Emotional Labour

RESEARCH PROPOSAL cause 1 Project Title Emotional delve and Gender in the Hospitality Industry Research Context The idea that there is an stirred aspect to arrive at seems to acquire only gained academic credence in recent years. Hochschild (1983) originally introduced the concept of randy force back in her body of work of flight coadjutors and bill collectors. Since then various researchers deliver subsequently expand the topic to various different types of workers including t from each oneers (Blackmore 1996), nurses (James 1992 OBrien 1994), lawyers ( penetrate 1996), police (Stenross Kelinman 1989) and caterers (Phornprapha Guerrier 1997).Emotional advertise could be seen as the perplexity or display of trance emotions while working, requiring one to wee or suppress feeling in order to sustain the outward countenance that produces the proper state of mind in separates. (Hochschild 19837). A wide suit sized chain of English pubs has agreed to p cunningicipa te in the get hold of and ordain be referred to as the Coaching Inn Company The play a gigantic has grown rapidly, and take oned a portfolio of approximately 170 individual units wide spread around England.Most of these outlets twist accommodation and food, often with a relatively low reliance on wet (alcohol) sales, reflecting the app arnt trends of the pub-going market towards other revenue generators such(prenominal) as food and accommodation (Williams 1996). The party has a relatively soft type of branding, with a number of individual outlets of differing character, each supporting a wide customer base. In the past it had been the form _or_ system of government of subject office to give unit managers quite a let off hand in the running of their property.However, there has been an increasing level of normalization in some aras (with more standardised wine lists, menus, and accommodation offers, such as weekend breaks), and a central reservations system was increasingly use for accommodation. This approach to branding, with the unit distinctiveness creation valued by item office and seen as a marketing opportunity, reard an early hint somewhat the organisations apt(predicate) approach to delirious labour. Research AimThe go out aims to explore the nature of emotional labour in dish up interaction in United Kingdom public foretokens, and explore the extent to which it is moved(p) by the gender of individual round members. Key research objectives 1. To aim the impacts ca utilize by emotional labour among employees involved in pub service. 2. To snatch and evaluate coping strategies utilised by service rung act in the performance of emotional labour in relation to those suggested by employers, trainers and in the literary works. . To recommend measures that could be adopted by organisations and individuals to improve employees sire of emotional labour to the benefit of employers, employees and customers. Overview of the Literature Literature There argon various different types of emotional labour including individualalizing an im individualized relation (Hochschild 1983109), refraining from reacting to shameful conduct, and maintaining a perpetual, sincere smile (Macdonald Sirianni 19969).Hochschild (1983) introduced the term feeling rules to explain emotional norms, although if Scherers (1996) definition of emotion, including not only feeling but excessively neurophysiological responses and motor expression, is to be adopted, the implied dominance of feeling should be toughened cautiously. Ashforth and Humphrey (199389) approach this issue by suggesting that display rules is a more appropriate term, as emotional labour appears to be primarily hited with publically expressed emotions. some(prenominal) of these concepts appear to have value, although neither, taken individually, satisfactorily includes all the elements of emotion and emotional labour, and a combination of both seems more appropriate. D isplay rules may seem more useful in the study of the subject, especially from a behaviourist point of view, but to fully understand their nature and impacts, true feelings, cognition and physiological state should probably be examined as well. various possible negative impacts of emotional labour on round have been suggested including job stress (Adelmann 1995) employee burnout (Ledgerwood et al. 997), emotional exhaustion (Wharton 1993), and feeling phony when depicting false emotion to customers (Hochschild 1983). It should be pointed out, however, that positive effects of emotional labour have excessively been suggested with staff often enduring some less(prenominal)(prenominal) pleasant aspects of service work for the chance to interact with other muckle (Riley et al 1998) and gaining satisfaction from such work. Weatherly Tanisk (1993) examined various methods used by customer-contact workers to wangle with role stress that seem relevant to emotional labour.These incl ude 1. Actual avoidance of contact, perhaps by avoiding eye contact so as not to have to take an order or deal with a complaint. 2. Reacting to and/or educating the client Hochschild (1983127) recounts an incident when a flight attendant was asked by a customer why she wasnt smiling she attempt to pass the role onto him, asking him to smile and telling him to freeze, and hold that for fifteen hours. 3. Engaging customers (e. g. asking them for help) in the service provision to distract them from making demands. . Mindlessness, relying on scripts and pre-programmed behaviour for fulfilling a role. 5. Over-acting, ascribing their actions to a role or else than themselves as individuals. Public Houses There has been relatively little academic research in the public house sector in recent years. This is of some concern attached the considerable size of this part of the hospitality industry it has been suggested that pubs do the third most popular type of eating out face in the U K (Mintel Publications 1991).The public house environment seems likely to require a considerable amount of emotional labour when dealing with customers due to the enjoyment of alcohol that takes place. This is likely to lead to a level of disinhibition (Smith 1985a32) of customer behaviour that could cause problems for staff. The presence and relatively easy devil to alcohol could also result in staff developing drinking problems which may light upon their work performance generally and emotionally.Pub landlords seem especially susceptible to the demands of emotional labour as, it can be argued that the tavern keepers sociability and relational network is cerebrate around the regulars who form the dominant group of users (Smith 1985a). This suggests that the publicans genial heart is dominated by work contacts, especially since most individuals give way on the premises. This was particularly well demonstrated by Smith (1885b295) when describing the publican of a rough working -class pub who was behind the measuring rod less often than in front of it with his regular customers.Relatively little seems to have been indite about other service employees in pubs, although these people are in the front-line of the service encounter, and as such, are likely to be able to offer valuable insights into emotional labour. Gender Gender issues have been shell outed in much of the literature dealing with both emotional labour (e. g. Hochschild 1983 Pierce 1996) and pubs/alcohol (e. g. Hey 1986 Hunt Satterlee 1987 Gough Edwards 1998).Some (if rather dated) literature deals with gender differences in the pub trade. Hey (198643), for instance, suggested that the feminine bar staff member is expected to be a sexually provocative, friendly, sympathetic, and mature, see woman, while male bar staff wear dark suits, bow ties, shake cocktail mixers and are grotesquely efficient. More recently, Folgero Fjeldstadt (1995) suggested that women employed in the service indus try are likely to be subjected to sexual harassment by both colleagues and customers.Hey (198644) considered that women bar staff were expected to be socially available and engage in Pseudo-flirtation when a customer purchases a drink for them, although suggesting such expectations are limited to female staff appears to disagree with the researchers personal experience when working as a male bar person. Research Design This forget be an confirmable research. It is proposed to conduct a small number of case studies in a selection of public houses, preferably owned and operated by a individual(a) chain.A single case study may produce distorted results, as each pub is likely to have unique characteristics and pubs often have relatively small workforces from which to generate selective information. A detailed study of a large number of outlets also seems impractical given time and choice limitations. It is suggested that two pubs could be investigated over a two month period, depend ing on the type of access granted, allowing the researcher equal time to develop a reasonable familiarity with each, and generate sufficient and trustworthy data.It should be stressed, however, that this study aims to explore a relatively new area in considerable depth and entrust not seek to generalise any findings to the public house industry as the case study approach ordain be adopted in order to understand the phenomena to be studied rather than their incidence (Yin 198955). Ethnographic techniques will be utilised with the researcher employing instrumentalist observation of the individual pubs to be studied.Fetterman (19981) described ethnography as the art and science of describing a group or culture, relying largely on musician observation (observation by a field-worker who takes part in the daily life of the society being studied) for data gathering, although numerous additional data appeal techniques are available to the ethnographer for triangulation purposes. This is based on the idea that, by tenor to find the local anesthetics point of view (Narayan 1993) the field-worker will be suitably provide to understand why individuals within a social group do what they do, not simply recount observed phenomena.The actor observation will be conducted by working as a front-line bar person in each of the sampled pubs. Although this requires the co-operation of individual unit managers from the chain of public houses, major(ip) problems of access are not anticipated given the demand for experienced bar staff. This will enable the researcher to develop an in-depth understanding (Sandiford Ap 1998) of the outlets, their staff and the processes involved in the emotional labour conducted in the work environment.The participant observation will not be exclusively conducted in the work linguistic context, as the social activities of staff are likely to provide a more holistic representation of the emotional demands and effects of pub work. Both informal and formal semi-structured interviews will be conducted with customers, service staff, line management and head office management to gain an insight into the views and experiences of different levels of employees passim the company. much(prenominal) interviews will also help audit the projects findings at each do of the compend. Given the large number and different types of pubs in the United Kingdom, it is necessary to develop a view of the types of pub to be sampled. Primary consideration will be given to the size of pub, as, given the projects objectives, it would be inappropriate to spend a long period of observation in a pub operated solely by a management couple with no, or very few, customer service staff.Giving an arbitrary minimum number of service staff at this stage also seems premature, although it is clear that the pubs to be studied should have a sufficient number of service staff, both full and part-time, to enable the researcher to address the research questions effectively. It would be desirable to target a mixture of geographic and demographic pub locations for the study, hopefully including one rural, and one urban setting which would provide different perspectives for the research and result in a word form of service phenomena for analysis.A flexible time plan has been developed, with the two months to review the literature more fully, conduct the pilot study and seek formal access to a pub company for the main study. The next 2 months will be used to collect the data, with on-going analysis, hunted by 2 months for completing the analysis and the final report. Ethics Participant observation presents researchers with various honourable dilemmas, as to inform research subjects that they are being investigated can result in them behaving abnormally.However, it is felt that participating in the pubs to be studied for relatively long periods will help the researcher to integrate well into the work team even when known to be a researcher, and allow other members of staff to accept the researcher, thus minimising abnormal behaviour. Customers seem to present more of an ethical question, as it is not practical to explain to each one that they are being observed (Franklin 19859). In this project, however, staff and their reactions to the emotional demands of the job are the main foci of attention so it is felt that this is a relatively baby problem.Treatment of the Data The data will take various forms the researcher will keep a daily personal journal containing field notes, personal observations and reflections on situations that arise formal (and some informal) interviews will be preserve on audio tape whenever possible, and transcribed to avoid mistakes and mis-interpretations copies of these will be issued to interviewees, when possible, for member checking, following a similar audit trail to that used by Sandiford (1997) especially related to the interpretation of data relevant company documentation (e. g. raini ng manuals, policy statements, etc. ) will be examined, if permitted, to provide additional information related to emotional labour within the company. The data will undergo ethnographic analysis in order to develop a full picture of emotional labour. The researcher will follow the framework utilised in his MPhil research (Sandiford 1997) and outlined by Spradley (1980). Such a systematic approach to the analysis, through three major stages, will result in the reconstruction of audited cultural themes related to the phenomenon of emotional labour which will provide the basis for the resultant thesis.Planning See Gantt chart in attachment A for a breakdown of the activities and the time required to effected them. Resources Required * Main researcher for 6 months, bar experience inborn * Typist for 5 days to transcribe interviews * Access to academic library databases and bury Library Loan * Digital voice recorder to record interviews (? 80) * laptop computer to record daily logs while away from home (? 400) * Transport be to and from Pubs, if pub not local (up to ? 200) * Accommodation if pub not local (? 1600) * Binding (? 100) Risk AnalysisRisk Impact (I) Prob (P) I x P fortuity 4 week observation cant be stainless 3 1 3 Organise stand-by pub, optionally delay ending of research Data lost 3 1 3 get wind regular backups to secure source Companies/Pubs wont participate 3 2 6 Establish possibilities early. Take advantage of 11 networking opportunities. Solicit help from members of ULMS Technology fails 2 1 2 go over backup solutions are available Lack of co-operation with bar staff 3 1 3 Ensure they understand the non-threatening nature of the study not management driven.Provide support and understanding of their situation. Quality Criteria Interview questions to be clear by supervisor and Head office contact before being used. Minimum of 6 weeks spent observing bar interactions Minimum of 6 interviews with customers Minimum of 8 bar staff intervie ws (at least 2 part-time and 2 full-time, and at least 3 males and 3 females) Minimum of 2 Bar manager interviews At least 1 interview with head office staff All interview transcripts to be approved by interviewee before being analysed All references to company to be made unnamed before publishing.Dissertation to be written using plain English, 12pt Roman, double spaced, Harvard Referencing, skip in maroon cloth covered boards with gold lettering. Monthly keep updates to supervisor and Head office contact. References Adelmann, P. K. (1995) Emotional Labor as a Potential Source of Job Stress, in, S. L. Sauter, L. R. Murphy (Eds. ) Organizational put on the line factors for job stress, Washington, DC American Psychological Association, 371-381. Ashforth, B. E. Humphrey, R. H. (1993) Emotional Labour in receipts places The Influence of Identity, Academy of commission Review, 18, 1, 88-115. Blackmore, J. 1996) Doing Emotional Labour in the Education Market Place Stories from the Field of Women in Management, Discourse Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 17, 3, 337-349. Fetterman, D. (1998) Ethnography Step bySstep (2nd Ed. ) capital of the United Kingdom judicious. Folgero, Ingebjorg S. Fjeldstadt, Ingrid H. (1995) On Duty Off Guard Cultural Norms and Sexual torment in Service Organizations, Organization Studies, 16, 2, 299-313Franklin 19859). Gough, B. Edwards, G. (1998) The Beer Talking Four Lads, a pass on Out and the Reproduction of Masculinities, The Sociological Review, 46, 409-435.Hammersley, M. Atkinson, P. (1983) Ethnography Principles in Practice, London Routledge. Hey, V. (1986) patriarchate and Pub Culture, London Tavistock. Hochschild, A. R. , (1983). The Managed Heart Commercialization of Human Feeling. University of California Press, London. Hunt, Geoffrey Satterlee, Saundra (1987) Darts, fox and the Pub The Culture of Female Drinking, Sociological Review, 35, 3, Aug, 575-601 James, N. (1992) Care = Organisation + animal (prenominal) Labour + Emotional Labour Sociology of Health and Illness, 14 4, Dec, 488-509. Ledgerwood, C. E. , Crotts, J. C. amp Everett, A. M. (1998) Antecedents of Employee Burnout in the Hotel Industry, Progress in Tourism and Hospitality Research, 4, 31-44. Macdonald, C. L. Sirianni, C. (Eds. ) (1996) resolveing in the Service Society, Philadelphia Temple University Press. Mintel Publications (1991) Eating out, Leisure-Intelligence, 1, 1-28. Narayan, K. (1993), How Native Is A Native Anthropologist? American Anthropologist. Vol. 95, No. 3, pp. 671-686 OBrien, M. (1994) The Managed Heart Revisited Health and Social manipulate, Sociological-Review, 42 3, Aug, 393-413 Phornprapha, S. & Guerrier, Y. 1997) restaurant Staff and their Supervisors The Management of Emotions, paper presented at The Fourth Recent Advances in Retailing and Services Science Conference, Scottsdale, Arizona, 30 June-3 July. Pierce, J. (1996) Rambo Litigators Emotional Labour in a Male-Dominated Occupati on, in C. Cheng, (Ed. ) Masculinities in Organizations, Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications, pp. 1-28 Riley, M. , Lockwood. , A. , Powel-Perry, J. , & Baker, M. (1988) Job Satisfaction, Organisation Commitment and Occupational Culture A skid from the UK Pub Industry, Progress in Tourism and Hospitality Research, 4. 59-168 Sandiford, P. J. & Ap, J. (1998) The Role of Ethnographic Techniques in Tourism Planning. Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 37, No. 1, wondrous 1998, 3-11 Sandiford, P. J. (1997), Social and Cultural Impacts of Imported Labour at the New Chek lie Kok Airport Development, Hong Kong, Unpublished M. Phil Thesis, The Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Scherer, K. R. (1996) Emotion, in M. Hewstone, W. Stroebe & G. M. Stephenson (Eds) Introduction to Social Psychology, 2nd. Ed. , Oxford Blackwell Smith, M.A. (1985a) The Publican Role Conflict and Aspects of Social Control, Service Industries Journal, 5 1 March, 23-36. Smit h, M. A. (1985b) A Participant Observer Study of a Rough Working-Class Pub, Leisure Studies, 4, 3, Sept, 293-306 Spradley, J. P. (1980) Participant Observation, Orlando Rinehart and Winston Stenross, B. & Kleinman, S. (1989) The Highs and Lows of Emotional Labor Detectives Encounters with Criminals and Victims, Journal of present-day(a) Ethnography, 17, 4, January, 435-452 Weatherly, Kristopher A. & Tansik, David A. 1993) Tactics Used by Customer-Contact Workers Effects of Role Stress, Boundary Spanning and Control, International Journal of Service Industry Management, 4, 3, 4-17 Wharton, A. S. (1993) The Affective Consequences of Service Work Managing Emotions on the Job, Work and Occupations, 20, 2, May, 205-232 Williams, C. E. (1996) The British Pub An Industry in Transition, Cornell Hotel and restaurant Administration Quarterly, 37, 6, 62-73. Yin, R. K. (1989) Case Study Research Design and Methods, London Sage. Appendix A Project Plan