IJM/3(1)/7

Employees Emotional Dissonance : The Organizational

Causal Factors, Consequences and Moderators
Nitin Arora
Timothy A Falade
ABSTRACT
This paper examines the subject of emotional dissonance(E-D) in its
cause and effect form. The literature utilized to find the various causes
of emotional dissonance of employees are broken down to few causal
factors known as E-D causal factors. Further, these E-D causal factors
were categorized into two heads: favourable E-D causal factors and
unfavourable E-D causal factors. The categorization act was done to
ease down the selection of factors by the service sector employers out
of given set of E-D causal factors so as to be most effective in minimizing
the Emotional dissonance of employees while implementing the
antidote. The selection of factors was done carefully after reading the
empirical direction of variable in the chosen literature.
Keywords : Emotional dissonance, emotional labor, organizational
consequences, Work-lifeConflict
INTRODUCTION
Employee should hide their inner whirlpool
of feelings everywhere and everytime else
service sector oriented organizations might
loose customer base. This is just the es-
sence of preaching of employers to their
employees during the employees ongo-
ing tenure bombarded with events lead-
ing to emotional dissonance. The inner
conflict, the emotional display rules, the
customer interaction techniques etc. is
what that needs to be understood by the
implications of emotional dissonance.
Invertis Journal of Management Vol. 3, No. 1, 2011 pp 7-15
IJM/3(1)/8
Employee emotions are inseparable from
the workplace. Many researchers have
since specified emotional dissonance as a
dimension of the emotional labor con-
struct. In addition, emotional dissonance
has been empirically established as a rea-
son for negative outcomes of emotional
labor (Prati, 2004). Since emotional disso-
nance is considered as a stressor (Mont-
gomery, Panagopolou & Benos, 2005) for
employees, the effort of this paper is dedi-
cated to find out those Emotional disso-
nances causal factors that lead to Emotional
Dissonance. Emotional dissonance is of
more concern to the Service sector as the
level of interaction of employees with the
customers is significantly higher. Hence,
the chances of employees emotional
spillover to the customer are very high and
needs close attention. Consequently, an
employees emotional display is no longer
a private experience, but a public act that
is controlled by employer supervision.
Rules for emotional display are therefore
developed, and training programs are
being made mandatory for the employees
to adhere (Chu, 2002).
THE RESEARCH OBJECTIVE
The research will encompass factors due
to which an employee (atleast having a
supervisory grade) is finding himself /
herself into a dilemma, or a unspeakable
situation or similar emotionally decisive
situations which can have a marked in-
fluence on Organizational Commitment.
The research is focused towards the fol-
lowing three-fold objectives
1. What organizational factors constitute
Emotional Dissonance (ED) as a whole
2. Categorizing those factors into
favourable and unfavourable ED Fac-
tors
3. The determination of moderating fac-
tors which can catalyze appropriately
the relationship between the ED causal
factors and the Organizational Com-
mitment.
EMOTIONAL DISSONANCE : 360
DEGREE OVERVIEW
The service literature has documented rea-
sons of how critical employees emotional
display is in determining customers ser-
vice quality perceptions. First, customer-
contact employees are the interface be-
tween customers and organizations, and
thus represent the organization to custom-
ers. If an employee is rude to a customer,
this rudeness will leave nothing but a bad
impression about the company in the
customers mind. Second, the nature of
service (i.e., intangibility, heterogeneity,
variability, and inseparability between
service providers and customers) makes
the interaction between employees and
customers a critical component in deter-
mining customers perceptions of service
quality. The following 360 degree over-
view will shed light on the E-D factors in-
dicating the premium that is placed on
them.
EMOTIONAL LABOUR : THE
BASIS OF EMOTIONAL
DISSONANCE
It was in her 1983 book : The Managed Heart:
The commercialization of feeling that Arlie
Russell Hochschild first coined the term
Arora &

Falade
IJM/3(1)/9
emotional labor to refer to the manage-
ment of feeling to create a publicly observ-
able facial and bodily display (Johnson,
n.d). When our job roles require us to dis-
play particular emotions and suppress oth-
ers, we do our emotion management for a
wage. Hochschild termed this regulation
of ones emotions to comply with occupa-
tional or organizational norms as emo-
tional labor. She defined emotional labor
as the management of feeling to create a
publicly observable facial and bodily dis-
play; emotional labor is sold for a wage and
therefore has exchange value (Chu, 2002).
The inability of the employees to cope up
with this expected display rules leads to
an inner conflict and is known as Emotional
Dissonance (a gap between felt emotions
and expressed emotions). This understand-
ing is further complexed by seven dimen-
sionsfrequency of emotional displays,
varieties of emotional displays and the at-
tentiveness to the required display rules,
object of focus, depth of acting, and effect
of emotional manipulation on employee
(gender issues), conflict between genuinely
felt emotion and organizationally pre-
scribed emotions (Chu, 2002; Johnson,
n.d.).
In comparison with Hochschilds (1983)
perspective, Ashforth and Humphrey
(Grandey, 2000) were more concerned
with emotional labor as an observable be-
havior than as a management of feelings.
In addition, they argued that emotional la-
bor does not necessarily require conscious
effort. In fact, they suggested that surface
and deep acting may become routine and
effortless for the employee, rather than
sources of stress. Morris and Feldman
(Grandey, 2000) defined emotional labor
as the effort, planning, and control needed to
express organizationally desired emotion dur-
ing interpersonal transactions. Based on the
past literature survey a model is proposed
in this study that makes an effort to un-
derstand the Organizational causes and
consequences emotional dissonance.
EMOTIONAL DISSONANCE
CAUSAL FACTORS (See Fig1 : The
Proposed Model)
a. Role ambiguity/conflict : It leads to
anxiety in the employees, formation of
unclear expectations (Gregersen &
Black, 1992; Szilagyi, Sims & Keller,
1976) making employees emotionally
drained and leading them to a di-
lemma (Leiter & Maslach, 1988)

which
further exacerbates the emotional dis-
sonance of employees.
b. Organization work environment :
The work environment collectively
constitutes a source of emotional dis-
sonance to the employees. The sys-
tem i.e. bureaucratic and political
(Randall etal, 1999); work obstruction,
workplace mistreatment and emo-
tional neglect (Harlos & Axelrod, 2005)
contributes to the building up of emo-
tional dissonance.
c. Organizational Justice : Fair treatment
in various organizational decisions is ex-
pected by employees but if not received
becomes the cause of employees emo-
tional dissonance. Emotional dissonance
arises due to discrimination in
Employees Emotional Dissonance : The Organizational.... Moderators
IJM/3(1)/10
employees promotion (Bagdali &
Paoletti, 2000) policies, biased distribu-
tion of organizational resources (Brewer,
1996), and biased procedural and dis-
tributive justice practices.
d. Organizational decision Making :
The strict control of centralization
system of decision making (Bateman
& Strasser, 1984), and futility of em-
ployees psychological participation
(Brewer, 1996)

in Organizational key
decision points causes a sense of
aloofness and brings mild to big
shock to employees thereby forcing
them to be in the state of emotional
dissonance for long time.
e. Perceived Organization Support :
Perceived organizational support is
the degree to which the employees
perceived the organization supportive
and value their individual contribu-
tions. If the employees perceive this
Arora &

Falade
Fig. 1 : The Proposed Model
ANTECEDENTS
ORGANIZATIONAL
CONSEQUENCES
MODERATORS
IJM/3(1)/11
organization support, the sense of
emotional bonding, family member
like feeling is achieved else the emo-
tional dissonance inside i.e. the feel-
ing of getting neglected and sense of
unimportance happens leading to re-
duced employee commitment
(Schaubroeck & Fink, 1998).
f. Organization Communication : Emo-
tional dissonance also arises due to vari-
ous bad communication practices
adopted by organization like top man-
agement attitude towards organizational
silence, communication opportunities,
policies on repatriation (Gregersen &
Black, 1992) and rules of organization
(Vandenberghe & Peiro, 1999).
g. Work-family Conflict : The potential
conflicting influence of family on work
attitudes cant be subdued. The rel-
evant factors which influence the em-
ployee commitment are Spouse sup-
port, family work conflict (Saheffer
etal, 2001), home demands and em-
ployee characteristics (Heymann etal,
2003), work schedule and quality of
family life, and wifes employment
(Parsuraman etal, 1989).
MODERATORS
Displayed emotions will not only be seen
as characteristic of the individual, but will
be ascribed to the organization as well
(Johnson, n.d.). Hence, the relationship
between emotional dissonance and the
organizational factors like Organization
commitment, Job satisfaction needs to be
moderated.
a. It is proposed that Social Support as
an organizational characteristic, buff-
ers the negative effects of emotional
labor (Chu, 2002). Social support
which includes peer support, super-
visor support, friendship and other
significant support acts as a modera-
tor that minimizes the impact of emo-
tional exhaustion on the Job satisfac-
tion and Professional satisfaction
(Tetrick, et al., 2000), Organization
commitment (Abraham, 1999).
b. Researchers have believed that the ef-
fect of emotional dissonance on its
consequences also depends on other
variables including Job Characteristics
like Job autonomy (Chu, 2002), job
control and working conditions.
c. Individual factors i.e. age (Williams &
Laaker, 2002), gender (Erickson &
Ritter, 2001), emotional intelligence
and emotional expressivity and affec-
tivity are also capable to influence the
spillover effect of emotional disso-
nance on Individual well being and
Organizational well-being (Totterdell
& Holman, 2003).
d. Low self-esteem individuals will ex-
perience greater dissatisfaction and
emotional exhaustion from emotional
dissonance and vice versa. Self Esteem
acts as a moderator to the relationship
between emotional dissonance and
Job satisfaction (Abraham, 1999).
e. Self-monitoring (Abraham, 1999)
moderates the emotional dissonance-
job satisfaction relationship; high self-
Employees Emotional Dissonance : The Organizational.... Moderators
IJM/3(1)/12
monitors experience significantly less
dissatisfaction than low self-moni-
tors. Self monitoring is the ability to
control expressive behaviour to match
the expression and self-presentation of
others in social situations.
THE ORGANIZATIONAL
CONSEQUENCES
The emerging consequences due to face
to face interaction with emotional disso-
nance are mentioned as under :
Positive Consequences
a. Jobs involving emotional dissonance,
requiring more emotional labor, are
more satisfying than those not involv-
ing emotional labor. Therefore, if or-
ganizations choose frontline service
employees based on their interper-
sonal skills and individuals seek jobs
compatible with their personality, the
fit between job demands and per-
sonal qualities may be high in these
positions, thereby leading to in-
creased Job satisfaction
5
and Organi-
zational Commitment (Gregersen &
Black, 1992; Brewer, 1996).
Negative Consequences
a. Emotional exhaustion or Burnout is a
specific stress-related reaction that re-
fers to a state of depleted energy
caused by the excessive psychological
and emotional demands that occur
among individuals who work with
people in some capacity (Griffin, 2003;
Johnson, n.d.). Burnout is a stress out-
come that is comprised of three dimen-
sions, emotional exhaustion, deper-
sonalization (Rozilio, n.d.), and re-
duced personal accomplishment.
Burnout will occur if an employee is
emotionally invested in interactions
with customers and has little recourse
to recuperate from the drain on emo-
tional resources. It comes along with
(1) Contact overload is a recognizable
syndrome in interactive work, whose
symptoms include becoming robotic,
detached, and unempathetic and (2)
feeling of inauthenticity (Wharton,
1999) which is the probable silent killer
of employees commitment.
Further, there is a clear correlation be-
tween ones emotional state and ones
physical state. The efforts to display
positive emotions or suppress nega-
tive emotions often lead to patterns of
physiological response that presage
somatic illness.
THE IMPLICATIONS OF E-D
CAUSAL FACTORS
Many service sector organizations like hos-
pitals (Zammuner, Loot & Galli, 2003; Chu,
2002; Arsenault, Dolan & Amerunger, 1991)
retail stores, call centres (Rozilio, n.d.),
schools (Dormann & Kaiser, 2002;
Arunkumar, Midglev & Urdan, n.d.), air-
lines (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1992), po-
lice department (Gaines & Jermier, 1983),
banks (debt collectors) (Rozilio, n.d.),
courts, counselling and guidance (insur-
ance, stock broking companies, telecom,
monitor their workers to assure that they
are expressing the right kind of emotion to
their customers (Sutton & Rafaeli, 1988).
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IJM/3(1)/13
Employee evaluations may serve to elimi-
nate those employees who do not fit as rep-
resentatives of the organization in a service
or sales capacity. Organizations do main-
tain the use of reward and punishment sys-
tems to maintain display rules once social-
ization has been completed. The implica-
tions of this investigation are particularly
important to human resource profession-
als, especially to those who manage em-
ployees in the service sectors. The areas
where this research may have significant
impact include selection, training, and evalu-
ation.
CONCLUSION
The natural emotion expressed is just an
effect of the E-D factors taken alone or to-
gether on the employees interaction with
customers in daily affair. Positive emo-
tional states in employee plays a major role
in their organizations success or failure.
Emotions directly influence organizations
competitive advantage in todays market-
place -Intellectual Capital, Customer Ser-
vice, Productivity, Employee Attraction
and Retention. Selling more products,
dealing with customer complaints ad-
equately, ensuring the smooth-running of
communicative interactionseven ob-
taining confessions from criminals are all
positive outcomes thought to be associ-
ated with the performance of emotional
work. No customer wants to deal with a
surly waitress, a crabby bank clerk or a
flight attendant who avoids eye contact.
1. This study should be quite useful to
the promotion of further research in
the areas of emotional labor, emotional
intelligence, and general stress re-
search. For organizations with a great
number of jobs reflecting emotional
labor as a primary job requirement, the
knowledge this research provides may
serve those organizations well in con-
trolling for some of the negative con-
sequences like employee absenteeism
and turnover.
2. Emotions are used as a strategy of in-
fluence at both the organizational and
Individual levels. Informal training
programs for emotional intelligence
may be as effective as formal learning
situations to prevent the formation of
emotional dissonance and thereby
minimizing the drastic physical, emo-
tional and economical consequences
arising consequently.
3. The moderators eg. Social support, self
monitoring etc (as mentioned above)
should be suggested to the employees
to reduce their E-D influence on orga-
nizational consequences namely orga-
nizational affective commitment.
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