Contributions & Limitations

Conclusion

This goal of this study was to provide a picture of emotion labor within the context of a nursing home. Specifically, the case study approach demonstrated how organizational members who are employed at the management level of the organization convey, confirm, and negotiate emotion labor differently than the employees who report to management. To do so, this paper summarized the relevant literature, described the methodology, reported the results, and finally, highlighted the study’s implications. Next, this study will conclude by describing how this paper contributes to the current knowledge on emotion labor, discussing the limitations of the study, and explaining how these limitations present opportunities for future research.

Contributions. This examination of emotion labor in a nursing home raises practical concerns for organizations that care for frail elderly and the employees who experience emotion labor in their workplace. First, given the high levels of burnout and turnover of nursing home staff, the discussion of stress in this study is particularly pertinent for future researchers. Like X expressed in Case Study X, the relationships with management and staff can often be more stressful than working with the residents. This finding is not unique to this study. In an in-depth analysis of cruise ship workers, Tracy (2000) found that cruise staff often found escape from their personal life in their “front-stage performances” (p. 121). Therefore, future researchers should continue to investigate how this escape changes the organizational experience of nursing home employees and the potential relationship it may have with the levels of burnout and turnover in nursing homes.

Second, this analysis uncovered a lack of clarity on where and when nursing home staff could talk about personal matters. Like X conveyed in Case Study X, she often found talking about her personal life with the residents was a way to connect and form relationships with residents. Similarly, Tracy (2000) found that cruise staff often discussed “confusion about the boundaries between front stage and backstage” (p. 121). A practical concern for nursing homes may be more complete guidelines and training on what is appropriate to talk about with residents. Additionally, nursing homes may reconsider the amount of area in the nursing home that is dedicated only to staff. (Insert example from participant here.) Furthermore, the connection and relationship with residents was extremely encouraged at this nursing home; therefore, future researchers should examine the complex interaction between nursing home staff and residents.

Limitations. A limitation of this study lies in the case study method. While this method presented a detailed look at lived experience of nursing home employees, it is difficult to generalize the experiences of these participants across other nursing homes. Our understanding of emotion labor within the context of a nursing home would be enhanced through future research with a larger subject pool in a variety of health care institutions.

Functional Outline: On Stage & Off Stage in Nursing Homes

I. Introduction

In this section I would like to introduce the project by explaining the context and providing rationale for the study. I will also explain how a case study approach to studying emotion labor in a nursing home fills a gap in the research. Finally, I will introduce the main theme (the “so what?”) that emerges from the paper’s case studies (yet to be discovered).

Transition: An examination of emotion labor in a nursing home by using a case study approach to organizational experience can provide insight into how expectations for emotion in the organization are conveyed, confirmed, and negotiated.

II. Literature Review

In the LR, I want to build an argument from the known to the unknown. In this section I will synthesize the relevant research within the context of emotion labor. Finally, I will clearly identify the gap in the research. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.

A. Theoretical Framework

In this section, I will explain the difference between emotion work and emotion labor. Then, I will explain how emotion labor is enacted by organizational members (surface acting & deep acting). Next, I will explain how the theoretical framework was used by organizational communication scholars (Kramer & Hess) to uncover communication rules that are used to govern emotion in organizations.

Transition: The communication rules used to govern emotion in organizations require interpretation within specific organizational contexts thus there is a call for more research.

B. The Nursing Home

This is where I will explain how emotion labor differs in the context of a nursing home because employees work out of concern for the frail elderly residents. I will support this with the Sass (2000) research study. However, I will point out a gap in the research: the current literature does not address how employees in a nursing home may become desensitized to the caring aspect of their job and may struggle with communicating a “caring” persona.

Transition: While employees use context as a guide for emotion labor, there is also evidence that organizational control over emotions is dispersed among groups of people.

C. Control

In this section, I will explain how organizations communicate expectations for emotion display among clients or residents by using the following studies as evidence: Sass (2000), Tracy (2000), and Ashforth and Humphrey (1995). Then, I will identify how a case study seeks to address the gap in the research by exemplifying how emotion labor is conveyed, confirmed, and negotiated across the hierarchy of an organization.

Transition: Since this is a preliminary examination of the way emotion labor is experienced in a nursing home, the research question that guides this study is: How do employees of nursing home experience emotion in the workplace?

III. Methods

In this section, I want to explain how the collection of detailed and descriptive narratives from employees across the hierarchy of a nursing home is the way to answer the research question. Next, I want clearly explain and provide rationale for the methods for data collection and data analysis. Finally, I will describe the site where the research took place. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.

A. Study Design

Here I will describe why narrative as a form of qualitative inquiry allows the research to view research participants as narrators who shape their experience and reality in their own voice. I will also describe the case method approach.

B. Data Collection

In this section, I will explain how data for this study were draw and the research procedures used during the in-depth interviews. I will also provide a few examples of the research questions that were used to elicit responses.

C. Data Analysis

In this section, I will describe how the data were analyzed. Specifically, I will tell the reader how I read the transcripts many times, then conducted open coding, axial coding, and selective coding.

D. Site

Here I will describe the nursing home used for the study. Specifically, I will describe the level care that is provided at the nursing home and explain how this is very similar to the other 4 nursing homes in the community. Next, I will state how many employees work at the nursing home, what the mission statement is, and the type of job positions that are employed there.

Transition: As the case studies presented will illustrate, emotion labor is experienced-conveyed, confirmed, and negotiated- differently across the hierarchy of the organization.

IV. Results

In each case study, I will (1) describe the participant’s work, (2) explain how they experience emotion labor (convey, confirm, negotiate, and resist), and (3) provide examples using the participant’s voice. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.

A. Case Study 1

B. Case Study 2

C. Case Study 3

V. Discussion

Here I will highlight the similarities and differences across the three case studies. I hope to synthesize one big “SO WHAT?”. Perhaps my “so what?” will be an insightful discussion on how emotion labor is experienced differently (big assumption here) depending on where in the organization’s hierarchy the employee is?

VI. Conclusion

The finale of my paper will describe how this paper contributes to the current knowledge on emotion labor, discuss the limitations of the study, and explain how these limitations present opportunities for future research. This will be accomplished by the subheadings listed next.

A. Contributions

In my contributions section, I will describe how the results of this paper contribute to what is known about emotion labor. I would like to also reiterate why this research is important to the field of organizational communication, organizations that care for frail elderly, and the employees who experience emotion labor in their workplace.

B. Limitations & Future Research

In my limitations section, I would like to present the opportunities for future research emerging from the limitations for the study.

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