This study examined the relationships among employees’ emotional intelligence, their manager’s emotional intelligence, employees’ job satisfaction, and performance for 187 food service employees from nine different locations of the same restaurant franchise. We predicted and found that employees’ emotional intelligence was positively associated with job satisfaction and performance. In addition, manager’s emotional intelligence had a more positive correlation with job satisfaction for employees with low emotional intelligence than for those with high emotional intelligence. These findings remain significant after controlling for personality factors. A similar pattern was found for job performance; however, the effect did not meet traditional standards of significance. Applied implications of the results are discussed.
Emotional intelligence (EI) can play a significant role in the work environment (George, 2000, Goleman et al., 2002, Law et al., 2004, Sy and Cote, 2004 and Wong and Law, 2002). Specifically, researchers assert that employees’ EI can predict work related outcomes, such as job satisfaction and job performance (Bachman et al., 2000, Prati et al., 2003 and Wong and Law, 2002). Furthermore, theorists posit that managers’ EI can significantly impact these work outcomes (e.g., George, 2000 and Goleman et al., 2002). However, the empirical evidence is scant (Day and Carroll, 2004 and Zeidner et al., 2004) and no study has examined the interaction effect of managers’ EI and employees’ EI on job satisfaction and job performance. As such, the goals of this study are to examine the impact of employees’ EI on job satisfaction and job performance, as well as the effect of the interaction between managers’ EI and employees’ EI on job satisfaction and job performance.
Table 1 displays descriptive statistics and correlations between the variables. Correlations in Table 1 indicating that employees’ EI is correlated positively with job satisfaction provide initial support for Hypothesis 1. Similar to past studies (e.g., Law et al., 2004), we tested the relationship between EI and job satisfaction while controlling for personality factors because of concerns with the limited evidence regarding the distinctiveness of EI from personality. Accordingly, we further test the association of EI and job satisfaction using hierarchical regression. Following Cohen and Cohen (1983), we entered the Big Five personality factors in step 1, and employees’ EI as the main effect in step 2. Hierarchical regression analyses in Table 2 indicate that employees’ EI is predictive of job satisfaction after controlling for the Big Five personality factors, ΔR2 = .06, p < .001. Hypothesis 1 is fully supported.Correlations in Table 1 indicating that employees’ EI is correlated positively with job performance provide initial support for Hypothesis 2. Like job satisfaction, we further test the relationship between EI and job performance by controlling for personality factors using hierarchical regression. Hierarchical regression analyses in Table 3 indicate that employees’ EI positively predicts job performance after controlling for the Big Five personality factors, ΔR2 = .03, p < .05. Hypothesis 2 is fully supported.To test Hypothesis 3, which states that managers’ EI associates more positively with job satisfaction for employees with low EI than for employees with high EI, we entered the Big Five personality factors in step 1 of a hierarchical regression analysis, followed by employees’ EI in step 2, manager’s EI in step 3, and the cross-product of employees’ EI and manager’s EI as the interaction term in step 4. As reported in Table 4, the interaction term was significant with an incremental change in R2 of .02, p < .05. To illustrate the nature of the interaction effect, we followed Aiken and West’s (1991) simple slope procedure. We examined the relationship between employee EI and job satisfaction at a high level of manager EI (one standard deviation above the mean) and at a low level of manager EI (one standard deviation below the mean). The slopes shown in Fig. 1 illustrate the interaction: Managers’ EI associates more positively with job satisfaction for employees with low EI than for employees with high EI. Hypothesis 3 is fully supported.We tested Hypothesis 4, which states that managers’ EI associates more positively with job performance for employees with low EI than for employees with high EI, using the same procedures as the test for Hypothesis 3 regarding job satisfaction, i.e., Big Five personality factors in step 1; employees’ EI in step 2; managers’ EI in step 3; and the cross-product of the employee’s EI and manager’s EI as the interaction term in step 4. As reported in Table 5, the incremental change in R2 for the interaction term was .02, p = .07. Thus, Hypothesis 4 was not supported.
