Organizational emotional intelligence: development of a model

Mediation role of systems adaptability between emotional intelligence and talent management

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine the mediating role of systems adaptability in the relationship between emotional intelligence and talent management in tertiary institutions in Uganda.

Design/methodology/approach

To achieve the study purpose, the authors used responses from 91 tertiary institutions following a cross-sectional survey design. Partial least structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to analyse the data and done at an institutional level.

Findings

The results reveal that systems adaptability plays a full mediating role in the relationship between emotional intelligence and talent management in tertiary institutions as it accounts for 96.68% variance.

Research limitations/implications

Managing talented employees is not a snapshot process, yet the authors used a cross-sectional design. This paper is limited in this regard. Also, talent management in this paper is only explained by emotional intelligence and systems adaptability.

Practical implications

Talent management is explained by emotional intelligence and systems adaptability, which are metaphors of emotional intelligence and complex adaptive system theories. The authors also add to theory by establishing a fully mediating role of systems adaptability between emotional intelligence and talent management.

Originality/value

This paper establishes the mediating role of systems adaptability in the relationship between emotional intelligence and talent management in tertiary institutions.

A world of opportunity: A top-down influence of emotional intelligence-related contextual factors on employee engagement and exhaustion

Despite continuing interest in the impact of employees' emotional intelligence (EI) in explaining for their engagement and emotional exhaustion, there are still large gaps in our understanding of the role played by contextual EI-related factors, such as an EI-related organizational culture and supervisors' emotionally intelligent behavior (EIB). This two-study research approaches EI from a macro-level perspective, attempting to address three objectives: (1) to develop and define a theoretical concept of EI-supportive organizational culture, (2) to develop and validate measures of organizations' EI-related values and practices, and (3) to investigate their top-down effect on employee engagement and exhaustion, via supervisor EI-related behavior. In the first study, we conceptualize and develop measures of perceived EI-related organizational values and human resource management (HRM) practices, as separate yet related dimensions of organizations' EI-related culture, and test their validity. In the second study, we build on the job demands-resources (JD-R) theory and Ability-Motivation-Opportunity (AMO) framework to develop and test a model of the process links between perceived EI-related values and HRM practices and employee engagement and exhaustion, using a large sample of employees across industries in the USA workforce (N = 12,375). In line with our hypotheses, the findings suggest that EI-supportive HRM practices have a top-down effect on employee engagement and exhaustion via supervisor EIB, whereas low regard for emotions values has a top-down effect on employee exhaustion via supervisor emotional misbehavior. Results are discussed in the context of the JD-R theory, AMO framework, and the EI literature.

Uncovering the role of competitor orientation and emotional capability in enhancing innovation performance

Purpose

Competitor orientation (CO) has been considered as a traditional driver of innovation performance (IP), being an important source of innovative ideas. Nevertheless, the slowness of the analytical information processing implicit in CO has been recently questioned in the literature, given the internal resistance in firms to use knowledge coming from rivals. Hence, the purpose of this study is to analyze the mediating effect of emotional capability (EC), which is believed to help overcome this barrier by improving the use of knowledge from such innovation source.

Design/methodology/approach

Structural equation modeling through the partial least squares method was used to test the research model with survey data from a sample of 123 firms.

Findings

Contrary to what was assumed, EC mediation is partial and CO has a very significant and direct influence on IP. Nonetheless, the fact that EC mediation accounts for 28% of the total effect of CO on IP indicates that EC plays a complementary role in terms of making the information processing on rivals more agile and intuitive, as well as reducing internal resistance.

Practical implications

When competitor information is analyzed and used to improve innovation outcomes, a culture where first impressions or hunches expressed by employees must be encouraged and legitimized.

Originality/value

The development of EC is an alternative way of maximizing the exploitation of the competition as source of innovation. Ignoring its role implies wasting a representative percentage of the benefits of information coming from this external actor, thereby missing the opportunity to capitalize on innovation results.

Empathic organizational culture and leadership: conceptualizing the framework

Purpose

This paper aims to conceptualize and discuss empathic organizational culture and leadership along with organizational implications.

Design/methodology/approach

The authors reviewed literature to conceptualize empathic organizational culture and leadership. They referred to Hofstede’s organizational culture concept and studies on empathy to explore how leader–follower relationships are influenced by a leader’s empathic disposition.

Findings

Organizational leadership is instrumental in shaping employee performance. While work design, culture, peer support and resource accessibility are discernible, leadership style, control and others are covert. Leaders’ empathic attitudes and dispositions can positively influence organizational functions for improved performance. This review suggests that organizational culture should support growth, proper functioning and effective coordination between employees for improved organizational effectiveness.

Research limitations/implications

The authors conducted searches in leadership and management journals to help conceptualize leaders’ empathic disposition. Future researchers may explore other bodies of literature and the cultural demographic differences in exhibiting empathic leadership and its effectiveness. Researchers can explore how empathic culture relates to job motivation, satisfaction and commitment. The authors suggest that future research may explore how employees’ and supervisors’ behaviors and interactions can create an empathic organizational culture.

Practical implications

The authors identify the characteristics in an empathic leader to articulate the role of empathy in leadership. Alignment between person, group norms and organizational values is more important than the existence of culture.

Originality/value

Empathy is studied by researchers from various disciplines. Similarly, employee well-being has received attention from organizational researchers from many fields. However, researchers have given inadequate attention to conceptualizing an empathic organizational culture and its interrelationship with leadership. The authors offer a more positive perspective to the leader-member exchange (LMX) research by describing how leaders can sustain positive relationships with employees rather than the purely transactional exchanges that characterize LMX.

Disaggregating emotional intelligence: building job satisfaction through emotional abilities

Purpose

The changing environment of today’s organizations creates an atmosphere ripe for emotions. This ebb and flow of emotions need to be managed to facilitate positive outcomes such as job satisfaction. This paper aims to provide evidence that emotional intelligence directly impacts one’s satisfaction at work. This paper attempts to go beyond these higher-order findings to examine the dimensional aspects of emotional intelligence and the impact each one has on job satisfaction.

Design/methodology/approach

Using a quantitative survey conducted among 427 US-based workers, this paper tests a disaggregated emotional intelligence model and its hypothesized relationships with job satisfaction through structural equation modeling (SEM). Additional analysis includes confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and a two-stage common method variance assessment.

Findings

The results confirmed the positive impact of the dimensions of emotional intelligence on job satisfaction. However, with interactive effects in place, the results also found signs of reciprocal suppression and could not confirm that all four emotional intelligence dimensions significantly and positively related to job satisfaction.

Originality/value

These findings are significant in that they are among the first to elaborate on the dimensions of emotional intelligence and their role in the improvement of one’s satisfaction at work. Further, these findings legitimize the use of the theoretical higher-order model of emotional intelligence in lieu of investigating its dimensional aspects.

Workplace bullying and job burnout

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to assess the influence of workplace bullying on job burnout of employees and investigate the mediating role of hardiness in the relationship and the extent to which the mediation is moderated by emotional intelligence.

Design/methodology/approach

The present data were collected from 350 employees working in varied companies in the ITES-BPO sectors of Delhi NCR of India. The study used stratified sampling method for good coverage from different departments of the organizations. The present data were collected in two stages following the suggestion given by Podsakoff et al. (2003) so as to minimize common method bias.

Findings

The findings suggest that workplace bullying is positively related to job burnout, and workplace bullying is negatively associated with hardiness. Hardiness was also found to be negatively associated with job burnout. It has also been found that workplace bullying is associated with job burnout through hardiness, and emotional intelligence moderates the relationship between hardiness and job burnout. The results also indicate that the indirect effect of workplace bullying on job burnout via hardiness is conditional on emotional intelligence.

Research limitations/implications

As the present study pertains to only one part of India, i.e. Delhi NCR of India, the results cannot be generalized. Future research can take a larger sample for the same. The demographic variables’ effect was out of the scope of this study. If demographics were taken into consideration, it might have resulted in interesting results. Moreover, the employees who were physically present at the time of data collection were asked to respond in a given time frame. One might argue that employees were not given enough time to respond. Future work can also incorporate other sectors so as to do a comparative study between sectors.

Practical implications

Based on the study results, it may be suggested that managers may do well to devise strategies for coping with the phenomenon of workplace bullying and job burnout in employees, to provide a healthy work environment with better employee morale and enhanced productivity.

Social implications

The findings of the study have implications for organizations in the service sector, particularly the BPO-ITES sector examined in the study. This being a customer-focused industry expects employees to ensure meeting deadlines and enhanced customer satisfaction; therefore, it would be worthwhile for managers to help employees in dealing with job stressors in their work environment. It would be useful to raise awareness about workplace bullying and encourage employees to report such incidents while assuring the complete support of the management.

Originality/value

While a review of extant literature indicates that emotional intelligence may lead to a reduction in job burnout of employees, yet, emotional intelligence has not been used previously as a moderator in mitigating the influence of workplace bullying and job burnout. Moreover, the role of hardiness as a mediator in the above-mentioned relationships has not been addressed in previous studies.

OIQ or OEQ, which matters more: evidence from China

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to compare the contribution of organizational intelligence quotient (OIQ) and organizational emotional quotient (OEQ) for intelligent organizations.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper develops a framework of OIQ and OEQ, based on the structure of intellectual capital (intellectual capital). Then, a specific questionnaire is designed and sent to ten national research institutes in China. Data from nine of them are analyzed as case study samples.

Findings

Data show that intelligent organizations are related with high OIQ as well as high OEQ. In the case of average-intelligent organizations, even if around high-IQ employees, “collective stupidity” caused by the failure of synergy of structural capital is the major gap to be a smart organization, just like a football team grouped by brilliant players always loses due to the dearth of coordination. OEQ, or the synergy between structural capital and human capital, is the critical point to avoid collective stupidity for organizations with intelligent employees.

Research limitations/implications

Research results are based on case study in a particular country. Measurement tools for OIQ and OEQ are in bound of the IC concept.

Practical implications

The paper helps organizations to find out the critical problems causing collective stupidity in a changing environment.

Originality/value

Analogic to human beings’ intelligence, this paper develops a frame of OIQ and OEQ, and compares their contribution to intelligent organization building in a changing environment.

Emotional intelligence, leadership style and organizational climate

Purpose

This paper aims to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence (EI) on the leader’s applied leadership style (mediator) and the effect of this style on the employees’ organizational citizenship (responsibility, reward and warmth and support).

Design/methodology/approach

The researchers are proposing a model that highlights the mediating role of leadership style on the relationship between leaders’ EI and employees’ feeling of organizational climate. The study follows the quantitative process. A survey is prepared for data collection and for statistically testing the proposed model.

Findings

The results show that the leaders’ EI does affect his/her leadership style. Moreover, the leaders’ style affects directly the respective employees’ feeling of organizational climate to varying levels. The variance between different styles is found to be small.

Research limitations/implications

The limitations of this study include the minimal cross-check interviews. The sample size’s limitation resulted in the researchers’ inability to compare the different sub-sectors of the economy (labelled as the type of work of the firm) to derive deeper conclusions by economic/business sector.

Practical implications

The study reveals a number of practical implications affecting communication, performance, stability and tenure, and thereby lower turnover.

Social implications

The social implications of this study include the social relationships within the work-setting, higher empathy and higher levels of norming as a direct result of improving the leader’s EI level.

Originality/value

The paper is based on a sample of respondents with a new model suggested and tested scientifically, following a rigorous process. It assesses the impact of both EI and organizational climate with leadership style.

Comparing the Effectiveness of Individual Coaching, Self-Coaching, and Group Training: How Leadership Makes the Difference

Few empirical studies have used a randomized controlled design to evaluate the impact of coaching, and there are even fewer that have compared coaching with other interventions. In the current field study, we investigated the relative effectiveness of coaching as an intervention to reduce procrastination. In a randomized controlled study, participants (N = 84) were assigned to an individual coaching, a self-coaching, a group training, or a control group condition. Results indicate that individual coaching and group training were effective in reducing procrastination and facilitating goal attainment. Individual coaching created a high degree of satisfaction and was superior in helping participants attaining their goals, whereas group training successfully promoted the acquisition of relevant knowledge. The results for the self-coaching condition show that independently performing exercises without being supported by a coach is not sufficient for high goal attainment. Moreover, mediation analysis show that a coach’s transformational and transactional leadership behavior influenced participants’ perceived autonomy support and intrinsic motivation, resulting in beneficial coaching outcomes. The results may guide the selection of appropriate human resource development methods: If there is a general need to systematically prepare employees to perform on specific tasks, group training seems appropriate due to lower costs. However, when certain aspects of working conditions or individual development goals are paramount, coaching might be indicated. However, further research is needed to compare the relative effectiveness of coaching with other interventions in different contexts.

Work-related stress assessment in a population of Italian workers. The Stress Questionnaire

The present study shows detailed information about the reliability and validity of the psychosocial risk scale included in the Stress Questionnaire (SQ) developed by our research group. The primary purpose of this work is to test the factor structure of the psychosocial risk scale through a first-order confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using a large pooled dataset obtained from a population of 2026 employees of 15 Italian medium-large companies. Data were collected by a team of researchers who examined demographic variables, work-related stress, workplace bullying, mental health and other constructs. In addition to these substantive issues, the survey was designed to better understand response bias. After the evaluation of the results we conclude that the psychosocial risk scale reported a satisfactory reliability and validity. In addition, it allowed a careful measurement of work related stress, considering both leader's and follower's perspectives.

Organizational Emotional Intelligence and Top Selling

The purpose of this study is to explore emotional intelligence in association with effective sales performance. The participants involved in this study were sellers in a home furniture company and completed a new tool measuring emotional intelligence at the beginning of their employment with the company. After four months, their volume of sales was calculated and compared with other results. Briefly, evidence from this study indicates that emotional intelligence skills are relevant in association with job performance, particularly relationship management and self-management. The final results support the main hypothesis. Subsequent implications for sales organizations and researchers are discussed.