The Performance of Emotion Management in the Thai Spa Industry

Abstract

The key aim of this thesis was to explore the range of emotions in the spa industry in Thailand and how emotions impact spa employees and customer service. This was achieved by identifying how emotions were performed and managed during service encounters within the spa industry. The thesis confirmed that the performance of emotion management influenced customer service delivery. To help understanding this, the thesis developed a conceptual framework based on three theoretical perspectives: Goffman’s theoretical concept, Hochschild’s acting strategy, and Bolton’s four typology of workplace emotion. Each perspective focused on different viewpoints which provided a more comprehensive and holistic view of emotion management. This research followed an interpretivist perspective to study the performance of emotion management and customer service delivery. The researcher adopted a phenomenological research strategy to understand in-depth information on emotion management.The main empirical element of the research was in-depth interviews with 48 spa employees in Chiang Mai province, Thailand. Interviews were undertaken with multiple key informants with various job roles: managers, receptionists, and therapists. Thematic analysis was used to analyze the interview data. Empirical findings indicated that emotional expressions from the spa employees influenced customer service behaviour. The spa employees performed ‘pecuniary’ emotion management category the most, followed by ‘prescriptive’ category, ‘presentational’ category and ‘philanthropic’ category. The characteristics of the spa industry in performing ‘pecuniary’ emotion management is ‘monetary servitude’, in performing ‘prescriptive’ emotion management is ‘showing a therapeutic professional face’, in ‘presentational’ emotion management is ‘Thai social reality’, and in ‘philanthropic’ emotion management is ‘emotion as a gift’.