The interplay of morality, emotional labor, and customer injustice

What is it about?

Despite the significant role emotions play in business-to-business (B2B) sales transactions, the impact of salesperson emotional labor on well-being, specifically job satisfaction, has garnered limited attention. To address this gap, the present study examines the relationships among salesperson moral identity, emotional labor strategies, customer injustice, and job satisfaction. An analysis of responses from B2B salespeople reveals that moral identity internalization is positively related to deep acting and negatively to surface acting, whereas moral identity symbolization is positively related to both deep and surface acting. Furthermore, surface acting has a stronger unfavorable effect on customer injustice compared to deep acting, which in turn negatively influences job satisfaction. The paper concludes with theoretical contributions and managerial implications.

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Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

Photo by LinkedIn Sales Solutions on Unsplash

Why is it important?

A salesperson's moral identity is a determinant of emotional labor strategies. Emotional labor strategies harm a salesperson's well-being. Surface acting's effect on customer injustice is stronger than the effect of deep acting. A salesperson's well-being, linked to job satisfaction, is negatively affected by customer injustice.

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