Aesthetic labour means that a person with a certain physical aptitude is required. Previous researcher in this field has essentially been focusing on the business benefits from front-line employees as reinforcement to their image. Furthermore, researches have discussed how the employees experience the aesthetic requirements and have found negative effects. Motivation research have, on the other hand, shown that if a person can identify with the requirements it can create wellbeing, through the creation of role identification. Consequently, the research shows different effects of aesthetic requirements, which are this study’s starting point and the aesthetic labour will be illumine with motivations research. The purpose of this study is to illuminate aesthetic labour from a role identification perspective, to understand how the front-line employee is affected by the aesthetic requirements. In the theoretical framework the aesthetic labour will be explained and its negative effects, although also illumined by the research of motivation’s benefits. The method applied has a qualitative approach and the data has been collected by semi-structured interviews with seven employees in retail and the banking sector. The interviews have been transcribed and coded to enable interpretations of the data with the theoretical framework by categorizing and creating themes of the found phenomena. The result yielded four different levels on how the employees identified themselves in their role at work, which creates different reactions to behaviour (active identification, acknowledgment, acceptance and conflicting conciliation). In the discussion these levels where further developed in relation to and with the theoretical framework, concerning how result partially confirms previous research. Furthermore, the study’s findings in the field of aesthetic labour are discussed, which are that employees’ experience of aesthetic requirements is more complex and that additional levels of motivation in the role at work exists. The conclusion summarizes the main points of the study and outlines the study’s contribution of aesthetic labour, which is the understanding that additional levels of motivation in a role at work exists and that employees can be motivated without identification.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:kau-45405 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Brottsjö, Johan, Andersson, Marie |
| Publisher | Karlstads universitet, Avdelningen för företagsekonomi, Karlstads universitet, Avdelningen för företagsekonomi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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