Apr-Jun.12 - the Nitie

people engage in surface acting to create a desirable
image (Hakan Ozcelik, 2005). The studies in recent
acting and important organizational outcomes such as
increased emotional exhaustion, reduced commitment,
and lower performance (Grandey, 2003; Brotheridge
and Grandey, 2002; Erickson and Wharton, 1997).
Deep acting is the act of employees
controlling both their internal thoughts and feelings
to express the organizationally prescribed emotion
(Brotheridge and Lee 1998; Grandey 2000). The extant
literature helps us identify the use of deep acting as a
strategy does not consistently relate to psychological
ill-health; instead, some studies show that deep acting
relates positively to psychological well-being, such as
job satisfaction and level of personal accomplishment
(Brotheridge and Lee, 2002; Grandey 2003).
The employees will have to intentionally modify their
own emotions in both surface acting and deep acting.
pleasant internal feelings through psychological
mechanisms, such as cognitive change (Grandey, 2000;
Gross 1998), before exhibiting the organizationally
prescribed emotional expression in the workplace (e.g.
smile). These emotional labor strategies may have
different consequences, for example, when surface
acting, the internal emotions would not align with the
external emotional display which is called emotional
dissonance, whereas for deep acting, the internal
emotions and external emotional display are congruent
Humphrey (1993), focus on only surface acting and
deep acting may not cover the full range of emotional
regulation strategies.
It may not be required or possible for an individual
to regulate emotions only on the two strategies i.e.:
surface and deep acting as some service personnel
may exhibit their genuine and authentic emotions
when interacting with their customers. It is important
to note according to an empirical study by Diefendorff
et al. (2005) which tested an alternative emotional
labour strategy called the naturally felt emotions, it
may be possible for some individuals to express the
organizationally expected emotions naturally without
actively modifying their emotions. Factor analysis
showed that the expression of naturally felt emotions
was a unique regulation strategy and it was predicted
by both work and personality factors. So far, the role
of expression of naturally felt emotions on employees’
health and well-being is still unknown.
In short, Deep acting has been called “faking in good
faith” as authenticity is seen and surface acting is
called “faking in bad faith” as it is not authentic and it
could be done just to retain the job and not to help the
customer or the organization (Raforli & Sutton, 1987).
According to recent emotion regulation lab studies, both
surface and deep acting techniques may result in the
required emotional expression. Such studies may help
explain how emotional labor can relate functionally to
performance measures but can be dysfunctional for the
individual’s health and stress.
the aggregated value to the organization of the discrete
behavioural episode that an individual performs over
a standard interval of time (Motowildo, Borman and
Schmit, 1997). In this research, Job performance
is used synonymously as work effectiveness and
is used to identify to what extent the employees has
accomplished their assigned tasks. Job performance is
divided into two dimensions - task performance and
contextual performance. Task performance consists of
two types- executing technical process and maintaining
and servicing technical requirements (Motowildo,
Borman and Schmit, 1997). Contextual performance
organization i.e. helping others, cooperating with others,
following the stated rules and procedures to carry out
task activities (Motowildo, Borman and Schmit, 1997).
Due to the prevailing gap in literature with regard to
generic factors to measure job performance, researchers
have constructed factors underlying job performance
used the Role Based Performance Scale developed
by Welbourne, Johnson and Erez (1996) to identify
Job Performance. In Role-Based performance scale,
Vol. 36, No. 2, April-June, 2012
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