The Impact of Emotional Labor and Transformational Leadership on Burnout and Turnover Intentions: The Mediating Role of Emotional Intelligence and the Moderating Role of Social Support in the Tourism Industry

Abstract

The current study focuses on the effects of emotional labor and transformational leadership on employee’s life burnouts and turnover intentions in the tourism industry. It also examines mediating role of emotional intelligence, as well as moderating role of social support, in a combined structural framework.  Quantitative, cross-sectional research design was used and 398 tourism employees were surveyed using a structured questionnaire. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) was used as a method of data analysis.  The results point to the fact that emotional labor contributes to the considerable increase in burnout and turnover intentions, and transformational leadership decreases these negative consequences. EI has been a mediating factor, as it conveys the influence of both emotional labor and transformational leadership into burnout and turnover intentions. Similarly, social support helps significantly reduce the negative effect of emotional work.   The model is shown to be very explanatory, specifically on the emotional intelligence as well as turnover intentions. These findings highlight the role of leadership development and improvement of emotional abilities, as well as the promotion of favorable working environments in promoting the well-being and retention of employees in tourism organizations.