Page 113 - The Disneyization of Society

THE DISNEYIZATION OF SOCIETY

Emotional Labour
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Emotional labour refers to employment situations in which workers as part of
their work roles need to convey emotions and preferably to appear as though
those emotions are deeply held. The writer most closely associated with the term
has defined it as ‘the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial
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and bodily display’. The emotions that the emotional labourer might convey can
be positive or negative ones. In the latter case, an example of which is the bill
collector, the emotions that are supposed to be conveyed are ones that are largely
dispassionate, uncaring, and even mildly threatening. However, this is not the
kind of emotional labour that is being considered in this chapter. Instead, the
emphasis will be upon the display of positive emotions, namely, ones that are
supposed to make the recipient of the emotional labour feel good about the
worker and the organization for which he or she works.
Emotional labour is always about acting, but Hochschild draws an interesting
distinction between surface and deep acting. The former essentially entails going
through the motions of displaying the correct emotional form. The bodily ges-
tures are appropriate but lack real feeling or conviction. There is likely to be
considerable variance between the outward display of emotions and the way in which
the emotional labourer actually feels. With deep acting, the emotional labourer
really feels the emotions that are being exhibited. Deep acting is much more dif-
ficult than surface acting to cultivate among emotional labourers. Nonetheless, it
is a kind of holy grail to which many service organizations are committed as a
means of improving service delivery.
Emotional labour does not exhaust the ways in which emotions relate to and
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are influenced in organizations. There are several ways in which emotions take
on significance in organizations, but in drawing attention to emotional labour
the focus is being placed on a feature of the Disney theme parks that is spreading
throughout the service sector. Relatedly, one of the most notable developments
since the 1970s has been the gradual shift from an emphasis on control to the
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production of commitment in organizations. Increasingly, organizations seek to
motivate employees by raising their commitment to a firm or to a team, so that
they become emotionally tied to it. As a result, they are expected to commit
themselves, not just to their jobs, but to the organization and all that it repre-
sents. Developing mission statements and designing organizational culture values
are among the ways that employees’ emotions are enlisted for organizational
ends. Tying employees emotionally to the organization and manipulating orga-
nizational culture to create a sense of meaning and attachment for them are
among the main mechanisms for creating that bond. Management gurus like Tom
Peters and his colleagues advocate the creation of strong cultures that will instil a
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sense of passion and meaning for employees. Similarly, Hamel and Prahalad