How does emotional labor influence restaurant employees’ service quality during COVID-19? The roles of work fatigue and supervisor–subordinate Guanxi
International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management
ISSN: 0959-6119
Article publication date: 20 April 2023
Issue publication date: 2 January 2024
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to test the relationship between emotional labor and service quality of the frontline employees of Chinese restaurants during the coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19). This study further investigated the mediating role of work fatigue (WF) and the moderating role of supervisor–subordinate Guanxi (SSG).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used a time-lag approach to gather data from a sample of 365 frontline staff members working in Chinese restaurants. All hypotheses were tested using SPSS and AMOS.
Findings
First, restaurant frontline employees’ deep acting was associated with higher service quality, whereas surface acting leads to lower service quality. Second, WF mediated the relationship between emotional labor and service quality. Third, SSG moderated the impact of emotional labor on WF during COVID-19.
Research limitations/implications
All variables measured in this study were self-reported by restaurant frontline employees, which may increase the risk of common-method bias. However, this study enriches the literature on emotional labor, WF and SSG during COVID-19.
Practical implications
COVID-19 has severely affected the hotel, restaurant and catering sector and especially the psychological state and the work performance of frontline employees. Restaurant managers should implement some measures to improve employees’ service quality during COVID-19.
Originality/value
The present findings show that restaurant frontline employees adopted various emotional labor strategies when they were faced with higher than usual job demands and the risk of infection during COVID-19.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Funding: This research was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Heilongjiang Province (YQ2021G004), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (72131005,71972062,71702059), the Natural Science Foundation of Hebei Province (G2021501006), the National College Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program of China (CY2023002), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities in Harbin Institute of Technology.
Citation
Wu, T.-J., Zhang, R.-X. and Li, J.-M. (2024), "How does emotional labor influence restaurant employees’ service quality during COVID-19? The roles of work fatigue and supervisor–subordinate Guanxi", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 36 No. 1, pp. 136-154. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-09-2022-1060
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2023, Emerald Publishing Limited