Effects of emotional labor and emotional intelligence on university students’ academic achievement: The mediating role of emotional exhaustion

This study examines how emotional labor, with the surface acting dimension and emotional intelligence, affects university students’ academic achievement through emotional exhaustion. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methods was used in the study. A purposive sampling technique was applied to collect data from 399 valid responses from 521 distributed questionnaires to economics and business students at Vietnamese public universities in Hanoi. Analysis using Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) via SPSS and SmartPLS software revealed that emotional exhaustion fully mediates the negative relationship between surface acting and academic achievement. In contrast, emotional intelligence positively affects academic achievement through partial mediation by emotional exhaustion. The findings expand the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory by showing that surface acting depletes resources and hinders academic success, whereas emotional intelligence builds resilience and conserves resources. This research offers practical insights for improving emotional intelligence, raising awareness of emotional labor’s effects, reducing emotional exhaustion, and enhancing academic outcomes at individual levels in the educational context.