Service employee-customer dynamics : the impact of expected emotions, expressed emotions and casual attributions on financial outcomes

Includes bibliographical references (pages [81]-89)In 1987, Rafaeli and Sutton proposed a conceptual framework to guide theory development and research about the causes, qualities, and consequences of emotions that are expressed to fulfill role expectations in employment. Such role expectations are exemplified by those in service occupations. The interactions encountered in service occupations are social encounters and although social cognitions, such as attributions, likely play a significant role in the encounter, the model does not consider social perception as a mediating variable. This study examined the mediating effects of causal attribution on the putative link between emotional expression on the job and outcome for the employee in service occupations and the organization which employs him/her. A simulation of a restaurant situation was used to study the relationships among expectations of emotional expression, the expression of emotion itself, the resulting causal attributions, and the financial outcome for the employee and long term gains for the organization. One-hundred and nine undergraduate subjects viewed video-tapes of servers in a restaurant displaying either positive or negative emotions. Expectations were manipulated by means of narratives describing the particular restaurant setting within which the subject was to imagine himself/herself. Measures of causal attribution for the server's emotional expression, tipping behavior, and intent to patronize the restaurant again were taken. No support was found for the proposed mediating effects of attributions on the causal link between employees' emotional display and tips. Additionally, causal attribution was not found to mediate the significant effects of emotional expression on subjective probability of return to the restaurant.M.A. (Master of Arts