How Employees’ Emotional Labor Promotes Perceived Service Quality: A Dual-Pathway Model

Although service firms recognize the significance of frontline employees' emotional labor in enhancing perceived service quality and sustaining competitive advantage, the theoretical mechanisms underlying this relationship remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on the Emotions as Social Information Model (EASI), this study proposed that frontline employees' emotional labor influences customer perceived service quality through two distinct pathways: emotional contagion and inferential processing. Moreover, the relative strength of these two pathways is contingent upon customer involvement. Using dyadic data collected from frontline employees and customers in the banking sector, the results indicated the following: frontline employees' different emotional labor strategies (deep acting and surface acting) exerted significant influence on perceived service quality through different pathways. Specifically, surface acting impacted service quality solely through emotional contagion process (via customers' positive affect). Whereas deep acting influenced service quality through both emotional contagion (via customers' positive affect) and inferential processing (via customer participation). Additionally, customer involvement moderated the relationship between deep acting and customer participation (strengthening the positive association), as well as the link between surface acting and customers' positive affect (attenuating the negative association).