Effects of Emotional Dissonance & QWL Perceptions on Employee Turnover Intentions
Abstract
Service
industry gained importance in recent periods. Call Centers have been situated
within that sector in which emotions are most intensively used. For
competitiveness, understanding the emotional processes is important. Therefore,
the aim of this study is to understand the effect emotional dissonance has on
turnover intentions and absenteeism, and the moderating effect of quality of
work life perceptions for call center employees. The study was conducted with
318 Turkish call center employees. A significant positive effect was found
regarding emotional dissonance on turnover intentions and on unexcused
absenteeism. Instead of functioning as a moderator, quality of work life
perceptions affected turnover intentions and absenteeism directly.
Keywords: Emotional Dissonance, Turnover intentions,
Quality of work life, Absenteeism, Service Industry, Call Centers
1. Introduction
Increased growth in service sector
elicited call center industry which accentuate emotions of employees in the
workplace. The reason to focus on the emotions or affective responses of
employees is their frequent interaction with the customers (Dormann, &
Zijlstra, 2003).
1.1 Emotional Dissonance and Call Center Work
Emotional dissonance is defined as the
conflict between expressed and experienced emotions‟ (Abraham, 1998a). It
arises when an employee‟s displayed emotions represent the obeying
organizational rules, but do not represent his or her actual feelings (Rafaeli
& Sutton, 1987). Expressing appropriate emotions during face-to-face or
voice-to-voice interactions is a job demand for many employees in the service
industry, particularly in call center jobs (Zapf, Isic, Bechtoldt, & Blau,
2003). Recent studies have differentiated various dimensions of emotion work while
most of them comprise the frequency of emotion expression and emotional
dissonance (Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002; Büssing & Glaser, 1999). For
call centers, increasing percentage of turnover is among the basic challenges
they face today (Aşkun, 2007) As part of the task specifications, call center
work is often highlighted as particularly stressful, and by implication, that
it is more stressful than any other comparable forms of employment (Turnover of
Moroccan Call Centers, 2005). Related to this, emotional labor can become
dysfunctional for the call center agent when dissonance between felt emotions
and displayed emotions is experienced.
1.2 Organizational Resources: Quality of Work life in Call Centers
Quality of work life as a concept is
usually defined through one or with all of the below concepts: professional
activities and career development, recognition for competence and expertise,
department and external relationships, perceptions of discrimination, and
positive working conditions. Many have found significant relationships between
increased quality of work life and high employee commitment (Jaskyte, 2003;
Cropanzano & Folger, 1989) increased job satisfaction (Cole & Flint,
2005; Folger & Greenberg, 1985), and decreased turnover intention rates (Arvey
& Sackett, 1993; Cropanzano & Folger, 1989).
1.3 Emotional Dissonance and Absenteeism
Like turnover, absenteeism is also a
major problem for organizations. Types of absenteeism were simply classified as
organizationally excused versus organizationally unexcused absences by
previous studies. According to these studies, excused absences are personal
sickness, injuries or funeral leave. Unexcused absences are the cases in which
employees intentionally don‟t come to work (Blau & Boal, 1987).
Related to the above findings, our
hypotheses for our research are:
H1:
There is a positive relationship between emotional dissonance and unexcused
absenteeism.
H2:
There is a negative relationship between quality of work life and unexcused
absenteeism.
H3:
There is no relationship between emotional dissonance, quality of work life and
excused absenteeism.
H4:
There is a positive relationship between emotional dissonance and turnover
intentions.
1.4 Quality of Work Life as a Moderator between Emotional Dissonance and Turnover Intentions
Chang (1999) had mentioned that
attitudes of individuals toward their career may also affect their attitudes
toward their organization. In line with this understanding, Huang, Lawler,
& Lei (2007) had hypothesized that the perception of quality of work life
has a direct negative effect on turnover intention. Related to these arguments,
we are also wondering the effects of quality of work life variables in an
organization regarding the link between emotional dissonance, turnover
intentions and absenteeism:
H5: Perception of organizational QWL
Resources moderates the effect of emotional dissonance on turnover intentions
among call center employees.
2. Method
2.1 Participants
A total of 318 call center agents
(187 Female and 111 Male) with 5.5 years tenure participated to the study.
Majority of the call centers belonged to national companies (94.7%) and had
both inbound and outbound service (81.1%).
2.2 Procedure
The managers and the team leaders administered the questionnaires during
agents‟ lunch and/or break times and the questionnaires were filled by those
agents who volunteered to take part in the study.
2.3 Instruments
Emotional dissonance was measured by Full Scan Questionnaire (FSQ) by Xanthopoulou, Bakker,
& Schaufeli, (2003), ranged from 6 “always” to 1 “never”.
Turnover intentions was measured by Rosin & Korabik (1991), ranged
from 6 “totally agree” to 1 “totally disagree”. FSQ was used to measure absenteeism. For quality of work life dimensions, FSQ, Quality of Work Life in
Self-Managing Work Groups Questionnaire (Cohen, 1997, p. 282); Communication
Climate Inventory (Costigan & Schmeidler, 1987, p. 11); Questionnaire on
the Experience and Evaluation of Work (QEEW) (Veldhoven, Lisle, &
Moors, 1998,
p. 1-9); Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire (Hanson, Schaufeli, Vrijkotte,
Plomp, & Godaert, 2000, p. 144) and self created items were used.
3. Results
3.1 Factor Analysis
The factor structure of the Quality
of Work Life instrument yielded four factors (Recognition (% Variance: 38.7), Developmental
Opportunities (% Variance: 12.9), Supportive Leadership (% Variance: 7.3) and
Fair Pay and Promotion System (% Variance: 6.6) with Eigen values over 1.00
that explained 65.5% of the total variance with .819 KMO value.
3.2 The Relationship between Emotional Dissonance and Turnover Intentions
Regression analysis was used to test
the relationship between emotional dissonance and turnover intentions.
According to the analysis, there is a positive relationship between these two
variables; the greater the emotional dissonance, the higher individuals‟
turnover intentions (Beta: .179***, R2: .32, Adjusted R2:
.029). Thus, H1 was supported.
3.3 The Relationship between Emotional Dissonance and Absenteeism
The relationship between these two
variables was tested by t-test. Based on the results, individuals who were
unexcused absent experience more emotional dissonance compared to others who
were not absent. On the other hand, there is no significant mean difference
between individuals who were excused absent and not absent. Thus, H4 was
supported, and H3 was partially supported.
3.4 The Moderating role of Quality of Work Life
Perceptions between the Emotional Dissonance and Turnover Intention
Relationship
The role of quality of work life as a
moderating variable between emotional dissonance and turnover intentions was
tested by hierarchical regression analysis. The interaction effects of quality
of work life and emotional dissonance do not have significant effects on
turnover intentions. Instead of a moderating effect, Developmental
Opportunities (Beta: -.325***), Supportive Leadership (Beta: -.182***)
and Fair Pay and Promotion System (Beta: 200***) have direct effects
on turnover intentions. Thus, H5, H5a and H5b
were not supported.
3.5 The Relationship between QWL Perceptions and Absenteeism
The relationship between QWL
Perceptions and absenteeism was analyzed by a t-test. Results of the analysis
indicated that, there is a difference between unexcused absenteeism and two QWL
factors (Supportive Leadership and Fair Pay and Promotion System) perception. Employees who don‟t make
unexcused absenteeism have higher positive perceptions about organization‟s
Supportive Leadership and Fair Pay and Promotion System than employees who make
unexcused absenteeism. Thus, H2 and H3 were supported
(Xanthopoulou, et al. 2003; Rosin & Korabik, 1991; Cohen, 1997).
4. Discussion
Results
indicated that, there is a significant relationship between emotional
dissonance, turnover intentions and unexcused absenteeism. Adding to these
results, quality of work life perceptions of call center agents has no
moderating role in the emotional dissonance, turnover intentions relationship.
Instead of functioning as a moderator, perceptions of quality of work life have
a significant direct effect on turnover intentions. This result can be
explained by the fact that emotional dissonance is defined to be a
context-specific stressor (Heuven and Bakker, 2003) and is specifically related
with the work itself. This might lead to an understanding that the call center
agents might be separating call center work and call center environment in
their minds. Another result of the present study is the negative effect of QWL
perceptions on unexcused absenteeism meaning that organizational resources
might have a predictive relationship with turnover intentions and
absenteeism.
Four
dimensions came out of the factor analysis based on the agents‟ perceptions of
organizational QWL dimensions: Recognition,
developmental opportunities, supportive leadership, fair pay and promotion system.
Perceptions of those dimensions were found to be contributing to developing
turnover intentions and absenteeism in a reverse manner. In general, perceiving
access to opportunity and resources is argued to be linked to intent to stay.
As an example, in her study with a nurse population, Nedd (2004) found that
perceived access to opportunity and resources were the best predictors of
nurses‟ intent to stay on the job. This result we believe is consistent with
the ERI model mentioned earlier.
The effect of
emotional dissonance on turnover intentions may be related with the depletion
of the employees‟ psychological resources. Individuals who live dissonance may
detach from their own self and also from their organization. This stressor may
be leading the agents to feel estranged from their workplace and may be
directing them to look for another job. Therefore, the more an agent lives
emotional dissonance, the higher the turnover intention and the number of unexcused
absent days will be. In the Abraham’s (1998b) study, it was stated that,
emotional dissonance leads personal fragmentation of the self which reduces
commitment to the organization.
This study tried to shed light to the
role of emotion in the workplace especially for service work regarding call
center agents. Understanding the emotions of the employees seems to be crucial
for a healthy and effective work environment, thus consistently lower turnover
rates and unexcused absenteeism.
Disclaimer: This article was published under the
Creative Commons License.
How to Cite this
Article:
Celik, D. A., & Oz, E. U. (2011).
Social and The effects of emotional dissonance and quality of work life
perceptions on absenteeism and turnover intentions among turkish call center
employees. Social and Behavioral Sciences, 30, 2515–2519.
http://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2011.10.491
You Might Also Like:
Effect
of health and safety on employee performance pdf
References
Abraham, R. (1998a). Emotional dissonance in organizations: antecedents, consequences, and moderators. Genetic, Social, and General Psychology Monograph., 124(2), 229-246.
Abraham, R. (1998b). Emotional dissonance in organizations: A conceptualization of consequences, mediators and moderators. Leadership & Organization Development Journal, 19(3), 137.
Arvey, R. D., & Sackett, P. R. (1993). Fairness in selection: current developments and perspectives, In Schmitt, N. and Borman, W. C. (Eds.). Personnel Selection in Organizations, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.
Aşkun, D. (2007). The Effects of Quality of Work Life in Call Centers on The Perceptions and Turnover Intentions of Employees. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, Marmara University, İstanbul.
Blau, G.J. and Boal, K.B. (1987). Conceptualizing how job involvement and organizational commitment affect turnover and absenteeism. Academy of Management Review, 12(2), 288-300.
Brotheridge, C. M. & Grandey, A. A. (2002). Emotional labor and burnout: comparing two perspectives of "people work". Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60, 17–39.
Büssing, A. and Glaser, J. (1999). Interaktionsarbeit. Konzept und Methode der Erfassung im Krankenhaus [Interaction work: Concept and method of assessment in hospitals], Eitschrift für Arbeitswisseschaft, 53, 164-173.
Chang. E. (1999). Career commitment as a complex moderator of organizational commitment and turnover intention. Human Relations, 52, 1257-1278.
Cohen, S. (1997). A hierarchical construct of self-management leadership and its relationship to quality of work life and perceived work group effectiveness. Personnel Psychology, 50, 275-308.
Cole, N. D., & Flint, D. H. (2005). Opportunity knocks: perceptions of fairness in employee benefits. Compensation and Benefits Review, 37, 55- 62.
Costigan. I. J. & Schmeidler, M.A. (1987). Exploring supportive and defensive communication climates. The University Associates Instrumentation Kit, University Associates, San Diego, CA.
Cropanzano, R. & Folger, R. (1989). Referent cognitions and task decision autonomy: Beyond equity theory. Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 293-299.
Folger, R., & Greenberg, J. (1985). Procedural justice: An interpretational analysis of personnel systems. Research in Personnel and Human Resources Management, 3, 141-183.
Hanson, E. K. S., Schaufeli, W., Virjokotte, T., Plomp, N. H., & Godaert, G. L. R. (2000). The validity and reliability of the Dutch Effort-Reward Imbalance Questionnaire. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5, 142-155.
Heuven, E. and Bakker, A.B. (2003). Emotional dissonance and burnout among cabin attendants. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12(1), 81-100.
Huang, T., Lawler, J. and Lei, C.(2007). The effects of quality of work life on commitment and turnover intention. Social Behavior and Personality, 35(6), 735-750.
Jaskyte, K. (2003). Assessing changes in employees‟ perceptions of leadership behavior, job design, and organizational arrangements and their job satisfaction and commitment. Administration in Social Work, 27, 25-39.
Nedd, N. (2004). Employee perceptions of workplace empowerment in relation to self-reported intent to stay on the job. Dissertation Abstracts International, 66, 450A. (UMI No. AAT 3165142).
Rafaeli, A. & Sutton, R. I.(1987). Expression of emotion as part of the work role. Academy of Management Review. 12 (1), 23–37.
Rosin, H. M., & Korabik, K. (1991). Workplace variables, affective responses, and intention to leave among women managers. Journal of Occupational Psychology, 64, 317-330.
Turnover of Moroccan call centers hits Euro 85 million per year, Al Bawaba, London, 1, (2005).
Veldhoven, M. V., Lisle, J., & Moors, S. (1998). Questionnaire on the experience and evaluation of work (QEEW). Dutch Foundation for Quality in Occupational Health, Amsterdam, JHRA, London, 1-9.
Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A., & Schaufeli, W. (2003). "Healthy Work at Workplace" Full Scan Questionnaire. Research on Employee WellBeing, Universiteit Utrecht.
Zapf, D., Isic, A., Bechtoldt, M. and Blau, P. (2003). What is typical for call centre jobs? Job characteristics and service interactions in different call centres. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 12(4), 311-340.
.webp)
No comments: