Sales Professional's Commitment to Smile: Is Social Support a Moderator between Emotional Labour and its Consequences on Well-being?

A pre-requisite for sales professionals is to exhibit positive emotional outlook during service encounters so as the customer's buying decisions and ultimately their satisfaction level. The present study evaluates how the performacce of emotional labour strategies during service encounter has a consequential effect (i.e., emotional exhaustion and psychological distress) on the sales professionals. Further, the study investigates the moderating role of social support in the relation ship between emotional labour performed by the sales professionals and its consequences on their well-being in the context of organised retail service. Using structured schedules, the data was collected from 600 sales professionals employed in the Indian organised retail industry (branded clothing retail stores) in Delhi NCR and to analyse the data, moderated multipleregression analysis was carried out. Based on the findings of the study, the implications in the work place and recommendation for future studies are suggested.