감정노동 작업장에서의 유머와 신뢰의 역할: 직무요구-자원 모형의 확장

While recommendations and anecdotal evidence for reducing the negative impact of emotional pressure in the emotional workplace, there has been very little empirical work examining use of humor and trust in this field. In explaining the relationships between job characteristics, burnout, and engagement, the role of humor and trust were examined. That is, our study examined the role of trust as a mediating variable in the relationships between job demands(e.g., emotional work pressure), job resources(e.g., humor), and employees' emotional exhaustion and vigour, dedication, etc., the main components of burnout and work engagement, respectively. Influenced by dominant work psychological models, like Job demand-control model, the Job Demands - Resources (JD-R) model attributes employee well-being to the job characteristics. Previous studies have supported the underlying predictions of the model, namely that job demands are the main predictors of negative job strain, while job resources are the most important predictors of work engagement. However, studies on the JD-R model have been restricted to job characteristics and, as a result, the role of employees’ personal situations(e.g., interpersonal trust relationship), which could be important determinants of their adaptation to work environments, has been neglected. Empirical studies that uncover the processes underlying the relationships between job resources and demands and outcomes are, however, scarce. To address this void in the literature, the present study examined whether trust serves as a mediator in the relationships advanced in the JD-R. To investigate the role of trust in the JD-R model, we used insights from humor practices as a main component of social supports, which could be job resources factors. Most employees working at emotional workplace would be tired. 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 work. The purpose of this paper is to examine whether interpersonal trust mediate the relationship between emotional labor/humor practices and emotional exhaustion/job engagement. Structural equation modelling in a heterogeneous sample of 405 workers of the emotional workplace(employees of supermarket, employees of bank, hospital nurses, salesman of pharmaceutical company, service women in social welfare organizations) confirmed that trustful relation explained the relationships from job demands(emotional labor) to exhaustion and from job resources(humor practices) to engagement. Our study's findings provide evidence that trust fully accounted for the relationship between humor and emotional exhaustion and partially explained the relationships between emotional pressure/humor and exhaustion / engagement (vigour, dedication, absorption). This suggests that employees who are surrounded by humor practices are more likely to experience a general feeling of trustful relationship with their leaders and coworkers, which in turn explains why they feel less exhausted, and more vigorous in their jobs. These findings help to shed light on the processes underlying the relationships between job characteristics and burnout and engagement. This results aligns with the general theorizing supported by JD-R model. More specifically, it builds on the JD-R literature as it tests one of the proposed mechanisms in the relationship between job resources and work engagement However, our results also extends the JD-R literature by suggesting that one mechanism, namely trust helps to explain the relationships between the health-impairing as well as the health-enhancing job characteristics and both employees’ ill-health (i.e. burnout) and well-being (i.e. engagement). Notably, within the JD-R literature, two different processes are assumed, that is, an energy depleting process in the development of burnout and a motivational process in the emergence of work engagement. The results of this study, however, suggest that trust intervenes in the energetic as well as the motivational process. Our findings highlight the fact that the mobilization of humor and trust may be of value for employees to thrive. However, the initial merit of organizations should still be the avoidance of overwhelming emotional pressures, since these are the main predictors of exhaustion. Additionally, the humor resources may also be profitable. Herein, we thus suggest that the concept of humor and trust might represent an overarching mechanism fuelling both employees’ motivation and energy and, hence, explaining the emergence of both work engagement and burnout. For future study, many questions need have to be addressed. First, respondents may differ in the types of humors they would prefer. Second, there was evidence to suggest that the contribution of humor could have positive implication for clients' satisfaction. Third, our sample was biased in view of JD-R model which contains many components of job demands and resources, and other variables. Several unmeasured variables that may play a significant role in our model. We have to continue this sort of discussion in depth through all days coming.