The Effect of Emotional Labor on Work Alienation: A Study at Hotel Businesses

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to determine the levels of emotional labor andwork alienation of hotel employees and to detect the causal relationship between thesetwo concepts. For this purpose, a field research was conducted on employees of fivestarhotel businesses operating within Antalya Region. The study is limited to frontdesk,food-beverage and marketing-public relations departments at which emotionallabor is more intensely exhibited. According to the results, while the level of deepactingin the context of emotional labor is high, the levels of superficial -acting and thenaturally-felt emotions are moderate and relatively low, respectively. Work alienationwas also determined as moderate. According to the results of the correlation analysis, itwas found that work alienation had a moderate adverse relationship with deep-actingand naturally-felt emotions and a moderate but positive relationship with the superficialemotions. As a result of multiple regression analysis, approximately 50% of workalienation was predicted by emotional labor dimensions.