A longitudinal research on the roles of surface and deep acting in the relationship between natural emotional labor and positive-negative work attitudes in tourism businesses

In contemporary business life, employees may encounter divergent emotional needs within the same company due to varying conditions. Changing events in the daily work environment cause employees to experience different feelings. The extant literature on emotional labour views such forms as independent and alternative structures. However, a more nuanced understanding of emotional labour's personal and organizational outcomes may be achieved by considering emotional labour forms as complementary strategies rather than searching them alone. The study found that expressing natural emotions was the most positive emotional strategy regarding individual and organizational outcomes compared to other forms of emotional labour. In this context, through longitudinally collected data, it was investigated whether different interaction combinations of naturally felt emotions and emotional labour strategies that constitute surface and deep emotional labour forms are related to positive-negative work attitudes and how these relationships are. The study determined different significant relationships between emotional labour strategies and research variables. The study concluded that surface-acting behaviours positively delayed the effect of natural emotional labour on organisational commitment and job stress and negatively delayed its effect on turnover intention. Regarding the reverse longitudinal effects, it was concluded that the participants' organizational commitment, job satisfaction, turnover intention, and job stress levels did not affect their natural emotional labour displays.