Title: Effects of external prestige on emotional labour: mediation by organisational identification and moderation by perceived organisational support

Authors: Farooq Anwar; Ishfaq Ahmed; Muhammad Waqas; Wan Khairuzzaman Wan Ismail; Talat Islam

Addresses: Lahore Business School, The University of Lahore, 1.5 KM off Raiwind Rd., Defence Rd., Lahore, 54000, Pakistan ' Hailey College of Commerce, The University of Punjab, Hailey Bridge, Lahore ' Lahore Business School, The University of Lahore, 1.5 KM off Raiwind Rd., Defence Rd., Lahore, 54000, Pakistan ' Sulaiman AlRajhi School of Business, Sulaiman AlRajhi Colleges, Alqassim Province, 51941, Saudi Arabia ' Institute of Business Administration, University of the Punjab, Quaid-e-Azam Campus, Lahore, Pakistan

Abstract: Purpose: With the shift from manufacturing to services economies, the need of customer management has increased. The shift has also increased the role of frontline employees in managing their emotions, as they may directly influence customers' responses towards organisations' products and services. Based on this premise, this study values emotional labour and role of external prestige in predicting it. Furthermore, it also entails the investigation of organisational identification as mediator and perceived organisational support as moderator. Methodology/Design: This study is aimed at investigating the emotional labour and its explanatory mechanism, data was collected from 314 services employees through structured questionnaire. Sample was selected based on both random and referral sampling techniques, through questionnaire. Findings: Results empirically prove that external prestige of organisation influences employees' emotional responses, while organisational identification partially mediates the relation. And, perceptions of organisational support, influences the strength of relation between external prestige and organisational identification.

Keywords: external prestige; organisational identification; emotional labour; perceived organisational support; surface acting; deep acting.

DOI: 10.1504/MEJM.2019.097816

Middle East Journal of Management, 2019 Vol.6 No.2, pp.186 - 203

Received: 12 Dec 2017
Accepted: 14 Mar 2018
Published online: 12 Feb 2019 *

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