The Effect of Emotional Labor Strategy of Care Workers’ on Service-Oriented Organizational Citizenship Behavior: Moderating Effect of Emotional Intelligence

With the advent of an ultra-elderly society, the emotional labor-intensive service industry is booming, and competition among long-term care organizations is intensifying. Caregivers are key personnel who provide direct services to clients, and their service quality is directly related to organizational performance. This study aimed to analyze the effects of emotional labor strategies (externalizing and internalizing) on service orientation-OCB and to verify the moderating effect of emotional intelligence. A survey was conducted among 350 nursing caregivers in long-term care facilities in Gyeonggi-do, and 338 completed surveys were analyzed. The research method used a questionnaire to measure emotional labor strategy, emotional intelligence, and service orientation-OCB, and regression analysis was used to verify the relationship between the variables. The results showed that externalizing decreased service orientation-OCB, while internalizing increased it, and emotional intelligence acted as a moderating variable to mitigate the negative effect of externalizing and enhance the positive effect of internalizing. This study highlights the importance of the role of caregivers in long-term care organizations in an aging society and suggests that managing emotional labor is a key organizational challenge. It also shows that human resource management that considers emotional intelligence can enhance service orientation-OCB.