Emotional Intelligence in Sme's

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International Journal of Business and Management

Vol. 6, No. 12; December 2011

Examining the Relevance of Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Commitment among Employees of Small and Medium Enterprise in Private Sector

Ashkan Khalili Faculty of Management, Multimedia University Jalan Multimedia, Cyberjaya 63100, Selangor, Malaysia E-mail: ashkankhalili@ymail.com Received: June 14, 2011 doi:10.5539/ijbm.v6n12p180 Abstract The relevance of emotional intelligence and organizational commitment is tested among 142 employees of small and medium enterprise (SME) in private sector in Iran. The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between emotional intelligence as an overall construct and organizational commitment. Strong and positive influence of self management and social awareness as two competencies of emotional intelligence on employees’ obligation to the organization is found. Meanwhile, positive but not significant impact of self awareness and relationship management as two abilities of emotional intelligence on employees’ organizational commitment is educated. Therefore, due to lack of financial resources and support for private sector organizations in Iran, the results have a great implication for SMEs in private sector to prevent from wasting their financial resources by hiring individuals who are more emotionally intelligence that would result in higher level of organizational commitment. Keywords: Emotional intelligence, Organizational commitment, SME, Private sector 1. Introduction Changes are an ongoing challenges faced by organizations to be overcome ahead of the competitors, to ensure companies gain competitive advantages. In other words, it is commonplace for firms to face changes, both internal and external the company has to adapt to these changes. Certainly, organizations need to improve their competitive advantages as well as maximize the achievement from the needed changes transformation process,...