How does emotional intelligence influence self-efficacy among customer service representatives in Pakistan? Mediatory effects of emotional labour

Abstract

Purpose

This study intends to explore the influence of emotional intelligence on employee self-efficacy in Pakistan's telecom industry. Besides, it explores the mediating effect of emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) between them. This study also tests the relationship between emotional labor (surface acting and deep acting) and self-efficacy in the customer care of Pakistan's telecom division.

Design/methodology/approach

The study leads forward with a positivist approach to obtain data in two different waves as a time lag study from the big five telecom companies operating in Pakistan. The data was collected from 270 employees working in Customer Services in the Telecom sector.

Findings

The results reveal that there exists a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and self-efficacy in customer care employees in Pakistan's telecommunication division sector. Moreover, emotional labor (deep acting) partially mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and self-efficacy, and surface acting could not mediate the relationship among the employees of customer care in Pakistan's telecom division.

Originality/value

Management of emotions at the workplace has been an immensely vital area in managing the performance of employees, especially in customer-centric jobs, where dealing with customers is the prime focus and achieving customer satisfaction is the utmost outcome. There is limited evidence of the relationship between emotional intelligence and self-efficacy specifically in the customer care of the Telecom sector.

Citation

Khan, M.A., Butt, R.A., Nawab, S. and Zubair, S.S. (2024), "How does emotional intelligence influence self-efficacy among customer service representatives in Pakistan? Mediatory effects of emotional labour", South Asian Journal of Business Studies, Vol. 13 No. 3, pp. 422-441. https://doi.org/10.1108/SAJBS-07-2021-0285