Analysing Emotional Labor in the Service Industries: Consumer and Business Perspectives

This Research Topic analyses the dynamics of emotional labor in various B2B or B2C settings. Recent consumer and service management research increasingly focuses on the role of emotions and emotional labor in service delivery and, at the same time, employees’ emotional status. Frontline employees in B2B and B2C settings are expected to display certain emotions and suppress others in their daily interactions not only with customers but also with their managers and supervisors in order to comply with their job requirements and organizational expectations. As a result, consumers are also coping with their level of emotional acceptance when purchasing goods or services, such as comfort or discomfort. Thus, this topic can be approached from both business and consumer perspectives. The primary criteria for submissions to this Research Topic is that each contribution must focus on ‘emotion’. Possible topics include, but are not limited to:

1. Theories on emotional labor, emotion, the role of emotional intelligence
2. The role of emotion in consumer behavior
3. Dimensions of emotional labor (e.g., deep and surface acting)
4. Consumer responses toward emotional labor
5. Customer perceptions of emotional labor and/or emotional display
6. Service industries and experiences with emotion or emotional labor
7. The level of comfort with, or inconsistency of, emotional labor
8. Cross-cultural, and cross-industry, research on emotional labor (e.g., Hotel, hospital, restaurant, airline services)
9. Experimental settings for emotional labor
10. Emotional labor in specific industry, and product, categories (e.g., luxury product)
11. Emotional labor and consequences such as job performance, job satisfaction, propensity to leave
12. The role of training in emotional management