Volume 19, Number 2, December 2024
| A Trickle-Down Model of Emotional Intelligence on Frontline Employees’ Job Burnout and Job Engagement Behavior Development
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Abstract
This study investigated if these two streams of research in a service management context of hotel frontline employees can be enhanced (for job engagement) and alleviated (for job burnout) through frontline employees’ emotional intelligence concept at the same time. To test the proposed latent growth model, data were collected by surveying 510 frontline employees of three-, four-, and five-star tourist hotels in Greater China at multiple points over a six-month period. This study found that, as hotel frontline employees perceived more transformational leadership at Time 1, they were more likely to show increases in the emotional intelligence behavior development, which influenced increases in the job engagement behavior development and decreases in the job burnout behavior development over time. Increases in the job engagement also influenced increases in the service performance behavior development and decreases in job burnout also influenced decreases in the work-family conflict over time. These findings let managers understand how to enable frontline employees to apply their full capabilities to their work and to alleviate job burnout of employees through the emotional intelligence, which consequently accomplishes organizational efficiency.
Keywords: motional Intelligence, Job Burnout, Job Engagement, Service Performance, Transformational leadership, Work-family Conflict.
JEL Classification: D91, J28, M54