Sustainability, Vol. 11, Pages 1780: The Impact of Perceived Corporate Social Responsibility on Frontline Employee`s Emotional Labor Strategies (Sustainability)

This study explores the relationship between corporate social responsibility and emotional labor strategies of frontline employees. In particular, the research focuses on the impact of perceived motives of corporate social responsibility on the cynicism, authenticity, and subsequently, the effect of cynicism and authenticity on surface acting and deep acting of frontline employees. Based on the online survey of 258 frontline employees in South Korea and structural equation modeling of the data, the findings show that the selfish motives of corporate social responsibility (CSR) increase cynicism whereas the altruistic motives of corporate social responsibility increase authenticity and decrease cynicism of frontline employees. In addition, this study reveals that CSR-cynicism leads to surface acting and reduces deep acting whereas CSR-authenticity increases deep acting and does not significantly affect surface acting of frontline employees.