Journal Review of Tolich, M. (1993). 'Alienating and liberating emotions at work: Supermarket clerks' performance of customer service'. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22(3), 361—381.
(Example of student work - 580 words)
Martin B. Tolich was a lecturer in the Sociology Department at Massey University and is also a graduate of the University of California. He published a qualitative study in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography titled 'Alienating and liberating emotions at work: Supermarket clerks' performance of customer service'. The article is cited over 449 times in other journal articles according to Google Scholar, indicating the article has had a significant impact.
The article is based on Hochschild’s seminal book, 'The managed heart', first published in 1983. In her book, Hochschild interviewed and studied flight attendants and other employees including debt collectors, and found them to be estranged from their own emotions due to performing certain acts for wages (for example, being required to smile, and be friendly); and thereby estranged from themselves. Hochschild coined the term emotional labour to explain this process of exchanging emotional acts for wages. Tolich (1993) agrees with Hochschild that emotions at work (emotional labour) are being commodified and the experience can be alienating, but he also argues that emotional acts can be liberating and non-alienating as well.
Tolich used snowball sampling techniques and conducted unstructured interviews and direct observation of 65 supermarkets clerks in California between 1987 and 1991. He found that customer service is a complex phenomenon that cannot be explained only by alienation and estrangement. He found there are two intertwined contradictory patterns of clerks’ emotions at work. The customer service work was described by supermarket checkout operators as both stressful and satisfactory, and the work was both regulated and autonomous.
To Tolich, emotional labour as Hochschild discusses it does not account for the contradictory emotions checkout operators felt. Tolich instead argued that the concept of emotional labour should be replaced by regulated emotion management and autonomous emotion management. He emphasized control of feelings as opposed to ownership of feeling in emotional labour (Tolich, 1993).
Several researchers have argued that Tolich’s analysis misrepresents Hochschild. She did not argue that emotional labour has only negative consequences. Mastracci, Newman, and Guy (2006, p. 126) say Hochschild did suggest customer service work can provide "satisfaction, security, and self-esteem". Kruml and Deanna (2000) also argue that Hochschild work has been misrepresented. Hochschild did clearly speak of autonomy resulting from emotional labour. She wrote in her book that the skills workers offer are not deducted from their autonomous control as they still decide when and how to apply them and that it is up to them to decide how to handle certain problems (Hochschild, 1983, see p. 120).
The methodology Tolich used in his study - snowball sampling - also can be critiqued. Snowball sampling is often used in qualitative research but it doesn't produce a representative sample of the population (Bryman & Bell, 2003). Tolich's results are not representative of the general population of all service workers, and possibly not even all supermarket checkout operators. In fairness, the research did not claim to be representative of the general population. Rather, the study developed theory.
One of the most notable contributions of Tolich’s work is his observation that being required to be friendly may be enjoyed by employees (see Morris & Feldman, 1996; Grandey, 2000; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002). Tolich concluded in his work that “we do not need to assume that service workers who routinely display emotions at work are alienated or estranged from their emotions and have no control over their emotion labor process” (Tolich, 1993, p. 380). This observation is important because it challenged the widely understood idea that emotional labour is imposed and felt negatively, whether or not Hochschild intended her work to be interpreted that way.
References
Brotheridge, C., & Grandey, A. (2002). 'Emotional labor and burnout: Comparing two perspectives of people work'. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 60(1), 17-39.
Bryman, A., & Bell, E. (2003). Business research methods (3rd ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Grandey, A. A. (2000). 'Emotional regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor'. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 5(1), 95-110.
Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Kruml, S. M., & Geddes, D. (2000). 'Exploring the dimensions of emotional labor: The heart of Hochschild’s work'. Management Communication Quarterly, 14(1), 8-49.
Mastracci, S., Newman, M. A., & Guy, M. E. (2006). 'Appraising emotion work: Determining whether emotional labor is valued in government jobs'. American Review of Public Administration, 36(2), 123-138.
Morris, J. A., & Feldman, D. C. (1996). 'The dimensions, antecedents, and consequences of emotional labor'. Academy of Management Review, 21(4), 986-1010.
Tolich, M. B. (1993). 'Alienating and liberating emotions at work: Supermarket clerks' performance of customer service'. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 22(3), 361-381.
