Surface Acting and Job-Related Affective Wellbeing: Preventing Resource Loss Spiral and Resource Loss Cycle for Sustainable Workplaces

Seongwook Ha
Additional contact information
Seongwook Ha: Division of Management, Hansung University, 116 Samseongyo-ro 16gil, Seongbuk-gu, Seoul 02876, Korea

Sustainability, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, 1-12

Abstract: This study empirically examines the synergistic negative effect of two kinds of job demand on job-related affective wellbeing (JAW) and the accelerating effects of cynicism in the negative relationships between job demands and JAW using a sample of 299 employees in the Chinese banking industry. Job demands include quantitative role overload and surface acting to represent the quantitative and qualitative aspects of job demands. Cynicism is introduced as a state where one’s energy resource is lost. The results of this study show that surface acting has a negative relationship with JAW, but quantitative role overload has no relationship with JAW. High levels of quantitative role overload exacerbate the negative relationship between surface acting and JAW. Cynicism also exacerbates the negative relationship between surface acting and JAW but does not have any moderating effect in the relationship between quantitative role overload and JAW. These results are consistent with the relationships predicted by resource loss spiral and resource loss cycle. The resource loss spiral means that resource loss, caused by handling with a quantitative role overload, lessens the employee’s ability to cope with surface acting. The resource loss cycle represents a vicious circle that amplifies the resource loss caused by surface acting. Surface acting reduces the level of one’s resources. Furthermore, surface acting reduces JAW and resources more strongly when an individual has low levels of previous energy resources than it reduces JAW and resources when he or she has high levels of previous energy resources.

Keywords: job-related affective wellbeing; quantitative role overload; surface acting; cynicism; resource loss spiral; resource loss cycle (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1099/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/10/4/1099/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:10:y:2018:i:4:p:1099-:d:139832

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().