Emotional intelligence as a moderator of the relationship between conscientiousness and performance.

This study investigates whether the relationship between conscientiousness and performance is stronger for individuals who are high on emotional intelligence. The results of hierarchical moderated regression analyses supported the hypothesis by demonstrating that the relationship between conscientiousness and work performance is positive for individuals high (versus low) in emotional intelligence. However, the opposite pattern was found for those low in emotional intelligence; that is, increases in conscientiousness were associated with decreases in performance. Implications of these results are discussed, as are directions for future research.

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Changes in organizations, as well as the recent scientific developments in the area of positive organizational behavior (Luthans, 2002), have promoted the importance of social effectiveness in work organizations (Ferris, Perrewe, & Douglas, 2002). Indeed, as Guion (1998) stated: "There is new recognition of the importance of certain skills, including social skills and ways of approaching work. Dissatisfaction arises from the almost exclusive concern in traditional approaches with prediction of individual job performance, with no corresponding concern for individual functioning within a work group, team, or organization" (p. 361).

One type of social effectiveness construct that has received considerable attention recently is emotional intelligence. Largely due to the attention generated by two best-selling books, Goleman (1995, 1998) has argued for the importance of emotional intelligence in work organizations and in everyday life. Serious scholarly work also has been generated on emotional intelligence by Salovey, Mayer, and their colleagues (e.g., Salovey & Mayer, 1990; Mayer & Salovey, 1997; Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000a, 2000b) in efforts to better understand the role this construct plays in social dynamics. Unfortunately, little support for criterion-related validity has been established to date for emotional intelligence, leaving in question its role in the prediction of important work outcomes (see Fox & Spector, 2000 for an exception).

Furthermore, personality scholars have argued that personality needs to be ignited or brought to life by social effectiveness constructs in order to demonstrate effects on performance and other work outcomes (Hogan, 1991; Hogan & Shelton, 1998). Therefore, these scholars have called for research investigating the interaction of personality traits and social effectiveness constructs on work outcomes. The purpose of the present research is to investigate the moderating effects of emotional intelligence on the relationship between conscientiousness and performance.

Social Effectiveness in Organizations

Nature and forms of social effectiveness

Social effectiveness refers to the skills of reading and understanding others, and being able to utilize such knowledge to influence others in the pursuit of individual and/or organizational goals. With its roots in the early work on social intelligence by Thorndike (1920), social effectiveness was introduced as a broad, umbrella term that could capture the many separate but related constructs developed in the field to date (Ferris et al., 2002). Indeed, we have witnessed a proliferation of social effectiveness constructs in recent years that go by such labels as social intelligence, emotional intelligence, social skill, interpersonal acumen, political skill, self-monitoring, and a number of others. As noted by Ferris et al., social effectiveness reflects a class of constructs that are dynamic in nature, demonstrate facility in interpersonal interaction, yet are distinct from (although perhaps modestly correlated with) personality traits. Social effectiveness constructs are believed to be partially dispositional and partially learned or developmental in nature (Murtha, Kanfer, & Ackerman, 1996).

Certainly, emotional intelligence is one of the social effectiveness constructs that has received considerable attention recently in both the scientific and applied literatures. However, little empirical research has been conducted and reported to date concerning the predictive ability of emotional intelligence, as either main effect or moderator.

Emotional intelligence as a form of social effectiveness

Emotional intelligence is a relatively new construct stemming from the increased interest in emotions in the workplace. Initiated by Salovey and Mayer (1990), who perceived emotional intelligence as a subset of social intelligence, they defined emotional intelligence as "the ability to monitor one's own and other's feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide one's thinking and actions" (p. 189).

Personality and social skills are different; personality traits are rather enduring dispositions while social skills are learnable. Similar to other social effectiveness constructs, emotional intelligence is a hybrid construct touching both domains. Further, Goleman (1998) suggested that emotional intelligence focuses on two sets of personal qualities, one dispositional (initiative and empathy), and another with trainable qualities (adaptability and persuasiveness). So, unlike personality, individuals can build and develop portions of emotional intelligence.

Spurred by Goleman's best-selling works (1995, 1998), emotional intelligence has risen in popularity over the last decade. Viewed as being independent of IQ, Goleman (1995) has related emotional intelligence to knowing and managing emotions, self-motivation, and handling relationships. More recently, research on the implications of emotional intelligence in the workplace suggests that emotional intelligence may have a substantial role in organizational activities. In his work on positive organizational behavior (POB), Luthans (2002) listed emotional intelligence as one of five constructs capable of being developed and managed for improved performance in organizations.

Also, the contemporary theories of leadership (i.e., transformational, and charismatic), because of their interpersonal connection with followers, are affected by a leader's emotional intelligence level. Furthermore, emotional intelligence has been discussed as an important characteristic to investigate in leadership in the future (e.g., Caruso, Mayer, & Salovey, 2002; George, 2000; Goleman, Boyatzis, & McKee, 2002). Within these theories of leadership, emotional intelligence appears to be a catalyst for articulating vision and developing constructive relationships with organizational members (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002).

Finally, in the work team development context, empirical research suggests that emotional intelligence might influence teamwork. A recent study reported that untrained teams with high emotional intelligence members performed as well as trained teams with low emotional intelligence members (Ashkanasy & Daus, 2002). With the growing importance of teams and team-based work structures within organizations, emotional intelligence might provide a mechanism to better understand the interactive process dynamics and outcomes that take place among team members, and to serve as a useful developmental tool in team-building efforts.

Goleman (1998) combined a broad array of mental abilities and personality traits to form twenty-five emotional competencies ranging from political awareness to achievement drive in an attempt to measure emotional intelligence in the workplace. This "mixed-model" approach represents the more widely accepted perspective for viewing and measuring emotional intelligence. On the other hand, some researchers believe that emotional intelligence is best captured by the mental "ability-model," which measures specific skills like emotional perception, emotional facilitation, emotional understanding, and emotional management (Mayer, Salovey, & Caruso, 2000a, 2000b; Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Recent empirical research on individual cognitive-based performance credited emotional intelligence with increasing performance over and above general intelligence (Lam & Kirby, 2002). This study confirms the contribution made by emotional intelligence to mental ability; however, more research is needed to provide support for either approach.

Working from the mixed-model approach, Bar-On (1997) developed the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-i), a self-report measure designed to assess non-cognitive factors that influence the ability to manage environmental demands. More specifically, the EQ-i is designed to measure one's awareness, understanding and control over expressive emotions (Bar-On, 2000). Because of this approach, the EQ-i correlates significantly with indicators of emotional and social functioning, (.36) with the neuroticism-stability scale of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ: Esysenck & Esysenck, 1975), and (-.71) with the anxiety scale of the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAS: Morey, 1991). Further, the EQi has exhibited low correlations with general intelligence, (.12) with the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS: Wechsler, 1958), and (.08) with the Haglier and Bardos General Ability Measure for Adults (GAMA) (Bar-On, 2000).