Emotional Labor and Burnout: Comparison Between the Countries of Japan and Korea

This research examined and compared the emotional labor in two distinctive cultures (South Korea and Japan), both based on an oriental culture. It confirmed that in both countries emotional labor adhered to company restrictions, but the research identified differences between Korean and Japanese salespersons in terms of their emotional labor. However, it verified that both Korean and Japanese salespersons experience exhaustion as a result of emotional labor. It contributes to the human resources managers in the service industry and emphasizes that cultural differences should be considered in understanding the emotional labor and burnout of service industry employees.