Page 1 of 32

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at

http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/

ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 04 Issue 07

July 2018

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 36

An Investigation of the Influence of Emotional

Intelligence and Emotional Labor on Work

Engagement of Obafemi Awolowo University staffs

Omisope Bankole Oluwaseun

Institute for Entrepreneurship and Development Studies Obafemi Awolowo University Ile-Ife,

Osun State, Nigeria

ABSTRACT

It was identified that although there exists lots of research on employee engagement in developed

countries, there seems to be dearth of research job involvement in this part of the world. This

study therefore sets out to unravel the perceived emotional labour and emotional intelligence as

predictors of employee engagement among Obafemi Awolowo university staffs. Cross-sectional

survey research design was adopted and data gathered from randomly selected one hundred and

seventy six non-academic staffs in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Osun state. Gender

distribution revealed that more of the respondents 116 (65.9%) were males, while the other 60

(34.1%) were females. Four hypotheses were tested using t-test for independent samples and

multiple regression analysis at .05 level of significance. Findings revealed employees with low

level of emotional labour reported higher employee engagement [t (174) = -12.03; p<.01]. Also,

employees with high emotional intelligence reported significantly higher employee engagement

than those with low level of emotional intelligence [t (174) = 3.16; p<.05]. In addition,

collectively, emotional labour and emotional intelligence predicted 5% variance in employee

engagement (R = .32; R2 = .05; F (2, 174 = 4.66; p<.05); only emotional intelligence (β = .48;

t= 3.53; p<.05) independently predicted employee engagement. Finally, collectively, socio- demographic factors (age, educational experience and work experience) predicted 20% variance

in employee engagement (R = .45; R2 = .20; F (2, 174) = 15.64; p<.01); age (β = .28; t= 2.08;

p<.05), educational experience (β = .26; t= 3.58; p<.05) and work experience (β = -.47; t= -

3.53; p<.05) independently predicted employee engagement. It was concluded that emotional

intelligence and emotional labour were significant determinants of work engagement; it was

therefore recommended that human resource section that deals with employee recruitment and

transfer should endeavor to have periodic profiles on the level of emotional intelligence of

employees. This will go a long way in assisting with posting of employees with high level of

emotional intelligence to strongholds of the University, in order to report high level of

productivity.

Keywords: Emotional labour, Employee engagement, Emotional intelligence, Obafemi

Awolowo University.

Page 2 of 32

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at

http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/

ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 04 Issue 07

July 2018

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 36

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Since the beginning of the Century,

increased attention has been paid to what

has been coined positive psychology: the

scientific study of human strength and

optimal functioning (Seligman

&Csikszentmihalyi, 2000). Positive

Psychology is considered to supplement the

traditional focus of psychology on disease,

damage, disorder, and disability. The field

of Industrial and organizational (I-O)

psychology is not left behind in the current

trend in positive psychology. This led to the

coming up of the concept of work

engagement. Work engagement refers to the

act of displaying vigor, dedication and

absorption willingly without any force from

anyone. Some authors such as Demerouti

and Martinez (2002) defined work

engagement as the opposite of burnout. It is

expected that both concepts are negatively

related. It has been established that work

engagement contributes significantly to

organizational performance.

Moving beyond job satisfaction,

consulting firms and researchers encourage

organizations to find ways of measuring

work engagement. Engaged employees are

operationally defined as motivated, self- improving, and productive (Harley et al.,

2005, p. 24) while understanding and

aligning themselves with their company's

culture and business strategy (Coleman,

2005, p. 66). According to Sias (2005), the

engaged employee is, "an employee being

fully intellectually and emotionally

committed to a particular job, so that he or

she wants to give to that job what is known

as discretionary effort" (p. 29). This

discretionary effort is not necessary for the

employees to give, but they have an innate

desire to give anyway. Employees who

provide this extra effort often demonstrate

these traits: positive attitude towards the job;

believes in and identifies with the

organization; works actively to make things

better; treats others with respect and helps

colleagues perform more effectively; can be

relied upon and goes beyond the

requirements of the job; acts with the bigger

picture in mind; keeps up to date with the

field; and looks for and is given

opportunities to improve organizational

performance (Harley et al., p. 24). Most

importantly, these key traits are also

delivered on a consistent basis. In addition,

Baumruk et al. (2006) found these three

general behaviors in engaged employees:

advocates organization with co-workers and

customers; desire to be part of the

organization despite other opportunities;

exerts extra time, effort, initiative to

contribute to the success of the organization

(p. 24).

Work engagement goes beyond

employee satisfaction and therefore

traditional measures of satisfaction need to

be updated to include work engagement

scales (Harley, 2005, p. 25). With the

introduction of work engagement some of

the new variables for measuring effective

internal communication include: trust,

credibility, organizational goals,

identification, internal and external

alignment, accuracy, openness,

transparency, timeliness, receiver relevance,

using numerous channels, and message

management to name a few (Asif&Sargeant,

2000; Goris et al., 2002; Holtz, 2004;

Page 3 of 32

Journal for Studies in Management and Planning

Available at

http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/

ISSN: 2395-0463

Volume 04 Issue 07

July 2018

Available online: http://edupediapublications.org/journals/index.php/JSMaP/ P a g e | 37

Hoover, 2005; Ruppel& Harrington, 2000).

There abounds many variables that could

influence work engagement of employees,

hence, this study is interested in emotional

labour and intelligence.

Emotional labour is a form of labour

that has attracted a substantial amount of

attention and sparked various lines of

research over the last three decades, with

over 10 000 articles referring to this concept

(Grandey, Diefendorff, & Rupp, 2013). In

the broader context of organisational

behaviour, the interest in emotional labour is

due to the growth of the service sector

worldwide (Central Intelligence Agency,

2013).

When examining the literature on

emotional labour, the presence of three sub- dimensions related to this type of labour is

mentioned. In the researches related to

emotional labour, primarily two sub- dimensions are discussed, which are surface

acting and deep acting behaviors (Hoschild,

1979, 1983). Afterwards, Ashforth and

Humprey (1993) added the natural emotions

as the third sub-dimension of emotional

labour by thinking that the employees can

really have some behaviours to feel in this

process. The employees working for a job

that requires surface acting are

differentiating their emotions to outside in

accordance with the expectations of their

organizations, even though they do not feel

the same way. Thus, they are acting for

different emotions, sometimes by showing

different feelings, sometimes by hiding and

sometimes by faking their true feelings like

wearing a mask (Hochschild, 1983;

Brotheridge and Grandey, 2002; Grandey,

2003). In the deep acting behavior, they try

to internalize the expectations of the

organizations by combining with their own

emotions and making them in a harmony

(Humphrey, 2012:742), because the

expectation of the organization is in line

with the internalization of the emotions by

the workers, which are determined in

accordance with the nature and culture of

the organization. Natural emotions, unlike

the first two sub-dimensions, do not require

any role-playing behaviours and means that

the employees can reflect their feelings out

as they feel deep inside.

The ability to express and control our

own emotions is important, but so is our

ability to understand, interpret, and respond

to the emotions of others. Imagine a world

where you couldn't understand when a

friend was feeling sad or when a co-worker

or customer was angry. Psychologists refer

to this ability as emotional intelligence, and

some experts even suggest that it can be

more important than IQ. Emotional

intelligence (EI) refers to the ability to

perceive, control and evaluate emotions.

Some researchers suggest that emotional

intelligence can be learned and strengthened,

while others claim it is an inborn

characteristic. "Emotional Intelligence," it

is the subset of social intelligence that

involves the ability to monitor one's own

and others' feelings and emotions, to

discriminate among them and to use this

information to guide one's thinking and

actions" (1990). We all have different

personalities, different wants and needs, and

different ways of showing our emotions.

Navigating through this all takes tact and

cleverness – especially if we hope to