Job Burnout of Construction Project Managers: Exploring the Consequences of Regulating Emotions in Workplace
Publication: Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 146, Issue 10
Abstract
Construction project managers (CPMs) need to handle project tasks through interpersonal interaction, which always involves emotion. Thus, CPMs must perform emotional labor. Different emotional labor strategies, namely, surface acting (i.e., faking emotional expressions) and deep acting (i.e., modifying feelings), may cause different levels of stress and influence job burnout. This paper investigates the impacts of two components of emotional labor, emotional display demands and emotional labor strategies, on CPMs’ job burnout. It also examines the moderating effect of emotional intelligence (EI) between emotional display demands and emotional labor strategies. Data from 234 questionnaire surveys were analyzed with structural equation modeling. The results show that CPMs who choose surface acting as a strategy to regulate emotions in the workplace will be under more stress and encounter job burnout. In addition, CPMs with higher EI are less inclined to choose surface acting and thus experience less job burnout. This paper extends emotional labor research into the construction project context and provides evidence that studying job burnout from an emotional labor perspective generates useful insights into the causes of CPMs’ job burnout.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Acknowledgments
This research was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Projects 71872126 and 71572126).
References
Allen, I. E., and C. A. Seaman. 2007. “Likert scales and data analyses.” Qual. Prog. 40 (7): 64–65.
Bono, J. E., H. J. Foldes, G. Vinson, and J. P. Muros. 2007. “Workplace emotions: The role of supervision and leadership.” J. Appl. Psychol. 92 (5): 1357–1367. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.5.1357.
Bowen, P., P. Edwards, and H. Lingard. 2013. “Workplace stress experienced by construction professionals in South Africa.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 139 (4): 393–403. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0000625.
Brotheridge, C. M., and R. T. Lee. 2003. “Development and validation of the emotional labour scale.” J. Occup. Organ. Psychol. 76 (3): 365–379. https://doi.org/10.1348/096317903769647229.
Butt, A., M. Naaranoja, and J. Savolainen. 2016. “Project change stakeholder communication.” Int. J. Project Manage. 34 (8): 1579–1595. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.08.010.
Chin, W. W. 1998. “The partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling.” In Modern methods for business research, edited by G. A. Marcoulides, 295–336. London: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Diefendorff, J. M., M. H. Croyle, and R. H. Gosserand. 2005. “The dimensionality and antecedents of emotional labor strategies.” J. Vocational Behav. 66 (2): 339–357. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2004.02.001.
Diefendorff, J. M., and R. H. Gosserand. 2003. “Understanding the emotional labor process: A control theory perspective.” J. Organ. Behav. 24 (8): 945–959. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.230.
Field, A. 2018. “Exploratory factor analysis.” In Discovering statistics using IBM SPSS statistics, edited by J. Seaman, 989–1061. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Forza, C. 2002. “Survey research in operations management: A process-based perspective.” Int. J. Oper. Prod. Manage. 22 (2): 152–194. https://doi.org/10.1108/01443570210414310.
Freudenberger, H. J. 1974. “Staff burn-out.” J. Social Issues 30 (1): 159–165. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.1974.tb00706.x.
Freudenberger, H. J. 1975. “The staff burn-out syndrome in alternative institutions.” Psychotherapy Theory Res. Pract. 12 (1): 73–82. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0086411.
Goldberg, L. S., and A. A. Grandey. 2007. “Display rules versus display autonomy: Emotion regulation, emotional exhaustion, and task performance in a call center simulation.” J. Occup. Health Psychol. 12 (3): 301–318. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.12.3.301.
Grandey, A. A. 2000. “Emotion regulation in the workplace: A new way to conceptualize emotional labor.” J. Occup. Health Psychol. 5 (1): 95–110. https://doi.org/10.1037/1076-8998.5.1.95.
Grandey, A. A. 2003. “When ‘the show must go on’: Surface acting and deep acting as determinants of emotional exhaustion and peer-rated service delivery.” Acad. Manage. J. 46 (1): 86–96. https://doi.org/10.5465/30040678.
Grandey, A. A., J. M. Diefendorff, and D. E. Rupp. 2013. “Bringing emotional labor into focus: A review and integration of three research lenses.” In Proc., Emotional Labor in the 21st Century: Diverse Perspectives on Emotion Regulation at Work, edited by A. A. Grandey, J. M. Diefendorff, and D. E. Rupp, 3–27. New York: Taylor & Francis.
Grandey, A. A., and A. S. Gabriel. 2015. “Emotional labor at a crossroads: Where do we go from here?” Annu. Rev. Organ. Psychol. Organ. Behav. 2 (1): 323–349. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-032414-111400.
Grandey, A. A., D. Rupp, and W. N. Brice. 2015. “Emotional labor threatens decent work: A proposal to eradicate emotional display rules.” J. Organ. Behav. 36 (6): 770–785. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2020.
Gustavsson, T. K., and A. Hallin. 2014. “Rethinking dichotomization: A critical perspective on the use of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ in project management research.” Int. J. Project Manage. 32 (4): 568–577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2013.10.009.
Hair, J. F., G. T. M. Hult, C. M. Ringle, and M. Sarstedt. 2017. A primer on partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Hair, J. F., C. M. Ringle, and M. Sarstedt. 2013. “Partial least squares structural equation modeling: Rigorous applications, better results and higher acceptance.” Long Range Plann. 46 (1–2): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lrp.2013.01.001.
Hair, J. F., Jr., and M. Sarstedt. 2019. “Factors versus composites: Guidelines for choosing the right structural equation modeling method.” Project Manage. J. 50 (6): 619–624. https://doi.org/10.1177/8756972819882132.
Hair, J. F., M. Sarstedt, C. M. Ringle, and J. A. Mena. 2012. “An assessment of the use of partial least squares structural equation modeling in marketing research.” J. Acad. Marketing Sci. 40 (3): 414–433. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-011-0261-6.
Halbesleben, J. R. B., J.-P. Neveu, S. C. Paustian-Underdahl, and M. Westman. 2014. “Getting to the ‘COR’: Understanding the role of resources in conservation of resources theory.” J. Manage. 40 (5): 1334–1364. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206314527130.
Hobfoll, S. E. 1989. “Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress.” Am. Psychol. 44 (3): 513–524. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.44.3.513.
Hochschild, A. R. 1983. The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Hu, X., and J. Shi. 2015. “Employees’ surface acting in interactions with leaders and peers.” J. Organ. Behav. 36 (8): 1132–1152. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2015.
Hulsheger, U. R., and A. F. Schewe. 2011. “On the costs and benefits of emotional labor: A meta-analysis of three decades of research.” J. Occup. Health Psychol. 16 (3): 361–389. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0022876.
Humphrey, R. H. 2012. “How do leaders use emotional labor?” J. Organ. Behav. 33 (5): 740–744. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1791.
Jordan, P. J., and S. A. Lawrence. 2009. “Emotional intelligence in teams: Development and initial validation of the short version of the workgroup emotional intelligence profile (WEIP-S).” J. Manage. Organ. 15 (4): 452–469. https://doi.org/10.5172/jmo.15.4.452.
Larsson, J., P. E. Eriksson, T. Olofsson, and P. Simonsson. 2015. “Leadership in civil engineering: Effects of project managers’ leadership styles on project performance.” J. Manage. Eng. 31 (6): 04015011. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000367.
Leiter, M. P., and C. Maslach. 2004. “Areas of worklife: A structured approach to organizational predictors of job burnout.” In Emotional and physiological processes and positive intervention strategies, edited by P. L. Perrewe and D. C. Ganster, 91–134. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Elsevier.
Lennard, A. C., B. A. Scott, and R. E. Johnson. 2019. “Turning frowns (and smiles) upside down: A multilevel examination of surface acting positive and negative emotions on well-being.” J. Appl. Psychol. 104 (9): 1164. https://doi.org/10.1037/apl0000400.
Leung, M.-Y., Y. S. I. Chan, and C. Dongyu. 2011. “Structural linear relationships between job stress, burnout, physiological stress, and performance of construction project managers.” Eng. Constr. Archit. Manage. 18 (3): 312–328. https://doi.org/10.1108/09699981111126205.
Leung, M.-Y., Y. S. I. Chan, and P. Olomolaiye. 2008. “Impact of stress on the performance of construction project managers.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 134 (8): 644–652. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2008)134:8(644).
Leung, M.-Y., Q. Liang, and P. Olomolaiye. 2016a. “Impact of job stressors and stress on the safety behavior and accidents of construction workers.” J. Manage. Eng. 32 (1): 04015019. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000373.
Leung, M.-Y., J. Yu, and M. L. A. Chong. 2016b. “Effects of stress and commitment on the performance of construction estimation participants in Hong Kong.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 142 (2): 04015081. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001059.
Lindebaum, D., and S. Fielden. 2011. “‘It’s good to be angry’: Enacting anger in construction project management to achieve perceived leader effectiveness.” Hum. Relat. 64 (3): 437–458. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726710381149.
Lingard, H., K. Brown, L. Bradley, C. Bailey, and K. Townsend. 2007. “Improving employees’ work-life balance in the construction industry: Project alliance case study.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 133 (10): 807–815. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9364(2007)133:10(807).
Lingard, H., and V. Francis. 2005. “Does work-family conflict mediate the relationship between job schedule demands and burnout in male construction professionals and managers?” Constr. Manage. Econ. 23 (7): 733–745. https://doi.org/10.1080/01446190500040836.
Lingard, H., M. Turner, and S. Charlesworth. 2015. “Growing pains: Work-life impacts in small-to-medium sized construction firms.” Eng. Constr. Archit. Manage. 22 (3): 312–326. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-07-2014-0100.
Madera, J. M., and D. B. Smith. 2009. “The effects of leader negative emotions on evaluations of leadership in a crisis situation: The role of anger and sadness.” Leadersh. Q. 20 (2): 103–114. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2009.01.007.
Maslach, C. 1993. “Burnout: A multidimensional perspective.” In Professional burnout recent developments in theory and research, edited by W. B. Schaufeli, C. Maslach, and T. Marek, 19–32. Washington, DC: Taylor & Francis.
Maslach, C., and S. E. Jackson. 1981. “The measurement of experienced burnout.” J. Organ. Behav. 2 (2): 99–113. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030020205.
Maslach, C., and S. E. Jackson. 1984. “Burnout in organizational settings.” Appl. Social Psychol. Ann. 5: 133–153.
Maslach, C., W. B. Schaufeli, and M. P. Leiter. 2001. “Job burnout.” Annu. Rev. Psychol. 52 (1): 397–422. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.52.1.397.
Mazur, A., A. Pisarski, A. Chang, and N. M. Ashkanasy. 2014. “Rating defence major project success: The role of personal attributes and stakeholder relationships.” Int. J. Project Manage. 32 (6): 944–957. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2013.10.018.
Meng, X., and P. Boyd. 2017. “The role of the project manager in relationship management.” Int. J. Project Manage. 35 (5): 717–728. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2017.03.001.
Mersino, A. C. 2013. Emotional intelligence for project managers: The people skills you need to achieve outstanding results. New York: AMACOM Books.
Mesmer-Magnus, J. R., L. A. DeChurch, and A. Wax. 2012. “Moving emotional labor beyond surface and deep acting: A discordance-congruence perspective.” Organ. Psychol. Rev. 2 (1): 6–53. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041386611417746.
Mo, S., and J. Shi. 2017. “Linking ethical leadership to employee burnout, workplace deviance and performance: Testing the mediating roles of trust in leader and surface acting.” J. Bus. Ethics 144 (2): 293–303. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-015-2821-z.
Naoum, S. G., C. Herrero, C. Egbu, and D. Fong. 2018. “Integrated model for the stressors, stress, stress-coping behaviour of construction project managers in the UK.” Int. J. Manage. Project Bus. 11 (3): 761–782. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJMPB-07-2017-0071.
Obradovic, V., P. Jovanovic, D. Petrovic, M. Mihic, and Z. Mitrovic. 2013. “Project managers’ emotional intelligence: A ticket to success.” Procedia Social Behav. Sci. 74 (29): 274–284. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.03.034.
Ozcelik, H. 2013. “An empirical analysis of surface acting in intra-organizational relationships.” J. Organ. Behav. 34 (3): 291–309. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1798.
Park, H. I., E. O’Rourke, and K. E. O’Brien. 2014. “Extending conservation of resources theory: The interaction between emotional labor and interpersonal influence.” Int. J. Stress Manage. 21 (4): 384–405. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0038109.
Pinto, J. K., S. Dawood, and M. B. Pinto. 2014. “Project management and burnout: Implications of the demand-control-support model on project-based work.” Int. J. Project Manage. 32 (4): 578–589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2013.09.003.
Pinto, J. K., P. Patanakul, and M. B. Pinto. 2016. “Project personnel, job demands, and workplace burnout: The differential effects of job title and project type.” IEEE Trans. Eng. Manage. 63 (1): 91–100. https://doi.org/10.1109/TEM.2015.2509163.
PMI (Project Management Institute). 2017. A guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK guide). Newtown Square, PA: PMI.
Podsakoff, P. M., S. B. MacKenzie, J. Y. Lee, and N. P. Podsakoff. 2003. “Common method biases in behavioral research: A critical review of the literature and recommended remedies.” J. Appl. Psychol. 88 (5): 879–903. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.5.879.
Rahim, A., and D. M. Cosby. 2016. “A model of workplace incivility, job burnout, turnover intentions, and job performance.” J. Manage. Dev. 35 (10): 1255–1265. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMD-09-2015-0138.
Rezvani, A., A. Chang, A. Wiewiora, N. M. Ashkanasy, P. J. Jordan, and R. Zolin. 2016. “Manager emotional intelligence and project success: The mediating role of job satisfaction and trust.” Int. J. Project Manage. 34 (7): 1112–1122. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.05.012.
Rezvani, A., P. Khosravi, and N. M. Ashkanasy. 2018. “Examining the interdependencies among emotional intelligence, trust, and performance in infrastructure projects: A multilevel study.” Int. J. Project Manage. 36 (8): 1034–1046. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2018.08.002.
Ringle, C. M., S. Wende, and J.-M. Becker. 2015. “SmartPLS 3.” Accessed April 15, 2019. http://www.smartpls.com.
Salovey, P., and J. D. Mayer. 2016. “Emotional intelligence.” Imagination Cognition Personality 9 (3): 185–211. https://doi.org/10.2190/DUGG-P24E-52WK-6CDG.
Sarstedt, M., J. F. Hair, C. M. Ringle, K. O. Thiele, and S. P. Gudergan. 2016. “Estimation issues with PLS and CBSEM: Where the bias lies!” J. Bus. Res. 69 (10): 3998–4010. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.06.007.
Simmons, D. R., N. A. Clegorne, and T. Woods-Wells. 2017. “Leadership paradigms in construction: Critical review to inform research and practice.” J. Manage. Eng. 33 (4): 02517001. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000518.
SPSS (Statistical Product and Service Solutions). 2009. PASW statistics for Windows, version 18.0. Chicago: SPSS.
Stephens, J. P., and A. Carmeli. 2016. “The positive effect of expressing negative emotions on knowledge creation capability and performance of project teams.” Int. J. Project Manage. 34 (5): 862–873. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2016.03.003.
Sunindijo, R. Y., and B. H. W. Hadikusumo. 2014. “Emotional intelligence for managing conflicts in the sociocultural norms of the Thai construction industry.” J. Manage. Eng. 30 (6): 04014025. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)ME.1943-5479.0000211.
Sutton, R. I. 1991. “Maintaining norms about expressed emotions: The case of bill collectors.” Administrative Sci. Q. 36 (2): 245–268. https://doi.org/10.2307/2393355.
Van Kleef, G. A., A. C. Homan, B. Beersma, and D. van Knippenberg. 2010. “On angry leaders and agreeable followers: How leaders’ emotions and followers’ personalities shape motivation and team performance.” Psychol. Sci. 21 (12): 1827–1834. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797610387438.
Van Teijlingen, E. R., and V. Hundley. 2002. “The importance of pilot studies.” Nurs. Stand. 16 (40): 33–36. https://doi.org/10.7748/ns2002.06.16.40.33.c3214.
Visser, V. A., D. van Knippenberg, G. A. van Kleef, and B. Wisse. 2013. “How leader displays of happiness and sadness influence follower performance: Emotional contagion and creative versus analytical performance.” Leadersh. Q. 24 (1): 172–188. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2012.09.003.
Wang, G., and S. E. Seibert. 2015. “The impact of leader emotion display frequency on follower performance: Leader surface acting and mean emotion display as boundary conditions.” Leadersh. Q. 26 (4): 577–593. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2015.05.007.
Wright, T. A. 2014. “Putting your best ‘face’ forward: The role of emotion-based well-being in organizational research.” J. Organ. Behav. 35 (8): 1153–1168. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.1967.
Xanthopoulou, D., A. B. Bakker, W. G. M. Oerlemans, and M. Koszucka. 2018. “Need for recovery after emotional labor: Differential effects of daily deep and surface acting.” J. Organ. Behav. 39 (4): 481–494. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.2245.
Yang, F., X. Li, Z. Song, Y. Li, and Y. Zhu. 2018. “Job burnout of construction project managers: Considering the role of organizational justice.” J. Constr. Eng. Manage. 144 (11): 04018103. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CO.1943-7862.0001567.
Yang, F., X. Li, Y. Zhu, Y. Li, and C. Wu. 2017. “Job burnout of construction project managers in China: A cross-sectional analysis.” Int. J. Project Manage. 35 (7): 1272–1287. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijproman.2017.06.005.
Yip, B., and S. Rowlinson. 2009. “Job burnout among construction engineers working within consulting and contracting organizations.” J. Manage. Eng. 25 (3): 122–130. https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0742-597X(2009)25:3(122).
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Construction Engineering and Management
Volume 146 • Issue 10 • October 2020
Copyright
© 2020 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Dec 10, 2019
Accepted: May 18, 2020
Published online: Jul 16, 2020
Published in print: Oct 1, 2020
Discussion open until: Dec 16, 2020
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.