THE DARK SIDE OF WORK ENGAGEMENT: EMOTIONAL LABOR AND EMPLOYEE JEALOUSY

Year 2025, Volume: 26 Issue: 3, 526 - 541, 28.09.2025

Mine Aydemir Dev

https://doi.org/10.53443/anadoluibfd.1673775

Abstract

The present study aimed at investigating the relationships among work engagement, emotional labor, and employee jealousy. For this purpose, research was conducted on employees with a sample consisting of 270 participants and structural equation modeling was performed to investigate the relationships. The sub-dimensions of emotional labor were considered to examine its effects on work engagement. The analysis revealed that faking emotions is negatively associated with work engagement. The deep acting is positively associated with work engagement, and the hiding emotions is not significantly associated with work engagement. It was found that employee jealousy is positively associated with hiding and faking emotions. Employee jealousy has not directly but it has indirectly associated with work engagement. In addition, faking emotions were played a mediator role in the relationship between work engagement and employee jealousy. Overall, these findings can be taken into consideration regarding improve the work engagement of the employees.

Keywords

Emotional Labor , Faking Emotions , Deep Acting , Work Engagement , Employee Jealousy

Ethical Statement

Ethics committee approval was obtained for this study with the decision of Bursa Uludag University Ethics Committee dated 31.01.2025 and numbered 2025-01.

References

• Bakker, A.B. & Demerouti, E. (2008). Towards a model of work engagement, Career Development International, 13(3), 209-223. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430810870476
• Bayram, N., Aytac, S., & Dursun, S. (2012). Emotional labor and burnout at work: a study from Turkey. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 65, 300-305. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2012.11.126
• Bilgel, N., Bayram, N., Ozdemir, H., Dogan, F., & Ekin, D. (2012). Work engagement, burnout and vigor among a group of medical residents in Turkey. British Journal of Education, Society & Behavioural Science, 2(3), 220-238. https://doi.org/10.9734/BJESBS/2012/1496
• Brotheridge, C. M., & Grandey, A. A. (2002). Emotional labor and burnout: Comparing two perspectives of “people work”. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60(1), 17-39. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.2001.1815
• Bolton, S. C. (2005). Emotion management in the workplace. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Christian, M. S., Garza, A. S., & Slaughter, J. E. (2011). Work engagement: A quantitative review and test of its relations with task and contextual performance. Personnel Psychology, 64(1), 89–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01203.x
• Duffy, M. K., Scott, K. L., Shaw, J. D., Tepper, B. J., & Aquino, K. (2012). A social context model of envy and social undermining. Academy of Management Journal, 55(3), 643-666. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2009.0804
• Dursun, S., Aytaç, S. ve Bayram, N. (2014). Duygusal Emek Ölçeği Türkçe Formunun Geçerlilik Ve Güvenilirlik Çalışması. “İşGüç” Endüstri İlişkileri ve İnsan Kaynakları Dergisi, 16(2), 10-18. https://doi.org/10.4026/1303-2860.2014.0252.x
• Grandey, A. A. (2000). Emotional regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor. Journal of occupational health psychology, 5(1), 95. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.5.1.95
• Hobfoll, S.E. (2002). Social and psychological resources and adaptation. Review of General Psychology, 6(4), 307-324. https://doi.org/10.1037/1089-2680.6.4.307
• Kim, E., & Glomb, T. M. (2014). Victimization of high performers: The roles of envy and work group identification. Journal of applied psychology, 99(4), 619. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035789
• Kim, J. S. (2020). Emotional Labor Strategies, Stress, and Burnout Among Hospital Nurses: A Path Analysis. Journal of Nursing Scholarship, 52(1), 105-112. https://doi.org/10.1111/jnu.12532
• Korczynski, M. (2003). Communities of coping: Collective emotional labour in service work. Organization, 10(1), 55-79. https://doi.org/10.1177/135050840301000147
• Lam, R., Cheung, C., Lugosi, P. (2022). The impacts of cultural intelligence and emotional labor on the job satisfaction of luxury hotel employees. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 100, 103084. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2021.103084
• Lee, L., & Madera, J. M. (2019). A systematic literature review of emotional labor research from the hospitality and tourism literature. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 31(7), 2808-2826. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-05-2018-0395
• Leidner, R. (1993). Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life. University of California Press.
• Mache, S., Vitzthum, K., Klapp, B. F., & Danzer, G. (2014). Surgeons' work engagement: Influencing factors and relations to job and life satisfaction. The surgeon, 12(4), 181-190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.surge.2013.11.015
• Matta, F. K., Scott, B. A., Koopman, J., & Conlon, D. E. (2015). Does seeing “eye to eye” affect work engagement and organizational citizenship behavior? A role theory perspective on LMX agreement. Academy of Management Journal, 58(6), 1686-1708. https://doi.org/10.5465/amj.2014.0106
• Maxwell, A., & Riley, P. (2017). Emotional demands, emotional labour and occupational outcomes in school principals: Modelling the relationships. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 45(3), 484-502. https://doi.org/10.1177/174114321560787
• Nauman, S., Raja, U., Haq, I. U., & Bilal, W. (2019). Job demand and employee well-being: A moderated mediation model of emotional intelligence and surface acting. Personnel Review, 48(5), 1150-1168. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-04-2018-0127 Rich, B. L., LePine, J. A., & Crawford, E. R. (2010). Job engagement: Antecedents and effects on job performance. Academy of Management Journal, 53(3), 617–635. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMJ.2010.51468988
• Sahadev, S., Wood, G., Khan, M. A., Malhotra, N., & Demirbag, M. (2024). Justice, jealousy and performance: Evidence from neo-feudal Pakistan. Journal of Business Research, 183, 114847. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2024.114847
• Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., González-Romá, V., & Bakker, A. B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: A two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3(1), 71-92. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015630930326
• Vecchio, R. P. (2000). Negative emotion in the workplace: Employee jealousy and envy. International Journal of Stress Management, 7(3), 161-179. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1009592430712
• Wang, Y. D., & Sung, W. C. (2016). Predictors of organizational citizenship behavior: Ethical leadership and workplace jealousy. Journal of Business Ethics, 135, 117-128. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-014-2480-5
• Weiss, H. M., & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory. Research in Organizational Behavior, 18(1), 1-74.
• Yang, F. X., Li, X., & Wong, I. A. (2023). What happens on Facebook stays on Facebook? Virtual surface acting in cyberspace–workplace relationship transition. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 114, 103538. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2023.103538
• Yoo, J. (2016). Perceived customer participation and work engagement: the path through emotional labor. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 34(7), 1009-1024. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJBM-09-2015-0139
• Yoo, J., & Jeong, J. (2017). The effects of emotional labor on work engagement and boundary spanner creativity. Asia Pacific Journal of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, 11(2), 214-232. https://doi.org/10.1108/APJIE-08-2017-028
• Zhao, H., & Ma, Y. (2025). How is it going to end? Negative workplace gossip about coworkers, compensatory ethics and gossipers helping behavior toward coworkers. Personnel Review, 54(2), 557-580. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-04-2024-0316