The moderating role of organizational power distance in the effect of emotional labor on burnout: A study on airline employees

This study aimed to examine the moderating role of organizational power distance in the effect of emotional labor on burnout among airline employees. 1237 airline employees voluntarily participated in the purposeful research. In the research, data was collected by the survey method. The survey form of the research consists of a personal information form, an emotional labor scale, a burnout scale , organizational power distance scale. In the research, first of all, the emotional labor levels of the participants were examined. It shows that employees have medium levels of deep acting and low levels of emotional labor in other dimensions. It shows that employees experience low depersonalization, high emotional exhaustion, and low levels of burnout. It was determined that the employees' levels of acceptance of power, acceptance of power, perception of power distance were medium, and their levels of instrumental use of power, legitimation of power were low. In the correlation analysis carried out to examine the relationships between variables in the research; it has been determined that there is no relationship between deep acting and burnout in general, which are dimensions that determine the level of emotional labor, that there is a low-level negative significant relationship between deep acting and low sense of personal accomplishment, and that there are low-level positive relationships between other emotional labor and burnout dimensions. Among the emotional labor dimensions, it was determined that there were no significant relationships between deep acting and acceptance of power and between natural emotions and the dimensions of legitimizing power and accepting power, and that there were positive, low-level significant relationships between all other dimensions of emotional labor and all dimensions of organizational power distance. It was determined that organizational power distance had no moderating effect on the effect of emotional labor on burnout. Keywords: Emotional labor, burnout, organizational power distance, airline