The article explores the phenomenon of surface acting as a mediator between personality and work-related outcomes.
Research co-authored by Matthew Valle, the Martha and Spencer Love Professor of Business and professor of management, Martha Andrews of the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, and K. Michele Kacmar of Texas State University, has been published recently in the Journal of Managerial Psychology (Vol. 31 Iss 8, pp. 1265 – 1279).
The article, “Surface acting as a mediator between personality and attitudes,” explores surface acting as a mediator in the relationships between the antecedents perceptions of organizational politics, agreeableness and proactive personality, and the outcomes stress, turnover intentions and job satisfaction. Previous research examining surface acting assessed behavior in light of employee-customer interactions. This research extended the study of surface acting by examining the mediating role of surface acting among new predictors including organizational politics, proactive personality, and agreeableness with stress, turnover intentions, and job satisfaction. Data were obtained via survey from 276 working adults, and responses were subjected to structural equation modeling to confirm the measurement model and test hypotheses.
Many employees put on a happy face to provide positive experiences for customers. This behavior is considered surface acting when employees modify outward displays to be consistent with organizationally prescribed roles. In this research, surface acting was found to mediate the relationships between perceptions of organizational politics and intent to turnover and satisfaction, and between proactive personality and intent to turnover and satisfaction. No mediating effect for surface acting was found between agreeableness and the outcomes. This research confirmed that individual differences and situational contingencies do affect surface acting in the workplace, and that surface acting does affect individual work-related outcomes. Managers need to be aware of the causes of surface acting, and likely consequences, so that they may be ready to offer assistance to employees who experience stress and dissatisfaction, and for whom turnover intentions become more likely.
The Journal of Managerial Psychology has a unique focus on the social impact of managerial psychology and concerns itself with the wider aspects of human resource management derived from the application of psychology theory and practice. The aim is to promote a dialogue between theory and practice, and to disseminate high quality quantitative and qualitative research to student and practitioners of management, psychology and allied fields.
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