The USA

Abstract

This chapter focuses on how national culture relates to emotional labor and work attitudes among public service workers in the USA. Discussion explores public management, views of public service, and the influence of national culture as it relates to emotional labor. Survey results show that job satisfaction, burnout, and personal fulfillment are all affected when employees must suppress how they actually feel in order to perform their jobs. This finding suggests that in the USA, public service workers struggle with the incongruity between work responsibilities that require them to emotively pretend when their feelings do not align with the expression they are expected to display, and a national identity where self-expression and individualism are highly valued. Employees are likely to experience emotional exhaustion as a result of the tension between a national culture that values individualism and job duties that prevent authentic emotive expression. Conversely, engaging in authentic emotive expression is rewarding. It has a significant, positive effect on job satisfaction and personal fulfillment.