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Seeking Emotional Labor

When Managing the Heart Enhances the Work Experience

University of Alabama

Beverly Davenport Sypher

University of Kansas

Although both scholars and practitioners continue to privilege the "rational" aspects of organization, this article demonstrates the centrality of emotion in the organizing process. The case study method combines observation at a 911 center, interviews with dispatchers, and analysis of selected calls. Departing from most treatments of emotional labor, this article features workers who not only suffer through, cope with, and resist emotional labor but sometimes also seek it out. For these 911 dispatchers, emotional labor is a fun, exciting, and rewarding part of their work. In addition to providing a description of these neglected positive functions of emotional labor, this article speaks to a broader issue: the role of emotional labor in the construction of organizational community.

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