respondents had justified their use of separation rather congruence by a need to
protect themselves, a first hypothesis was that separation could be negatively correlated to
past well-being impact (I5). Such correlation could not be verified on our sample.
However, the existence of a past well-being impact seems to significantly change the
agreeableness to congruence correlation. For interviewees not having suffered from past wellbeing impact (I5), the agreeableness (I2a) to congruence (I1) correlation coefficient (r =
+0.77) is 80% higher than for the whole sample (Chart 5). This confirms that individuals who
tend to value highly positive interpersonal relations are likely to seek authenticity through the
unity of their professional and personal opinions but also indicates that they may adapt their
30

behavior, consciously or not, to more separation when they have been impacted in their
psychological well-being.
100
90
Agreeableness
80
Not impacted
70
60
Impacted
50
40
30
20
10
0
1
2
Congruence / Separation
Chart 5: Agreeableness score by congruence and past well-being impact
Analysis by kind of emotional response

The kind of emotion regulation (C3) performed differs depending on the situations (C5). As
interviewees were asked to describe emotion regulation situations, it is not surprising that
most critical incidents show emotional dissonance rather than emotional harmony. In
Communication, Crisis and Interviews, the most frequent approaches have been response
focused while Dismissal was mostly handled through antecedent focused ER. The most
frequent situation, Labor Relations, was handled in both ways (Table 15).
In the same way that we studied, at the person level, the correlation between neuroticism and
past impact on the well-being, the relation at the critical incident level between the kind of
emotion regulation and the impact of the event on the HRM is interesting.
31

Emotion
regulation
Situation
Dissonance
Antecedent
focused ER
Emotional
Deviance
Emotional
Deviance
(Partial)
Response
focused ER
Harmony
Auto
regulated
expression
Genuine
Expression
Total
10
2
Labor
Dismissal Integrity Interviews Relations Total
15
3
4
21
55
9
18
8
1
2
1
11
15
4
1
1
5
12
1
31
4
22
1
59
Table 15: Distribution of Narratives by kind of emotional response and situation
A first raw analysis shows that more than 55% of antecedent based emotion regulation
situations ended up with a medium impact while 48% of response focused emotion regulation
did the same. This could seem to indicate that response focused emotion regulation is more
effective in mitigating the impact of emotional events, which would be quite contradictory
with previous studies. The reason for that discrepancy probably is that events in our sample
are not comparable because of their very different intensity.
We therefore combined the intensity variable and the impact variable to calculate a third
variable called Response Effect (C10) with three potential values : neutral if intensity and
impact are equal, effective if intensity is higher than impact and worsening if intensity is
lower than impact. The percentage of events with an effective outcome gives the efficiency
level of each kind of emotion regulation. On the 59 studied situations, antecedent focused
emotion regulation has an efficiency level of 61%, auto regulated expression 33% and
32

response focused emotion regulation 13% (Table 16). Emotional deviance and genuine
expression show efficiency of 0% but on too small a number of events to draw conclusions.
Response / Response Effect Effective
Antecedent focused ER
Response focused ER
Auto regulated expression
Emotional Deviance
Emotional Deviance (Partial)
Genuine Expression
Total
Neutral
11
4
1
16
Worsening
7
24
2
3
2
1
39
Total
3
1
18
31
3
4
2
1
59
Table 16: Distribution of narratives by kind of response and response effect
Findings and Discussion

The first result of the study is a confirmation that, although the HR function has never been
studied by Emotional Labor literature, modern HR Managers in large corporations do
experience emotional labor. The characteristics and effects of emotional labor for HR
managers are comparable to what has been described for other occupations with a few
specificities.
HR specific contextual EL factors:
Three main contextual factors differentiate HR EL. First, results show that HR Managers are
exposed to intense and impactful emotional situations not only with their bosses like any
worker does but also with employee representatives and with employees not seen as
colleagues but as potential HR topics. The climate of labor relations in France and the
increasing expectations from, and of, employees are the most often quoted explanations for
the high number of intense and impactful situations with these interlocutors.
33

A second contextual factor is the loneliness or isolation of the HR Manager. In 41 of the 59

analyzed narratives, the HR Manager had no HR colleague next to him/her, other than
subordinates. This situation, obvious for the Chief HR Officer of a company, also happens
often when HR Managers are the highest HR person of the company in a site, country, region
or division. While any other function can find relief and support from any colleague, most
interviewees expressed that there was not a single person they could freely talk to in their
workplace. The main quoted reasons for this inability to get support from co-workers because
of speech control are the confidentiality of the topics they worked on, the necessity to keep
some distance with colleagues who could at any moment become HR topics and the
ambivalent Business Partner relation with the General Manager. As explained below, peer
support is a key mitigation and recovery strategy for HR EL. This is consistent with the fact
that, in our sample, narratives ended-up with a high impact (C7) in 32% of the cases when no
HR colleague was available and in 22% of the cases when HR colleagues were available.
A third contextual factor is related to the specific HR situations (C5). Based on Ulrichs
competency model (Ulrich, Younger, Brockbank, & Ulrich, 2013) it could be anticipated that
the Change Champion competency would be significantly associated to EL situations. Results
for the sample actually show that the two most frequent, intense and impactful EL situations
are Labor Relations and Dismissal, respectively associated to the Change Champion and
Credible Activist competency domains. Although Labor Relations and Dismissals are
traditional HR activities, they could very well be more emotionally demanding nowadays than
a few years ago, especially in France. HR Managers are increasingly caught in between, on
one side, a business need for an increased pace of change and, on the other side, employee
representatives who learnt how to use obstruction to change as a negotiation weapon. Also, in
the French context of high unemployment rate, legal uncertainty, exponential harassment
34

accusations and financial constraints, dismissals require a high degree of emotion

management.
HR specific personal factors
Not only could we identify that interviewed HR Managers had significantly lower
Neuroticism (I2n) levels than the general population on the Big Five personality inventory,
we also could find a correlation between the levels of Neuroticism and of psychological wellbeing impact on the HR Manager. This indicates that HR Managers with low neuroticism
could be less prone to have their psychological well-being at risk.
Results also indicated that the Agreeableness score of the HR manager was correlated to a
congruent work/life approach of emotions and opinions. This congruence preference can be
expected to be a positive factor to authenticity and therefore to the effectiveness of emotional
labor for the organization. However, it should be noted that all Deviance responses in the
sample were performed by HR Managers having a congruent approach. Finally, absolutely no
correlation could be found between the impact on the psychological well-being (I5) and
Congruence (I1) or Agreeableness (I2a).
HR emotion regulation strategies
The effect of the different kinds of emotion regulation performed in the studied narratives is
consistent with what was anticipated from other studies and formalized in our proposed model
(Chart 1). Antecedent based emotion regulation is by far the most efficient response to
mitigate the impact on oneself of an emotionally intense situation. On the contrary, response
focused emotion regulation is most often of neutral effect and almost has often worsening as
effective. This would indicate a clear benefit for HR Managers to use deep acting rather
than surface acting, for their well-being but also probably for organizational efficiency:
although through the interviews we could not measure the impact of the narratives on the
35

organization, studies on other occupations (Grandey, 2000) all indicate the higher
organizational efficiency of antecedent focused emotion regulation thanks to the higher level
of perceived authenticity it conveys.
HR mitigation and recovery strategies
During the interviews, HR Managers were asked to list, for each situation, what they did
before or during the event to mitigate the impact of the emotional situation on them and what
they did after the event to recover from it. The great diversity of answers did not allow to
perform the same kind of quantitative analysis as for other variables. However, some patterns
appeared.
Most participants quoted distancing and preparation as key strategies used prior to emotional
events. In that context, distancing means avoiding emotional involvement with any person
who may later be part of an emotional situation which, in the case of an HR Manager, often
means anyone in the workplace. Most HR Managers would set themselves some boundaries,
for instance being social but not friendly, leaving early enough during company parties, etc.
Being prepared was also often quoted as key to successful emotion regulation. It involves the
knowledge of the topics discussed and of the interlocutors but also the anticipation of the
potential feelings and reactions of the interlocutors, before the event.
During the event, the most often described techniques were the escape, mostly through the
interruption of the meeting or through diversion, and the mental reassessment of the situation,
i.e. a preparation for antecedent based emotion regulation.
After the emotional events, three main practices are used by HR Managers to recover from
emotional stress. The first one is to talk to a trusted peer, colleague, friend or partner,
depending on the situation. Interestingly, some isolated HR Managers said they decided at
36

some point to breach their distancing principles to restate a colleague as friend rather than
co-worker. The second set of techniques involve relaxation or physical activities: breathing,
going for a walk, etc. Finally, many HR Managers use a coach or a therapist in order to be
able to share their burden without involving co-workers or having to open bridges between
their professional and personal lives.
Practical recommendations
The first practical implication of the findings of this study is on the selection of candidates to
and HR Manager position in a large organization. The amount of Labor Relations and
Dismissals or the level of requirement on the Change Champion and Credible Activist
competency domains are quite easy to assess and could be considered as a good indicator of
the emotional labor intensity of the role. Once an HR Manager role is identified as involving
intense emotional labor, it would be advisable to consider three dimensions for selection:
-
Low neuroticism could be predictive of a good resilience to HR emotional labor
Agreeableness could be predictive of the authenticity approach. A high agreeableness

would tend to indicate a congruent approach which would fit well roles where a high
perceived authenticity is key while deviance is either unlikely due to a participative
and ethical approach or accepted by the management. On the contrary, a low
agreeableness could indicate a separation approach well adapted to roles where the
sensitivity to perceived authenticity is lower and where the risk associated to deviance
is high, for instance due to an authoritarian leadership style or diverging values.
Selection interviews should verify the ability for the candidate to function without
friendship in the workplace if the role does not allow a lot of contact with HR peers.
In terms of talent development and learning, the resilience and efficiency of HR Managers
could mainly benefit from developing three skills:
37

How to prepare each emotional meeting, for instance by putting oneself literally in the
others seat to simulate the conversation and better understand and anticipate the
reactions.
How to reassess situations and opinions about people and, more generally, all
antecedent based emotion regulation techniques.
How to relax, through deep breathing, meditation or any relaxation technique.
Finally, the work environment of the HR Manager could be adapted to minimize the impact of
emotional labor:
-
The hierarchical manager of the HR Manager should be made aware of the factors and
consequences of emotional labor and prompted to provide regular support and
listening to the HR Manager
The emotion regulation responsibilities of the HR Manager should be formalized, in

the same way as toxin handling responsibilities (Kulik, Cregan, Metz, & Brown, 2009)
Even when no HR peer is available in the workplace, peer coaching or peer talking
could be organized to make sure isolated HR Managers all have a trustable person to
talk to.
A guideline should be agreed to make sure HR Managers are always assisted by a peer
or a manager when they are facing hostile groups such as Trade Unions.
An integrity charter should be made available and enforced to limit the situations
where the HR Manager has to fight alone for ethical principles, for instance in the case
of discriminations.
38

Limitations
The main limitation of the study comes from the sample of HR Managers that was used. The
number of interviewees was sized for the qualitative identification of patterns but is not large
enough to validate quantitatively all hypotheses, given the number of variables. Also, the HR
Managers who were interviewed were mainly coming from France and therefore cannot be
considered as representative of the situation in any other country.
The qualitative grounded theory approach involved interpretation in the categorization of the
narratives and in the identification of patterns. The resulting imprecision of measurement
implied to work with lower correlation coefficients than with a more normative measurement.
Finally, the chosen methodology did not allow to reliably measure the efficiency for the
organization of the emotional labor performed by the HR manager: all efficiency indications
were given by the HR Managers and not by an independent source.
Future Research
Future research should further investigate the relation between the emotional labor strategies
used by HR Managers and their effect on the organization, in particular through the
measurement of perceived authenticity.
Also, HR Managers from more diverse geographies and profiles could be studied to
investigate the potential replication of the findings of this study.
39

Conclusion
The Human Resources function has come a long way since Personnel Administration,
progressively gaining credibility on more value creating activities. Now true business partner,
HR is also more and more truly working on human material: engagement, culture,
psychosocial risks, etc. Todays HR Manager is getting, together with the excitement of being
at the core of the business and the joy of working with so noble a material as people, the
anxiety of playing with a very special kind of fire: emotions. More and more, HR leaders are
asked to design the emotional landscape of organizations, to handle the toxic emotions of
employees and to regulate ones emotions. This study shows that the journey is not without
dangers but also that the right people, with the right training and the right support can, by
combining authenticity to themselves and to others, manage emotions effectively for the
organization and safely for themselves.
40

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51

Table of Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................ 2
Introduction: ........................................................................................................ 3
Research aims and objectives: ........................................................................... 5
Literature Review: .............................................................................................. 5
Emotional Labor ..................................................................................................................... 5
Proposed integrative model .................................................................................................... 6
Human Resources ................................................................................................................... 8
Methodology: ....................................................................................................... 9
Data Collection ....................................................................................................................... 9
Data Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 10
Description of the Research Setting: ............................................................... 12

Pilot wave ............................................................................................................................. 13
Main wave ............................................................................................................................ 14
Validation wave .................................................................................................................... 15
Demographics of interviewees ............................................................................................. 15
Specifications of critical incidents ........................................................................................ 17
Data Gathering and Analysis ........................................................................... 18

Analysis by interlocutor........................................................................................................ 21
Analysis by Situations .......................................................................................................... 22
52

Analysis based on with Ulrichs HR competency model ..................................................... 26

Analysis by personality traits ............................................................................................... 28
Analysis by kind of emotional response ............................................................................... 31
Findings and Discussion.................................................................................... 33

HR specific contextual EL factors: ....................................................................................... 33
HR specific personal factors ................................................................................................. 35
HR emotion regulation strategies ......................................................................................... 35
HR mitigation and recovery strategies ................................................................................. 36
Practical recommendations ................................................................................................... 37
Limitations ......................................................................................................... 39
Future Research ................................................................................................ 39
Conclusion .......................................................................................................... 40
Bibliography: ..................................................................................................... 41
Tables .................................................................................................................. 54
Charts ................................................................................................................. 54
53

Tables
Table 1: Analysis of Big Five Personality profiles of interviewees ......................................... 16
Table 2: Number of narratives by type of interlocutor and type of situation ........................... 18
Table 3: Distribution of narratives by country and industry .................................................... 18
Table 4: Distribution of narratives by interlocutor type and intensity level ............................ 21
Table 5: Distribution of narratives by interlocutor type and impact level ............................... 22
Table 6: Distribution of narratives by situation type and intensity level ................................. 22
Table 7: Distribution of narratives by situation type and impact level .................................... 22
Table 8: Distribution of narratives by received emotion and situation .................................... 23
Table 9: Distribution of narratives by required emotion and situation .................................... 25
Table 10: Distribution of narratives by felt emotion and situation .......................................... 25
Table 11: Distribution of narratives by displayed emotion and situation ................................ 26
Table 12: Distribution of narratives by HR Competency and Situation .................................. 27
Table 13: Distribution of narratives by HR competency and intensity .................................... 28
Table 14: Distribution of narratives by HR competency and impact ....................................... 28
Table 15: Distribution of Narratives by kind of emotional response and situation ................. 32
Table 16: Distribution of narratives by kind of response and response effect ......................... 33
Charts
Chart 1: Proposed integrative Emotional Labor Model ............................................................. 7
Chart 2: Robert Plutchik's circumplex model .......................................................................... 11
Chart 3: Big Five Personality Traits of Interviewees ............................................................... 16
Chart 4: Distribution of neuroticism scores by past well-being impact ................................... 29
Chart 5: Agreeableness score by congruence and past well-being impact............................... 31
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Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being:

Effects of Emotional Labor on HR Managers and Organizations

Executive Master Thesis

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Research aims and objectives:

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

The original view of Hochschild, seeing EL as occupational requirements, identifying

Seeing EL as emotional displays (Rafaeli & Sutton, 1987) (active or effortless

More recently, seeing EL as as intrapsychic processes (Morris & Feldman, 1997)

Proposed integrative model

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Chart 1: Proposed integrative Emotional Labor Model

Antecedent-focused emotion regulation strategies also called deep acting to modify

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Response-focused emotion regulation also called surface acting to suppress, amplify or

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

their expected effect on groups, either integrative, differentiating or masking (Wharton

Chart 2: Robert Plutchik's circumplex model

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

the emotion-rule relation, either harmony or dissonance

Description of the Research Setting:

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

the factual events

the emotional displays of various stakeholders

the felt emotions of the informant

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

discussed by participants, these personality traits appeared as promising factors but

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Chart 3: Big Five Personality Traits of Interviewees

Table 1: Analysis of Big Five Personality profiles of interviewees

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Specifications of critical incidents

Crisis : facing life threat, accidents or death of employees

Dismissal : managing the departure of employees through individual or collective

Integrity : being confronted to divergent values or ethical dilemmas

Communication : communication or retention of information and opinions

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Table 2: Number of narratives by type of interlocutor and type of situation

Construction High Tech

Table 3: Distribution of narratives by country and industry

Data Gathering and Analysis

C1: Purpose of felt, required and actually displayed emotions : integrative,

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

The individual dimensions are:

I3: The experience of the interviewee across companies and/or functions

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Table 4: Distribution of narratives by interlocutor type and intensity level

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Table 5: Distribution of narratives by interlocutor type and impact level

Table 6: Distribution of narratives by situation type and intensity level

Table 7: Distribution of narratives by situation type and impact level

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Emotion Regulation Responsibilities and Psychological Well-being

Dismissal Integrity Interviews

Table 9: Distribution of narratives by required emotion and situation