تاثیر هوش هیجانی بر رفتارهای کار معکوس و رفتار شهروندی سازمانی در میان کارکنان مواد غذایی و آشامیدنی در یک هتل لوکس

The purpose of this study is to understand the interrelationships among the emotional intelligence of employees in a deluxe hotel, their counterproductive work behaviors, and organizational citizen behaviors. The sample of this study consists of 319 food and beverage (F&B) employees of a five-star hotel in Korea. The results showed that as elements of emotional intelligence, others’ emotion appraisal, use of emotion, and self-emotion appraisal significantly affected counterproductive work behaviors, whereas self-emotion appraisal and use of emotion affected organizational citizen behaviors. In addition, moderating effects were evident related to job positions in the causal relationships among emotional intelligence, counterproductive work behaviors, and organizational citizen behaviors. Limitations of this study and future research directions are also discussed.

Recent research has focused on the importance of emotions in relation to intellectual abilities, particularly in organizations that evaluate employees’ abilities in terms of emotions instead of cognition (Brackett et al., 2006). The importance of emotional intelligence is emphasized because human relations in organizations are affected by emotional factors more than by rational factors. Druskat and Wolff (2001) claimed that regarding the influence the factors affecting individual effectiveness, the emotional quotient is as important as the intelligence quotient; indeed, the emotional intelligence of individuals who carry out duties and play essential roles in ensuring organizational outcomes is quite significant. Therefore, successful organizations require employees who can communicate effectively, control their emotions, and demonstrate their technical abilities. Spencer and Spencer (1993) analyzed job competencies and found that employees who showed strong outcomes generally demonstrated excellent emotion-related competencies, thereby indicating that – compared with competencies based on reason – competencies based on emotions were much more accurate. Cooper and Sawaf (1997) revealed close relationships between emotional intelligence and creativity, concluding that employees with abundant emotional intelligence were more positive and creative. Goleman (1998) suggested that, since competent leaders have high levels of emotional intelligence, it is the most important characteristic in leadership. Dulewicz and Higgs (1998) also noted that, although the most important factor in employment examinations is intellectual ability, adaptation to organizations, promotions, and/or outcomes after entrance were determined by emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence has emerged as an interesting subject for research, and many studies have examined how emotional intelligence affects both the organizational effectiveness (Abraham, 1999, Druskat and Wolff, 2001, Nikolaou and Tsaousis, 2002, Wong and Law, 2002 and Weinberger, 2003) and the non-task related behaviors of employees (Cote and Miners, 2006 and Cartwright and Pappas, 2008). Non-task related behaviors are voluntary behaviors, which can be divided into positive organizational citizen behaviors (OCBs) and negative counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs). In contrast to OCBs, CWBs are forms of organizational misbehavior, dysfunctional behavior, and workplace deviant behavior (Fox et al., 2001), which are destructive behaviors that are potentially harmful to both organizations and employees (Lau et al., 2003, Dalal, 2005 and Penny and Spector, 2005). Although the conceptual difference between OCBs and CWBs is easily identified, empirical evidence has shown that it is preferable to consider CWBs as forms of deviance within the organization and OCBs as independent constructs, both with their own specific relationships and outcomes rather than as opposite ends of a single continuum (Sackett et al., 2006 and Norman et al., 2010). Following this finding and for the purpose of this study, we consider both OCBs and CWBs as independent outcomes. However, research thus far has focused on the positive aspects of emotional intelligence among the non-task related behaviors of employees. No study has used outcome variables in a negative dimension. In particular, since OCBs and CWBs as voluntary behaviors are non-task related behaviors that appear as employees’ emotional intelligence declines, they will be more significant as outcome variables. Furthermore, in service-oriented businesses such as hotels, employees are service providers in direct face-to-face contact with customers; thus, emotional intelligence that plays important roles in controlling emotions is more influential. However, studies of hotel employees in relation to the effectiveness of emotional intelligence are very rare. Consequently, for employees to maintain emotionally healthy conditions in service encounters in hotels and continuously create positive outcomes, their ability to control their emotions should be prioritized. Indeed, emotional intelligence is thus required of employees who must perceive and control their own emotions as well as those of customers in the course of performing their emotional labor (Mayer and Salovey, 1997). Therefore, it can be supposed that the emotional intelligence of employees can also reduce the adverse effects of CWBs among employees. In this respect, this study verifies that employees’ emotional intelligence significantly affects both OCBs, which are positive behaviors in organizations, and CWBs, which are negative behaviors, through the results of a case study of the emotional intelligence of hotel food and beverage employees. It also explores the details of the sub-factors of emotional intelligence that significantly affect OCBs and CWBs. Thus, this study identifies the associations among emotional intelligence, CWBs, and OCBs that have not yet been fully explored in the food service literature (Fig. 1).

This study examined the effect of employees’ emotional intelligence on CWBs and OCBs. Emotional intelligence is categorized into four areas: others’ emotions appraisal, use of emotion, self-emotion appraisal, and regulation of emotion. This study found that three of these areas – others’ emotion appraisal, use of emotion, and self-emotion appraisal – have a significant negative effect on CWBs (Spector, 1997, Martin et al., 1998, Mayer et al., 2000 and Bechtoldt et al., 2007). It is supposed that these results were produced because the emotional intelligence of the hotel employees reduces involuntary and negative deviating behaviors. More specifically, emotional intelligence had negative effects on the CWBs in terms of others’ emotion appraisal, use of emotion, and self-emotion appraisal. In particular, others’ emotion appraisal had the greatest influence on CWBs, indicating that, if the ability to perceive and understand others’ emotions is insufficient, then the effect on CWBs will be more adverse. Consequently, it is considered that in order to reduce employees’ CWBs, educational training and rewards should be introduced to enable the employees’ understanding of the emotions of colleagues and customers. Another finding is that self-emotion appraisal and use of emotion among elements of employees’ emotional intelligence have a significant positive effect on OCBs. These findings support previous work (Brief and Motowidlo, 1986, Isen et al., 1987, MacKenzie et al., 1991, Wong and Law, 2002 and Cote and Miners, 2006). The results of the current study demonstrated that emotional intelligence regarding the ability to understand one's emotions effectively while using and controlling emotions would induce voluntary and positive behaviors. In particular, emotional intelligence in the use of emotion and self-emotion appraisal was more important in increasing OCBs; moreover, use of emotion had a greater influence on OCBs than self-emotion appraisal did. This result confirms that, if employees understand, control, and use their emotions effectively, they will create positive working environments and significantly improve organizational outcomes such as increased OCBs. With regard to the effects of the emotional intelligence of hotel employees on CWBs and OCBs, the results indicated that the paths to show significant causal relationships varied according to job positions (BOH vs. FOH). In particular, with regard to the effects of use of emotion on CWBs, BOH showed higher negative effects than FOH did. Employees in BOH spend more time with their colleagues than with their customers. Thus, emotional intelligence in terms of utilizing one's own emotional information in one's performance and productive activities has more pronounced effects on CWBs that are important in human relations. In addition, in the case of BOH, dependency on others is much greater than in other departments and most tasks are manually done; thus, jobs are performed under strict ranking and division of work. Consequently, the results show that the essential characteristics of BOH such as professionalism, collegiality, and excessive workloads affect non-task related behaviors related to colleagues more than they affect other departments. In contrast, with regard to the effects of use of emotion on OCBs, FOH showed significantly higher adverse effects compared with BOH. This result reflects the characteristics of work in FOH where employees conduct emotional exchanges by directly facing customers at service contact points. Employees in FOH should connect their emotional information with outcomes and must respond more intelligently in their use of emotion. Therefore, they show more positive effects than do employees in BOH.