title: The Impact of Job Involvement on Emotional Labor to Customer-Oriented Behavior: An Empirical Study of Hospital Nurses.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Healthcare is a profession that requires a high level of emotional labor (EL). Nurses provide frontline services in hospitals and thus typically experience high levels of EL. The quality of services that nurses provide impacts on how patients evaluate the service quality of hospitals.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  The aim of this study is to explore the relationships among EL, job involvement (JI), and customer-oriented behavior (COB) in the context of the nursing profession.
  
  
  METHODS
  The participants in this study were nurses at eight hospitals, all located in Taiwan. This study used a self-reporting questionnaire. Research data were gathered at two discrete periods (A and B). Questionnaire A collected data on EL and JI, and Questionnaire B collected data on COB. Five hundred questionnaires were sent out to qualified participants, and 472 valid questionnaires were returned. Hierarchical regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The expression of positive emotion (EPE) and the suppression of negative emotion (SNE) were found to positively affect the patient-oriented COB. Furthermore, the EPE was found to positively affect the task-oriented COB. In terms of the moderating effect of JI, JI was found to relate positively to the EPE, patient-oriented COB, and task-oriented COB. In addition, higher values of JI were found to weaken the relationship between the SNE and the task-oriented COB.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  It has become an increasingly popular practice for hospital organizations to work to promote the COB of their nursing staffs. The results of this study prove empirically that a relationship exists among EL, COB, and JI in nurses. This study contributes to the related literature, enhances the knowledge of hospital and nursing administrators with regard to EL and COB, and offers a reference for hospital managers who are responsible for designing and executing multidisciplinary programs and for managing hospital-based human resources.
authors.affiliation: 1PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Health Business Administration, HungKuang University 2RN, PhD, Nursing Director, Nursing Department, Changhua Christian Hospital, and Assistant Professor, Department of Nursing, Dayeh University.
authors.forename: Mei-Ling
authors.initials: ML
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Shu-Chen
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Chang
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009741:Nursing Staff, Hospital / Q000523:psychology*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013624:Taiwan; D055815:Young Adult