Paper accepted for presentation at the 5th Australia Industrial & Organisational Psychology Conference Melbourne, June 26-29, 2003.

Assessing the relationship between workplace emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment.

Abstract Emotional intelligence has been useful in the prediction of effective leaders in the workplace, but to what extent can it predict other workplace factors? The current study investigates whether emotional intelligence can predict external and internal job satisfaction and organisational commitment in a sample of 80 employees. Emotional intelligence was assessed using the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test and it was hypothesised that emotional intelligence would be positively related to external and internal job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The dimensions of emotional management and emotional control emerged as the best predictors of these workplace variables. Implications of this research from a selection perspective are discussed. Paper Summary An abundance of research examining emotional intelligence (EI) in individuals has been published in the past decade (Abraham, 1999; Bachman, Stein, Campbell, & Sitarenios, 2000; Bar-On, Brown, Kirkcaldy, & Thome, 2000; Barling, Slater, & Kelloway, 2000; Cadman & Brewer, 2001; Ciarrochi, Deane, & Anderson, 2002; Ciarrochi, Chan, & Caputi, 2000; Davis, Stankov, & Roberts, 1998; Dulewicz, 2000; Dulewicz & Higgs, 2000; Fox & Spector, 2000; Gardner & Stough, 2002; George, 2000; Mayer & Salovey, 1995; Mayer, Caruso, & Salovey, 1999; Mayer, DiPaolo, & Salovey, 1990; Mayer & Geher, 1996; Mayer & Salovey, 1993; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Miller, 1999; Newsome, Day, & Catano, 2000; Palmer, Walls, Burgess, & Stough, 2001; Petrides & Furnham, 2000; Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Schutte et al., 1998; Schutte, Malouff, Simunek, McKenley, & Hollander, 2002; Slaski & Cartwright, 2002; Thi Lam & Kriby, 2002; Watkin, 2000). Emotional intelligence was originally conceptualised by Salovey and Mayer (1990) as accurate perception, appraisal, expression and understanding of emotion. Interest in the role EI may play in the workplace has increased in past years with more emphasis being placed upon the benefits of understanding and utilising emotions in the workplace. Unfortunately empirical evidence has failed to keep up with EI theory and as such there are relatively few studies examining the role of EI in the workplace using a workplace specific tool. A new measure of workplace EI is the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT) (Palmer & Stough, 2001) which assesses how people typically think, feel and act with emotions at work. The SUEIT gives scores on five facets of EI: Emotional Recognition and Expression, Understanding Emotions, Emotions Direct Cognition, Emotional Management and Emotional Control. The SUEIT has been used in looking at the relationship between EI and leadership in senior level managers (Gardner et al., 2002) and was found to predict transformational leadership. A useful

follow up to this study is the exploration of EI with other workplace factors, such as job satisfaction and organisational commitment. According to Dormann & Zapf (2001) job satisfaction mediates the relationship between working conditions (e.g. task variety, responsibility) and organisational/individual outcomes (e.g. absenteeism, counterproductive behaviour). Job satisfaction has been defined in various complimentary ways, including “the discrepancy between what an individual expects, needs or values about their job compared with how much of this the job actually delivers” (Heslop, Davey Smith, Metcalfe, Maclead, & Hart, 2002; p.1590), “the degree to which a person reports satisfaction with intrinsic and extrinsic features of the job” (Warr, Cook, & Wall, 1979; p.133), “an attitude” (Fisher, 2000; p.185), and “the extent to which the work setting fulfils important personal needs” (Flanagan & Flanagan, 2002; p.284). For the purposes of the current study job satisfaction will be considered as a belief as to whether internal (e.g. autonomy, recognition, responsibility) and external (e.g. physical environment, manager, hours, pay) aspects of the job meet individual needs and expectations. A meta-analysis by Dormann and Zapf (2001) examined direct and indirect dispositional determinants of job satisfaction. Direct approaches have typically examined the role of affectivity and were found in this study to account for around 10 to 20 per cent of the variance in job satisfaction, indirect determinants have primarily arisen from longitudinal studies examining stability over time, which accounted for 30 per cent of the variance in job satisfaction in this analysis. The authors conclude that job satisfaction is substantially maintained by environmental conditions but do not discount the role of individual factors. Whilst longitudinal studies of the stability of job satisfaction are useful, from an organisational perspective the individuals’ current levels of satisfaction with their job and the individual factors that predict satisfaction are of upmost importance. A relatively unexplored area of individual difference research is the role emotion plays in job satisfaction. A recent study by Fisher (2000) explored the relationship between emotions experienced at work and job satisfaction, and proposed that as emotions in the workplace generally have a target (that is, being angry at someone, being proud of an achievement) then they are likely to be triggered by events in the workplace, are attributable to the job and will affect job satisfaction. The authors suggested that interpersonal relations in the workplace might trigger more emotional responses than things like salary and chance of promotion. Using three measures of job satisfaction and the author’s own Job Emotion Scale, Fisher found a weak but significant relationship between emotions and some aspects job satisfaction (e.g. pay, promotion and supervision). A weak negative relationship was reported between negative emotion and all aspects of job satisfaction, which suggests that employees who do not report, or are unable to effectively manage, negative emotions at work will be more satisfied with their job than those who are not. As emotions are considered to be transient it would be useful to examine a more stable construct such as emotional intelligence in relation to job satisfaction to confirm whether there is a relationship between aspects of emotion and job satisfaction. Building on the work by Fisher (2000) it is hypothesised that there will

be a positive relationship between emotional intelligence (particularly the dimensions of emotional management and emotional control) and job satisfaction. The second area under investigation in the current study is organisational commitment. According to (Porter, Steers, Mowday, & Boulian, 1974)organisational commitment may be related to job satisfaction but represents a more global evaluative linkage between the employee and the organisation. These authors defined organisational commitment as “the strength of an individual’s identification with an involvement in a particular organisation” (p.604) and suggest that commitment is characterised by three factors: belief and acceptance of the goals and values of the organisation; willingness to exert effort on behalf of the organisation; and desire to maintain organisational membership. Other researchers have similarly defined organisational commitment as having three major components but have created names for each component: affective, continuance and normative (Allen & Meyer, 1990). As stated by Kacmar, Carlson, & Brymer (1999), however researchers define commitment they are essentially interested in assessing the psychological attachment an individual has to their organisation. In the current study the measurement of organisational commitment is based upon the definition by (Porter et al., 1974). Previous research has examined some antecedents and consequences of organisational commitment including age, gender, marital status, education, turnover, job involvement, personality and locus of control (Allen et al., 1990; Kacmar et al., 1999; Coleman, Irving, & Cooper, 1999; Meyer, Stanley, Herscovitch, & Topolnytsky, 2001; Camilleri, 2002). The study by Kacmar et al. (1999) examined variables such as age, gender and marital status as antecedents of organisational commitment and job satisfaction, life satisfaction, turnover intentions and job involvement as consequences of organisational commitment. These authors reported a positive relationship between age, job satisfaction, life satisfaction and job involvement with organisational commitment, and a negative relationship between turnover intentions and commitment, suggesting that employees who are more committed to the organisation are more satisfied with their job and life in general, are more likely to be positively involved in their job and are less likely to leave the organisation than those employees with lower levels of commitment. Interestingly very few researchers have looked at the role of emotions in the workplace, and specifically workplace emotional intelligence, as antecedents to organisational commitment. Are individuals who are more able to recognise, express and understand emotions in the workplace more committed to the organisation? A recent study by Abraham (2000) examined the role of job control as a moderator between EI, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Abraham suggested that social relationships within the organisation increase employee loyalty and commitment, and that as emotional intelligence is related to our ability to interact with others, that emotionally intelligent individuals might be more committed to their organisation. She assessed over 79 professionals from three industries and reported that the emotionally intelligent employees were happier and more committed to their organisation. Abraham concluded that the social skills component of emotional intelligence leads to strong interpersonal relationships, which in turn influences employee commitment.

Despite using a non-workplace specific measure of emotional intelligence, the study by Abraham (2000) provides a useful framework for the hypothesis of the current study. It is predicted that there will be a positive relationship between the workplace measure of emotional intelligence adopted in this study and organisational commitment. It is also hypothesised that there will be a positive relationship between job satisfaction and organisational commitment. Method Participants Eighty individuals (63 males) from a range of industries and occupations completed a battery of tests including demographic information, emotional intelligence, job satisfaction and organisational commitment. The average age of participants was 36 years (SD = 8.4 years). Seventy-six percent of participants had completed undergraduate or postgraduate degrees, 33% had 3 or 4 people financially dependent upon them and 35% had been with their current organisation for more than 5 years. Measures Emotional Intelligence Emotional intelligence was assessed by the Swinburne University Emotional Intelligence Test (SUEIT) (Palmer & Stough, 2001). The SUEIT measures individuals’ perceptions of the way they think, feel and act at work, with emotions, and on the basis of emotional information. The SUEIT consists of 64 items representing emotional recognition and expression (11 items, M = 38.51, SD = 4.90), understanding emotions (20 items, M = 76.17, SD = 6.64), emotions direct cognition (12 items, M = 39.05, SD = 5.00), emotional management (12 items, M = 41.35, SD = 4.72) and emotional control (9 items, M = 31.66, SD = 3.94). Items are scored on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from never (1) to always (5). An example item is: “I can tell how colleagues are feeling at work”. Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction was measured using the 15-item scale developed by (Warr et al., 1979). This scale assesses satisfaction towards both internal and external work features including: level of responsibility, chance of promotion, and amount of variety in job (internal features); and pay, security, and management (external features). Each item is scored on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from extremely dissatisfied (1) to extremely satisfied (7). Seven items make up the internal job satisfaction scale (M = 32.61, SD = 8.25) and 8 items make up the external job satisfaction scale (M = 37.99, SD = 8.36). Organisational Commitment Organisational commitment was assessed using the 9- item short version of the Organisational Commitment Questionnaire (OCQ; (Mowday, Steers, & Porter, 1979)). The OCQ examines possible feelings that individuals may have about the organisation for which they work and is measured on a 7-point Likert scale ranging

from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (7). Responses are summed and divided by the number of items (M = 4.4, SD = 1). An example item is: “I would accept almost any type of job assignment in order to keep working for this organisation.” Results The means, standard deviations and inter- item correlations calculated for all variables are presented in Table 1. The means for the SUEIT were generally in line with previous research (Palmer & Stough, 2001), with the exception of the dimension of Emotions Direct Cognition, which was slightly lower than previously reported. Both job satisfaction subscales and the organisational commitment scale means were slightly higher than previous research (Warr et al., 1979; Mowday et al., 1979). It was predicted that there would be positive relationship between EI and job satisfaction, particularly for the dimensions of emotional management and emotional control. This hypothesis was partially supported. A weak relationship was found between external job satisfaction and emotional management (r = .25, p<.05) and emotional control (r = .26, p<.05). However, no relationship was found between external job satisfaction and the other dimensions of EI (emotional recognition and expression, understanding emotions and emotional control). For internal job satisfaction a relationship was found with emotional recognition and expression (r = .33, p<.001), emotional management (r = .37, p<.001), and emotional control (r = .24, p<.05). No relationship was found between internal job satisfaction and understanding emotions or emotions direct cognition. It was expected that there would be a positive relationship between the dimensions of EI and organisational commitment. This hypothesis was partially supported. A positive relationship was found between organisational commitment and emotional recognition and expression (r = .33, p<.001), understanding emotions (r = .33, p<.001), emotional management (r = .51, p<.001), and emotional control (r = .39, p<.001). Emotions direct cognition was the only facet of EI that was not found to be related to organisational commitment. A positive relationship was expected between job satisfaction and organisational commitment which was supported (external job satisfaction r = .44, p<.001; internal job satisfaction r = .46, p<.001). Stepwise regression analyses were calculated using each workplace variable (external job satisfaction, internal job satisfaction and organisational commitment) as the dependent variable and the five components of EI as the predictors. Emotional control emerged as the only predictor of external job satisfaction (β = .26, p<.05). Emotional management emerged as the only predictor for both internal job satisfaction (β = .37, p<.001) and organisational commitment (β = .51, p<.001). Discussion The results support the existence of a relationship between certain aspects of EI and job satisfaction. Employees who are more satisfied with the external features of their job (e.g. salary, physical environment, management, co-workers) reported higher levels of emotional management and emotional control than those employees who were less satisfied. Similarly employees who were more satisfied with the internal features of their job (e.g. amount of autonomy and responsibility, variety in work)

reported higher levels of emotional management and emotional control, but also reported higher levels of emotional recognition and expression than employees who were less internally satisfied. If, as Dormann and Zapf (2001) proposed, job satisfaction does indeed mediate the relationship between working conditions and organisational/individual outcomes then selecting employees who are more able to effectively manage and control emotion in the workplace may induce positive organisational outcomes such as less absenteeism and more productive behaviour. Interestingly there was a positive relationship between internal job satisfaction and emotional recognition and expression but no relationship between external satisfaction and this EI dimension. This may be due to the fact that to understand ones own internal satisfaction a higher level of accurate self- insight may be required as compared to assessing external satisfaction. The dimension of emotional recognition and expression is defined as being able to identify one’s own emotional states, and to express those to others. If an individual is high on this dimension then it logically follows that they would be more able to identify if they are satisfied with the internal features of their job than an individual who has difficulty in identifying their own emotions. The current study supports the existence of a positive relationship between most aspects of EI and organisational commitment. Employees who reported being more able to recognise and express emotion, more able to understand their own and others emotions, more able to manage both positive and negative emotions in themselves and others, and who were more able to effectively control strong emotional states experienced at work were more likely to be more committed to the organisation than those employees who had difficulty with these aspects of EI. Abraham (2000) suggested that those employees who had higher levels of EI would view their relationship with the organisation as an extension of the relationship they have with co-workers and managers. This logic seems accurate, as the dimensions of EI that correlated with organisational commitment in this study were all dimensions relating to effective interactions between the self and others. For instance, with the dimension of emotional recognition and expression, if an employee is able to accurately express their inner feelings to others and therefore create harmonious relationships with other employees, they may transfer these feelings of harmony with co-workers feelings of harmony about the organisation as a whole. Regression analysis revealed that the ability to effectively control strong emotional states experienced at work was the best predictor of external job satisfaction. This finding may be because people who report dissatisfaction with external job features (salary, hours, supervisor) may be more likely to be unable to control anger and frustration towards these features, whereas those who are more able to control these feeling in the workplace may still be dissatisfied but are more controlled in their feelings and so will not report as low levels of satisfaction. Regression analysis also revealed that the ability to manage both positive and negative emotions within oneself and others was the best predictor of internal job satisfaction and organisational commitment. This finding suggests that having the ability to pick yourself up from feeling flat and frustrated will assist in being more satisfied with your chances of promotion, the attention paid to suggestions you make and the recognition you get for good work. The ability to manage emotions effectively is also

predictive of organisational commitment, which suggests that if an employers wants to select an employee who will be committed to the organisation that the ability to manage emotions is important. The findings of the current study provide evidence for the use of EI as a selection tool in organisations. In particular if an employee is able to effectively manage positive and negative emotions in the workplace and control strong emotional states (e.g. anger) that they experience at work then this will influence the relationship that they have with other employees and has the effect of making them more satisfied with their job and more committed to the organisation. A useful extension to this study would be an examination of outcomes of job satisfaction and organisational commitment, for instance if high levels of emotional intelligence are able to predict satisfaction and commitment, then do more committed and satisfied employees perform better?

Table 1 Means, standard deviations and inter-item correlation for variables included in study

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. Emotional recognition and expression

36.83 5.32 -

2. Understanding emotions 75.90 6.94 .53•• - 3. Emotions direct cognition 32.24 5.53 .29•• .36•• - 4. Emotional management 41.61 5.99 .51•• .71•• .23• - 5. Emotional control 32.70 4.31 .36•• .49•• * .63•• - 6. External job satisfaction 41.24 5.38 * * * .25• .26• - 7. Internal job satisfaction 35.71 5.63 .33•• * * .37•• .24• .67•• - 8. Organisational commitment

5.42 0.92 .33•• .33•• * .51•• .39•• .44•• .46••

Notes: N = 80; •• p<.001; • p<.05

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