The relationships between employees' emotional labor, job burnout, job satisfaction and turnover intentions in Korean franchised restaurants

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the causal relationship between employees' emotional labor, job burnout, job satisfaction and turnover intentions in Korean franchised restaurants. In this study, 200 respondents who worked at these restaurants as customer contact service providers were selected using the purposive sampling method, and data from 165 respondents were included for empirical analyses. Statistical analyses were performed using SPSS ver. 23.0 and AMOS ver. 22.0 programs. An analysis was conducted to examine the causal relationship between emotional labor (surface acting, deep acting) and job burnout (emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, diminished personal accomplishment), job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. The results showed that surface acting had a positive (+) effect on depersonalization (0.229, t=2.805, P<0.01). Depersonalization was shown to have a statistically significant negative (-) effect on job satisfaction (-0.421, t=-3.339, P<0.001). Emotional exhaustion had a statistically significant positive (+) effect on the turnover intentions (0.661, t=4.675, P<0.001). Job satisfaction had a statistically significant negative (-) effect on turnover intentions (t=-4.598, P<0.001). The results of this study suggested that companies need to evolve management policies that can reduce the emotional labor of workers who deal with customers and welfare polices to minimize the side effects of turnover.