Mask It with Emotions--A Study of the Role of Emotional Behavior Among Information Technology Employees

Mask It with Emotions--A Study of the Role of Emotional Behavior Among Information Technology Employees

As the intangibility of business increases, even technologically dependent professionals such as IT employees who deal with hardware and software are expected to interact with customers in order to play their roles successfully. This paper examines the role of emotional labor as it relates to organizational citizenship behavior among IT professionals. This topic is an under-researched area in the literature. Emotional labor has become a buzzword in service industries, and there has been a tremendous increase in research on the topic. Although many studies have concentrated on the detrimental effects of emotional labor among human service professionals, few studies have focused on the effects among information technology professionals. The first objective of this study is to ascertain the relationship between emotional labor (surface acting, deep acting, and naturally felt emotions) and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) among IT professionals. The second objective is to define the moderating role of perceived organizational support between emotional labor and OCB. To achieve these objectives, the author used descriptive and exploratory methodology, including a hierarchical stepwise regression of 364 responses from IT employees in southern India. The findings indicate that naturally felt emotion is significantly related to organizational citizenship behavior. The study also explores the moderating role of perceived organizational support; offers recommendations on managing workplace emotions, particularly in the IT sector; and discusses the limitations of the current study and the scope of future research.