Qualitative Research and Employees

¶ … emotional labor within the workplace. We would like to study the impact of emotional labor on customer service employees within the organization. The study aims at establishing if the use of emotional labor has any impact on the employees and how employees cope with emotional labor. The study will only focus on the employees working in the customer service department comprising of 12 employees.

The study will analyze how the employees employ emotional labor in the performance of their duties, the kind of emotional labor used and preferred by employees, and how they cope with the demands of using emotional labor. The study will make use of observation to identify when and for how long the employees use emotional labor. There will also be qualitative interviews used in order to identify the impact of using emotional labor at the workplace.

The sample has more female employees than male employees, but this should not be a cause for alarm or bias. The organization trains its employees to use surface acting, and it would be worth to know if the employees are using this strategy or they prefer to use deep acting. When conducting qualitative research, the researchers prefer making use of the natural setting because the reality is socially constructed (Eysenbach & Kohler, 2002). This is the epistemological assumption that the researchers have taken.

Since the study is conducted in its natural setting, it is difficult to attempt to test different variables with the aim of identifying if they have any impact on the subjects. However, it is possible to observe and identify different patterns of behavior amongst the employees. The study is best conducted using qualitative research because it is best to analyze the subject while they are performing their work.

Using qualitative research, we can use observation easily since we work within the organization and collect the necessary data without interfering with the employees. The data collected will be based on in-depth interviews and observations made by the researchers. Using quantitative research, it would not be possible to collect the requisite data. The emphasis of the study is establishing if emotional labor has an impact on the employees. It is not clear if the employees suffer any negative effects from using emotional labor in their daily work.

Also, the researchers would like to observe how and when the employees make use of emotional labor. The situations that demand the use of emotional labor while performing their daily work. Studying the impact of emotional labor is complicated in that different situations can result in the same emotional labor trigger. The sample to be used for the study is small, and there is no need to employ quantitative research methodologies. The study does not aim to replicate its results for any other division or department within the organization.

Its results are targeted to the customer service department only. For example, while a quantitative researcher would be concerned with how many times an employ uses emotional labor in their job. A qualitative researcher is concerned with a different focus. The researcher is interested in uncovering how and when they use emotional labor, with the aim of identifying or establishing the role emotional labor plays in their work. Data analysis would be an ongoing process for the duration.