Emotional labor and strategy of the university lecturers in Thailand

Abstract

Emotional labor is rarely studied in Thailand’s higher education institutions but mostly in industrial labor, like studies on industrial laborers. Therefore, this research aims to explain emotional labor among university lecturers in Thailand universities. The main questions focus on the sources or stimuli to provoke university lecturers into emotional labor and these lecturers’ strategies to deal with this set of stimuli and provocation. This study is narrative research with a purposive sampling procedure. This research found 16 lecturers of various nationalities who agreed to join online interviews. The analysis of the findings reveals a kind of processes these lecturers must pass through: (1) internal states/processes, (2) external behavioral displays, (3) emotional strategies, (4) emotional regulations (burnout, work engagement, and sense of coherence), and (5) growth mindset. This set of processes points to a positive realization that university lecturers already have inherently internal/external mechanisms to deal with teaching and other academic works as emotional labor. This set of findings should shed light on the universities’ attempts to create a healthy working place in academic or intellectual spheres.