This paper is investigating the role of emotion work in SMTEs and its impact on employees’ turnover. This study population is consisting of employees who are in a direct contact with tourists in selected SMTEs. Five scales from the Frankfurt Emotional Work (FEWS) were analyzed using quantitative approach. The obtained results revealed that the correlations between the scales of Emotion work and turnover were significant. The analysis of subscale dimensions shows that the most frequently expressed emotions are positive emotions while negative emotions are those that are expressed less frequently. Hence, SMTEs should understand the most important emotional dimensions that have impacts on employees’ turnover. The study found that employee's turnover has a signification relationship with the following factors by order: positive emotions, negative emotions, emotional dissonance, sensitivity requirement and interactional control. Therefore, we can conclude that SMTEs should help their employees to show and express positive emotions and reject expressing negative emotions. SMTEs should decrease the level of emotional dissonance by being engaged with their employees.

Keywords: Emotion Work, Turnover, SMTEs, Travel Agencies, Hotels.

               There is agreement that (SMTEs) are drivers of economic growth as SMTEs contributes to the economy through generating employment chances (Spencer & Matela, 2014). The tourism and hospitality sectors have impacts on the economic situation in the Egyptian economy (Eraqi, 2007). It is reflected by the level of the contribution of SMTEs to the economy. According to OCED (2018), there are 1.7 million full-time workers serving the tourism industry directly, in addition to 2.2 million workers in other tourism related sectors. Because of this economic development, this study is going to investigate the relationship between emotion work and employees’ turnover in SMTEs. In Small and Medium Tourism Enterprises (SMTEs), employees should express certain emotions during the work (Nawijn & Biran, 2018). This is a key demand in the services sector, especially for employees who have direct and frequent contact with customers (Zhao, Yan & Keh, 2018).

               One of the most important factors affecting employees in SMTEs is the direct interaction with customers (Huffman & Skaggs, 2010). Therefore, employees controlling of their expression and emotions is required during the work. However, this emotional and psychological control has different characteristics and effects when happened in SMTEs (Sohn, 2017). SMTEs have standards of expectations (implicit or explicit) regarding how employees should behave emotionally in order to achieve organizational goals. Therefore, the emotion work not only depends on employees’ behaviors and feelings, but also extends to performing the emotion work required by SMTEs (Sohn, 2017).

               According to Kramer, Guillory & Hancock (2014), the norms of emotional expression can be explicit or implicit. Certain organizations explain to their employees what emotions they should express and offer training on expression emotional (explicit norms). However, other organizations do not include standards or emotional rules neither in their organizational culture nor in the job descriptions. In these cases, it is usually employees’ experience that shows if he can (not) manage his emotions well (Shipley, Jackson & Segrest, 2010). Some organizations do not have policies on how to behave. However, this lack is complemented by social norms and clear expectations about how different employees should behave (implicit norms) (Kramer et al., 2014). However, the reasons why employees follow the emotional rules can be three: a) by motivation; b) by social pressure; or, c) employees’ punishment (Shipley et al., 2010).

               The role of the expressed and experienced emotions by employees is a key factor in SMTEs (Ferrada & Camarinha-Matos, 2013). It is important to discover how emotion work has an impact on them. For example, Hochschild (1983) pointed out the positive aspects of emotion work. She indicated that employees who are in a direct interact with customers can express themselves and therefore be satisfied as they should show positive emotions in their work. Their work requires them to show friendliness to customers and control their own emotions. On the other hand, negative emotions might have a positive or negative impact on tourism (Nawijn & Biran, 2018). There are various studies investigated the relationship between emotion work and social support or emotional intelligence (Hochschild, 1983; Ferrada & Camarinha-Matos, 2013; Kramer, et al., 2014; Sohn, 2017; Nawijn & Biran, 2018). However, there is a lack of research on the factors that moderate the relationship between the dimensions of emotion work and employee’s turnover in SMTEs (Karatepe & Kilic, 2015). Moreover, none of the previously mentioned studies examined how the employees perceive the impact of emotion work dimensions on their willing to leave a job. Hence, this study is going to analyze this relationship.

LITERATURE REVIEW

There are different definitions referring to the processes involved in the controlling of employees’ emotional expression. Studies that use term “emotion work” focus on analyzing the rules of emotional expression and describe the requirement to express certain emotions during the work (Zapf, 2002). On the other hand, the studies that refer to “Emotional labor” focus on emotional strategies that can be used by the employees to respond to the emotional demands by their job (Wharton, 2009). Therefore, this study is focusing on the perspective of “emotion work”. It allows to understanding the emotion work as a labor demand related to the characteristics of the job and its impact on their willing to retain or leave a job.

One of the main aspects in SMTEs sector is the social interaction with customers in which it is essential to control emotion work (Wu, Yeh & Xu, 2019). Emotion work concept defined for the first time by the sociologist Hochschild (1983) to refer to the types of work in which the employee is required to maintain facial and body expressions with the intention of creating emotions for the sake of customers. When practicing emotion work, the employees should have a commitment to express not only their private emotions, but also the expected emotions by the organizations. Morris & Feldman (1996) defined emotion work as the efforts of controlling behaviors to express desired emotions by organizations. In this context, emotion work consists of expressing certain defined emotions for the job. In the same way that employees receive orders over how to perform certain tasks, emotion work determines what kind of emotions they must express.

Emotion work is defined as the act of showing appropriate motion to meet the desired emotions by organizations during interpersonal interaction with customers (Karatepe & Kilic, 2015). It can also define as psychological processes required handling the expected emotions by organization as part of the work requirements. Zapf (2002) developed a quantitative method to measure emotion work called Frankfurt Emotion Work Scale (FEWS). They validated this scale through an exploratory factor analysis with a sample of employees who worked in an institution for disabled children and subsequently carried out a confirmatory factor analysis with two different samples: employees of hotels and workers of a call centre. Emotion work then appears as a work requirement in those organizations. This scale is originally composed of eight dimensions (“positive emotions”, “negative emotions”, “neutral emotions”, “required sensitivity”, “empathy”, “emotional dissonance”, “control of interaction” and “emotional control”. Lv, Xu & Ji (2012) and Rathi, Bhatnagar & Mishra, (2013) indicated that only five dimensions are applicable to tourism and hospitality organizations. Therefore, this study will use the following dimensions of emotion work:

1.   Demands to show positive emotions (positive emotions),

2.   Demands to show and manage negative emotions (negative emotions),

3.   Demands for empathy and knowledge of the client's feelings (sensitivity requirements),

4.   The degree of control that the employee has over the duration of the interactions with customers (interactional control),

5.   The display of unfelt emotions and the suppression of emotions felt but that are not organizationally desirable (emotional dissonance).

Turnover and Emotion Work in SMTEs

According to Kim (2014), the employee’s turnover is related to the rate of the staff that were leaving their work during a certain period, but before the end of the expected contract. It is considered one of the most important contemporary problems facing any business operation. The word “turnover” was defined by Chikwe (2010) as follows: The percentage of the number of workers who had left the SMTEs during a certain period. The ratio was divided by the average total of workers in these SMTEs during this period.

In (SMTEs), it is vital to increase employees' satisfaction and decease the turnover rate. Staff turnover is one of the most important subjects to any (SMTEs) and it requires special consideration (Karatepe & Kilic, 2015). Employee turnover can be expressed as a percentage, which indicates the rate at which employees join and leave the SMTEs. Turnover arises mainly from the dissatisfaction of the workplace for an individual employee (Kim, 2014). However, just being unhappy in a job is not the only reason why employees leave one SMTEs to go to another. The idea of emotional labour in SMTEs particularly require more investigations by researchers as tourism and hospitality jobs involve employees who express feelings such as to be friendly, enthusiasm and cheerful despite negative emotions that they may experience in their life (Igbojekwe, 2016). This study is focusing on the studying the relationship between Emotion work and its impact on turnover in SMTEs.

Dimensions of Emotion Work

The requirement to express certain emotions may have positive consequences on employees. One of the main beneficial effects that derived from emotion work is self-efficacy (Bozionelos, 2016). When employees adapt their emotional expression to the expected standards, it increases the perception of professional effectiveness and facilitates the achievement of work objectives (Chinomona & Chinomona, 2018). On the other hand, studies showed that emotion work involves the management of emotions of others (e.g. tourists) and this can be experienced as empowerment or revoking for employees (Conroy, Becker & Menges, 2017).

Positive Emotions

Hochschild (1983) indicated how the work of the flight attendants not only be described by the physical tasks but also by the interaction with customers. Hochschild described that flight attendants should be friendly with customers and respond positively to any problem that passengers may have. These expectations of expression determined by a series of “emotional rules” established by the airline companies and they specify which emotions the flight attendants must show according to the different situations. However, some passengers may behave aggressively and create an unpleasant interaction. However, even in some situations in which the hosts do not feel happy, they must simulate the required emotions by the airline companies (Del Chiappa & Atzeni, 2016). In this context, flight attendants must control and sometimes suppress their emotions to express those demanded by airline companies. Emotion work is a labour demand that affects all employees of the SMTEs to which they are required to show specific emotions (Drach-Zahavy, Yagil & Cohen, 2017). Therefore, emotion work is the action of expressing the appropriate emotion that prescribed by the organizations (Farny, Kibler & Down, 2019).

The requirement to express positive emotions is one of the dimensions of emotion work (Ferrada & Camarinha-Matos, 2013). Tourists are paying to have a good time and want to receive a special service and good treatment. Therefore, they expect the kindness and friendliness of employees. Employees' emotions should be authentic to have a positive effect on the customers (Genc & Gulertekin Genc, 2018). The expression of positive emotions facilitates the development of interactions between employee and customers and increasing the possibility of solving difficult situations or conflicts (Giorgiana Grama & Băiaș, 2018). If an employee expresses positive emotions, the customers will respond with pleasant emotions causing satisfaction. If employees express and feel positive emotions, it should have positive effects on staff wellbeing (Heaphy, 2017). SMTEs suggest the required and undesirable emotions that should be expressed by their employees (Koc & Bozkurt, 2017). Tour leaders are requested to manage their emotions and show positive ones. They confirmed expressing positive emotions creates a positive environment for tourists and themselves (Torland, 2011). Therefore, the first hypothesis is investigating the positive emotions at work as positively related to employees’ retention and low rate of turnover.

Negative Emotions

Burnout is the main negative consequence of the negative emotions (Popov et al., 2018). Burnout is considered as a response to chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors that are found at work (Nyanjom & Wilkins, 2016). Negative emotions refer to the action of employees when expressing unpleasant emotions towards their customers (Nawijn & Biran, 2018). For example, if tourists are not respecting the rules of swimming pool in hotels, you should become angry or strict. Some SMTEs encourage their employees to put their customers in a negative mood (e.g. provoke the guests' fear of reserving with other travel agencies (Wu, Yeh & Xu, 2019). Some SMTEs have rules of showing that they are very busy and working under pressure and therefore asking their employees to give the impression of being in a bad mood when dealing with tourists (Rathi, Bhatnagar & Mishra, 2013). Therefore, this research suggests that expressing negative emotions have a negative impact on the employee’s retention (Hypothesis 2).

Sensitivity Requirement

In sensitivity requirement, employees should be sensitive to customer emotions (Igbojekwe, 2016). For example, staff working in the reception of travel agencies should show sympathy when a customer is desperate (Li,, Scott & Walters, 2015). Therefore, it is very important for employees to show the right emotion to perceive customer emotions. Sensitivity requirement is very important for employees when dealing with tourists’ complaints. Therefore, employees who can understand tourists’ emotions can be successful in their work (Torland, 2011). Hence, hypothesis two was suggested to study the sensitivity requirement as a positive factor affecting the rate of employees’ turnover.

Interactional Control

Interactional control refers to the degree allow or prevent employees to complete the interaction with tourists if feel it appropriate (Del Chiappa & Atzeni, 2016). It is very important in SMTEs to keep a level of personal interaction with tourists (Genc & Gulertekin Genc, 2018). Therefore, hypothesis four suggested: High level of organizational control on staff interactions with tourists has a negative impact on employees willing to stay in their job (Hypothesis 4).

Emotional Dissonance

On the other hand, there is a negative relationship between emotion work and employee’s satisfaction (Del Chiappa & Atzeni, 2016). The key aspect that influences the effects of emotion work is emotional dissonance (discrepancy between the emotions that the employee feels and what should be expressed) as well as the type of emotional strategy used to respond to emotional demands (Newnham, 2017). The emotional dissonance is considered a stress element that cause emotional exhaustion on employees (Torland, 2011). If positive emotions were pretended because there was a discrepancy between the felt and expressed emotions (emotional dissonance), it will not generate positive effects on the welfare of the employees and might be harmful to their Health (Conroy, Becker & Menges, 2017). In this way, emotional dissonance has a mediating role in the relationship between positive emotions and self-efficacy.

Emotional dissonance considered as a dimension of emotion work that have negative consequences on employees. Emotional dissonance can threaten the authenticity of any employee and can lead to a depressive mood. Hochschild (1983) stated that if employees express (or they must express) emotions that they do not feel, they can suffer a problem with their own feelings and consequently might lead to psychological stress. However, if employees do not feel the emotions they should feel, they can develop feelings of guilt or hypocrisy that may contribute to diminish their self-esteem (Drach-Zahavy, Yagil & Cohen, 2017). Therefore, SMTEs should make their employees feel little emotional dissonance.

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