Identifying the Factors Affecting the Entry of Athletes into the World of Politics

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between emotional labor and customer-oriented behavior among employees of the General Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs in Razavi Khorasan Province. The research was applied in terms of purpose and employed a correlational research strategy, conducted through a field study. The statistical population consisted of all employees of the Directorate (130 individuals), and a census sampling method was used, whereby all members of the population were included as the sample.To collect the data, Grandey’s (2000) Emotional Labor Questionnaire and Brown et al .’s (2002) Customer-Oriented Behavior Questionnaire were utilized. Data analysis involved descriptive statistics for data classification and the Kolmogorov–Smirnov test, Pearson correlation coefficient, and linear regression to test the research hypotheses. The findings indicated a significant positive relationship between emotional labor and its dimensions (surface acting and deep acting) with employees’ customer-oriented behavior. Moreover, emotional labor accounted for 3.77 percent of the total variance in customer-oriented behavior among employees. Ultimately, based on the results, it can be concluded that providing sufficient autonomy to employees and managerial support play a vital role in fostering genuine behaviors and promoting a customer-oriented approach among staff.