Based on conservation of resource theory and impression management literature, we examined how employees in service occupations coped with interest incongruence and what they would experience after using specific coping strategies. We proposed that service employees might mask interest incongruence by performing surface acting to create a facade of conformity. This study tested hypotheses with multi-wave, multi-source survey data collected from 323 service employees, finding that interest incongruence was positively related to surface acting. Surface acting was positively related to supervisors’ perceptions of employee’ interest congruence, supervisor-rated performance, and employee-rated work-to-family conflict. The results also provided support for the mediating role of surface acting and found that the effect of interest incongruence on surface acting was stronger for employees with high levels of social face consciousness. Finally, we discussed the theoretical and practical implications of these findings.
