Emotional labor strategies, customer cooperation and buying decisions

Emotional labor is an important topic for managers, particularly in the service sector, due to the impact of employee emotional labor strategic choices on consumer attitudes. In general, prior research has established that customer satisfaction is positively affected by the emotional labor strategy of deep acting whereas it is negatively affected by surface acting. However, there are two gaps in the literature. The first gap is the impact of emotional labor strategy on actual buying decisions (rather than attitudes). The second gap involves potential intervening variables, such as customer cooperation, that may influence the strength and direction of the relationship. The current field study on mobile phone shops in China fills the research gap, by empirically testing a theoretical model that proposes that the relationship between the employee emotional labor strategy and customer buying decision is mediated by customer cooperation. Findings indicate that emotional labor strategies impact customer buying decisions and those relationships are mediated by customer cooperation.