감정노동자의 이직의도에 미치는 유머와 유머선호도의 조절효과

The Buffering Effect of Humor Practices and Humor Preferences on the Relationship between Emotional Labor and Withdrawal Intention

비정규직, 서비스직으로 대표되는 감정노동 종사자의 이직률은 어느 곳 보다도 심하다. 이에 본 연구는 감정노동 종사자들의 이직성향을 낮추고자 하는 목적으로 관련변수들의 관계를 살펴보았다. 직무요구-자원 모형과 자원보존 모형에 기초하여 감정노동과 이직의 관계에서 정서고갈의 매개역할과 유머변수의 조절역할에 관한 연구모형을 설계하고 검증하였다. 나아가 조직의 유머사용 정도와는 달리 개인마다 유머에 대한 태도와 유머 자체를 인지하는데 차이가 있을 것이라는 가정 하에 그 두 변수를 구별하여 이들이 상호작용을 하면서 정서고갈의 부정적인 영향을 완화시키는 조절역할을 하는지를 검토하였다. 그 결과 감정노동이 직접 이직의도를 높이기도 하지만 정서고갈을 매개로 하여 영향을 미치기도 한다는 사실을 알았다. 한편 감정노동이 많은 직장이더라도 유머사용이 많으면 정서고갈의 부정적인 영향을 감소시킬 수 있음이 입증되었다. 그러나 유머사용의 완충작용은 감정노동 종사자들의 개인적 유머선호도의 크기에 따라 다르다는 사실도 입증되었다. 즉 유머사용의 조절역할은 개인의 유머선호도와의 상호작용에 의해 영향을 받는다는 사실도 함께 파악되었다. 본 연구에는 대형할인마트 종사원, 제약회사 영업사원, 항공사 지상직 근무요원 등 감정노동에 많이 노출되어 있으며 회사로 부터도 가장 많은 감정표현의 억제를 강요당하는 직종분야 종사자 307명의 설문응답지가 분석되었다. 분석기법으로는 위계적 회귀분석, Sobel 테스트 등에 의존하였다.

Our purpose was to extend the Job Demands-Resources Model by including humor practices and individual humor preferences, job demands and job resources to predict burnout or job exhaustion and turnover intention. Influenced by dominant work JD-R model attributes employee well-being to the characteristics of work environments. However, studies on JD-R model have been restricted to work limited variables(autonomy, job complexity, social support, etc.) and, as a result, the role of humor practices has been neglected. The present studies uses organizational humor practices and individual humor preferences as resources variables in the model. The humor is an energizer and motivator in workplace as well as in daily life. By the way an attitudinal element or dimension that is likely to vary across individuals is the perceived consequences of humor at workplace. For example, some may view leaders’ or coworkers’ humor as a means of enhancing satisfaction and productivity, while others may see such behaviors as creating hinderance or a waste of time. 1) On the other hand, most employees working at emotional labor would be tired with work. While many people want their work to be satisfying, emotional labor reenforce workers to have smile face in front of clients. If their patience would be worn out, finally they quit easily their workplace. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether emotional exhaustion mediate the relationship between emotional labor and turnover intention, and whether the negative impact of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention is significantly lower for employees who experience greater levels of humor at work than it is for those experiencing lower levels of humor. A growing number of business consultants and academic writers would agree, arguing that humorous or joyful ambiance at work place for enhancing employee motivation and productivity, reducing stress, and increasing customer satisfaction. In support, recent analyses of many business company workers show that a fun work environment is one of the factors distinguishing superior performers from others. But, can this same philosophy be extended to another culture, korean business situation? It appears so. As noted above, there is no research to date wether there would be contributions of humor for the emotional workers’ turnover intention in emotional labor environment. Therefore, we predict as follows： 1-1：Degree of emotional labor will be positively related to employees’ emotional exhaustion. 1-2：Degree of emotional exhaustion will be positively related to employees’ turnover intention. 1-3：Emotional exhaustion will mediate the relationship between emotional labor and employees’turnover intention. 2-1：Employees’ perception of humor practice will moderate the relationship between emotional exhaustion and employees’ turnover intention. 2-2：Individual humor propensity will be positively related to employees’ humor propensity. So, the negative effect of emotional exhaustion on turnover intention will be significantly weaker for those who perceive more practice of humor than it is for those who perceive less practice of humor at workplace. These effects of emotional labor and humor were analysed in the context of mediating and moderating role of the variables in workplace in a sample of 307 employees working in emotional labor. This study utilized a convenience sample drawn from various service working area. The sample consisted of emotional workers, that is cashiers in grand discount hypermarket, female service staff in airline company, medicines sales persons in pharmaceutical company, service men and women in call center, etc. Therefore, we believe they are an appropriate sample for assessing perceptions of emotional labor and humor practice, etc. Most of the respondents were female(72%) and high academically qualified. Although respondents ranged in age from 20 to upper 50, the most was younger than 30 years. Abou