This study investigated the affective experience of employees in the service oriented workplace based on the Affective Events Theory. In particular, this study aimed to explore the conditions which cause positive and negative affective experiences in the workplace and the intervening conditions (moderating conditions) which either alleviate or aggravate the affective experiences within the workplace. To explore the process aspects of emotional labor, we adopted a grounded theory approach. One of the researchers conducted a semi-structured in-depth interview with 12 employees who are working in the service oriented industry which requires extensive emotional labor. The interviews with participants were analyzed according to the framework of grounded theory (causal conditions, contextual conditions, phenomena, action/interaction, intervening conditions, consequences). The analysis of the interviews showed that personal accomplishment, customer’s expression of positive emotion, pro-social behavior of customers, compliments from one’s boss or colleague, and acknowledgement and compensation triggered positive emotion for employees. On the other hand, physical and mental fatigue, humiliating experience from the interaction with customers, the lack of company’s support policy, and the lack of immediate manager’s relational ability triggered negative emotion for employees. Intervening conditions that mediate the relationship between affective experience and organizational and individual outcome could be roughly divided into an individual dimension and an organizational dimension. Personal characteristics, such as enthusiasm for one’s career, work and life balance, job identification, self-efficacy, and emotional intelligence were identified as the intervening conditions in the individual dimension. In the case of the organizational * Ph. D. Candidate, College of Business Administration, Chung-Ang University(chomiri79@daum.net), First Author ** Associate professor, College of Business Administration, Chung-Ang University(hkim3@cau.ac.kr), Corresponding Author dimension, emotional support within the workplace, such as sense of belongingness, empowerment, support from one’s boss and colleague, as well as instrumental support, such as employee welfare system, employment security, recruitment and compensation system, were identified as intervening conditions. In addition, organizational atmosphere that encourages organizational learning, such as sharing of experiences, provision of opportunities for learning, and feedback, were related to emotional labor, which have not been frequently covered in previous studies. Finally, organizational justice factors, such as interactional justice, procedural justice, and distributional justice, were classified as intervening conditions in the organizational dimension. The analytical processes and findings of this study, based on grounded theory, present a detailed understanding the emotional labor process, and provide more substantive working- level implications by reflecting on the actual experience employees. A brief explanation of several implications is as follows. First of all, organization managers should understand the source of affective experience that trigger positive emotions and negative emotions of employees, so as to maintain the positive sentiment of employees. Second, although customer satisfaction is important, organizations should also provide companywide politices to protect employees who are engaged in extensive emotional labor. Third, compliments, understanding, and consideration extended by the boss not only induce positive emotion of employees, but also alleviate the negative effect of emotion on various outcomes within organization. To sum up, we conclude that the study of emotional labor process in organizational settings has provided new and important insights into the way in which people in organizations behave. We offer advice for managers to enable them to develop and to maintain a positive emotional climate in their organizations.