With rare exception, frontline service employees -from Disney ambassadors to Wal-Mart greeters - are expected, and of ten required to, express socially desirable, positive emotions in their customer interactions. Firms train, monitor, and manage their employees' (positive) affective displays (hereafter EADs) as a strategic tool to improve customer experience and enhance service relationships (Gremler and Gwinner 2008). It is not surprising, therefore, that managing EADs is a vital component of frontline employee training programs (Richard 2006), consuming a significant portion of the employee-learning and development budgets, estimated at a staggering $134.07 billion in 2008 in the U.S. alone (ASTD 2009 report). Besides dollar spending, requiring EADs in the absence of positive internal feelings, carries insidious, non-monetary costs, including employees' emotional exhaustion, burnout, and eventually turnover (Grandey 2003).
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