Trust and satisfaction in the airline: Retention of skilled employees during COVID-19

Abstract

The airline industry has been hard-hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, airline workers' job stability has become uncertain, and many have suffered job instability. Thus, the employees might perceive role ambiguity. Conversely, the role of customer service employees is essential as they can add value to the products and services in the organization. According to previous studies, employees' perception of role ambiguity reduces trust in the organizations and task performance. The author explores how customer service employees' "positive emotion strategic behavior" and "negative emotional effects" played a role in increasing and decreasing the propensity of trust toward their company. The findings show that positive emotion strategic behavior, such as the employees' ''surface acting and deep acting", serve as trust repair and provide a valuable antidote in the workplace. Conversely, negative emotional effects, such as emotional exhaustion due to role ambiguity, devastate employees' intrinsic motivation.

Keywords: Positive Emotion, Negative Emotions, Customer Service Employees, Trust, Role Ambiguity, Airline

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005327