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Exploring the role of ethics in the emotional intelligence-organizational commitment relationship

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Abstract

Today, organizations are facing a high rate of attrition which is a serious issue for human resource managers. Gaining the commitment of employees towards their organization, though challenging, is rewarding as organizational commitment (OC) is a precursor to employee engagement. Another challenge is about maintaining an ethical climate. Ethical misconduct by organizations not only brings them a heavy monetary price but also incurs non-monetary price in terms of customer and employee attrition and diminished business reputation. In the new workplace with greater emphasis on flexibility, teams and a strong customer orientation, we feel that development of emotional intelligence (EI) of the workforce can be the key to meet these challenges. This paper explores these three critical constructs viz., EI, workplace ethics and OC together, and tests whether workplace ethics mediates the EI–OC relationship using structural equation modelling. We conducted an empirical study in Guwahati, a fast-growing tier II city in India and a business hub for north-east India, on a sample of 400 managers working in the service sector. Our study found that emotional intelligence is a strong predictor of ethical perception and organization commitment. Also, ethical perception significantly affects organizational commitment. Although we reject the hypothesis that ethics mediates the EI–OC relationship, the importance of workplace ethics cannot be undermined as it can build intangible organizational assets such as goodwill and public image. Since individual ethical standards create ethical climate, organizations need to teach their people how to recognize morally questionable situations and the consequence of unethical conduct.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Business Administration, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India

    Monoshree Mahanta

  2. North Eastern Regional Institute of Management, Guwahati, Assam, India

    Karabi Goswami

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  1. Monoshree Mahanta
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Correspondence to Monoshree Mahanta.

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Appendix

Appendix

Annexure I: CFA output for measurement model (Fig. 2)

Minimum was achieved

Chi-square = 332.496

Degrees of freedom = 194

Probability level = 0.000

Table 16 Regression weights: (group number 1—default model)
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Annexure II

Fig. 7
figure 7

2nd- Order measurement model for emotional intellligence

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Table 17 showing model fit of the 2nd-order EI measurement model
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Annexure III

Table 18 Items for Measuring Latent Constructs
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Annexure IV: Structural model output—direct effect model (Fig. 5)

Table 19 Standardized regression weights
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Table 20 Standardized total effects
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Table 21 Standardized direct effects
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Table 22 Standardized indirect effects
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Mahanta, M., Goswami, K. Exploring the role of ethics in the emotional intelligence-organizational commitment relationship. Asian J Bus Ethics 9, 275–303 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13520-020-00110-x

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