School of Economics and Management, Xi'an University of Technology, Xi'an 710054, China.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 6;20(2):1030. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20021030.
In order to survive the fiercer competition, more and more service firms emphasize front-line employees' role of creating excellent customer experience by displaying positive emotions during the service interactions. However, the underlying mechanisms for the relationship between transformational leadership and front-line employees' emotional labor remain unclear. Drawing upon the conservation of resources (COR) theory, this study develops a conceptual model in which transformational leadership influences front-line employees' emotional labor through the mediator of psychological empowerment. By collecting data from 436 employees in five call centers, we tested our model and hypotheses through PROCESS 3.3 macro for SPSS developed by Hayes. The results show that transformational leadership shows positive and negative effects on deep acting and surface acting, respectively. The positive effect on deep acting is partially mediated by psychological empowerment, while the negative effect on surface acting is fully mediated by psychological empowerment. Specifically, two dimensions of psychological empowerment (impact, self-efficacy) play negative mediating roles between transformational leadership and surface acting, while impact, self-determination, and self-efficacy play positive mediating roles of transformational leadership and deep acting. The findings advance our understanding about how transformational leadership influences front-line employees' emotional labor by introducing psychological empowerment as a mediator.
为了在激烈的竞争中生存，越来越多的服务型企业强调一线员工在服务互动中通过展现积极情绪来创造卓越的客户体验的作用。然而，变革型领导与一线员工情绪劳动之间关系的潜在机制仍不清楚。本研究依据资源保存理论（COR），通过五个呼叫中心的 436 名员工收集数据，构建了一个概念模型，其中变革型领导通过心理授权这一中介变量影响一线员工的情绪劳动。我们利用 Hayes 开发的 SPSS PROCESS 3.3 宏程序检验了我们的模型和假设。结果表明，变革型领导对深度表现和表面表现分别具有积极和消极的影响。对深度表现的积极影响部分通过心理授权中介，而对表面表现的消极影响完全通过心理授权中介。具体来说，心理授权的两个维度（影响、自我效能感）在变革型领导与表面表现之间发挥消极的中介作用，而影响、自我决定和自我效能感在变革型领导与深度表现之间发挥积极的中介作用。这些发现通过引入心理授权作为中介，增进了我们对变革型领导如何影响一线员工情绪劳动的理解。
