EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND JOB SATISFACTION AS PREDICTORS OF ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT AMONG SECONDARY SCHOOL TEACHERS
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Emotional intelligence (EI) is a new concept, which has been used and defined in the management literature since 1990. Different studies have demonstrated
that emotional intelligence is one of the virtues associated with success in life (Ranjbar et al, 2012). Developing emotional intelligence among the sta can
solve many problems in education, health and management (Miri et al, 2013). There is a growing body of evidence regarding the emotional aspects of work in
an organization. Although, few management researchers have accepted this concept, the concept of emotional intelligence has been used by the
administrative authorities in many workplaces to explain issues related to the job satisfaction, performance, absenteeism, organizational commitment and
leadership (carmeli, 2003).
In the context of the emerging ‘active revolution’ in social and organizational psychology, emotional intelligence is proposed as an important predictor of key organizational outcomes including job satisfaction and employee commitment (Carmeli, 2003). Emotional intelligence is considered to play a significant role in the work environment. It is a basic requirement in any profession that is based on human relations especially in the teaching. Emotions play an important role in the teaching profession which requires both technical expertise and psychologically oriented teaching, so an emotionally intelligent teacher
is a person who can work in harmony with his/her thoughts and feelings (landa& Lopez-Zafra, 2010). Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, evaluate
and express emotions rapidly and to understand and manage them using emotional information and to direct thoughts, actions and acts to have a
successful work experience. There are two types of Emotional Intelligence measure: ability and trait. The trait Emotional Intelligence theory distinguishes
between the intrapersonal and interpersonal domains. Intrapersonally, use of emotions can lead to regulating stress and negative emotions so that one can
perform better at work. Interpersonally, the ability to understand and respond appropriately to the motivations and feelings of other people can lead to the
appraisal and regulation of emotions in others and achieving maximum performance (Nozaki &Koyasu, 2013). Researchers specifically propose that such an
ability can predict work outcomes, such as organizational commitment, intention to quit, the sta turnover, job satisfaction and job performance. Studies
have shown that the selection of personnel based on the emotional intelligence had better results compared to the traditional methods which may have a
greater reliance on cognitive abilities and technical knowledge, while this issue has been rarely studied in the teaching profession (Miri et al, 2013).
On the other hand, one of the important issues in the field of organizational success is job satisfaction. Job satisfaction can be defined as the extent to which
employees like their jobs. It is an emotional state of individuals that is enhanced by achieving favorable results at work and the feelings of belonging to a
functioning work place. Traditional job satisfaction pointed to the feelings of an individual towards his/her job. Two sets of factors are considered to influence
job satisfaction: intrinsic (recognition, tasks and responsibility) and extrinsic factors (working conditions, company policies and salary). Internal job
satisfaction is an internal desire to perform a task which deals with pleasure and is related to internal motivation. External factors are defined as those external benefits provided to the professional sta by the organization. These factors are unrelated to the task and include money, good scores and other rewards (Golman, 2000). Schools that have higher job satisfaction scores among the employees, have a better students performance and more favorable outcomes. Studies have shown that high degree of emotional exhaustion can predict lower self-rated performance and higher intention to quit work which is a consequence of low job satisfaction
