An Empirical Analysis on Emotional Self

Awareness Among IT Sector Employees

M. Surya Kumar1, Dr.N. Shani2
1

Ph.D Research Scholar

Department of Management Studies, Karpagam University, Coimbatore, India
2
Director-Research
Nehru Institute of Information Technology and Management, Tamil Nadu, India
International Journal of Research in Management Sciences
Volume 3, Issue 1, January-March, 2015, pp. 14-20
ISSN Online: 2347-5943 Print: 2347-8780, DOA : 17032015
IASTER 2014, www.iaster.com

ABSTRACT
Emotional intelligence is the ability of an individual to use emotions properly for positive results. This
has an impact on many aspects of our personal and professional life. Emotional intelligent theory tells
that highly emotionally intelligent individuals are likely to experience a very good life. The paper aims
to know about the level of emotional intelligence among IT sector employees. The sample of 200
respondents from the IT sector from Bangalore city was considered for this study and their emotional
intelligence level was assessed using appropriate tools. From the analysis it is found that program
analyst have high level of emotional intelligence. The results of the study are discussed within the
context of the limitations of the current study and findings from the previous study.
Keywords: Emotional intelligence, Emotions, IT Sector.

1. INTRODUCTION
Indian IT industry has been experiencing a tremendous growth in service sector. The software industry
has grown without hindrance. The Indian software sector has expanded almost twice as quickly as the
world leading US software industry in recent years. The information technology (IT) sector in India holds
the distinction of advancing the country into the new-age economy. Bangalore is the second largest city in
the state of Karnataka. The success and growth of every industry are directly dependent on the quality
skills and expertise of employees, in other hand employees and EI and inseparable, vital human resources
knowing their emotional intelligence is essential.

2. THEORETICAL CONCEPTS
Emotion is always pointed to the feelings that are towards someone or something. EI allows us to feel the
emotional kind of several groups, events and communication. It has a huge power over learning.
Emotional intelligence is always shown to be positive which is similar to the job performance at all levels.
Even though it appears and specifically relevant in job that asks a higher degree of social interaction.
Emotional intelligence gives an ability to test reason with emotions and to apply the emotion to improve

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International Journal of Research in Management Sciences

Volume-3, Issue-1, January-March, 2015, www.iaster.com

ISSN

(O) 2347-5943
(P) 2347-8780

the thought. EI is defined as the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and others and also for
motivating ourselves and for motivating emotions in others and in our relationships
Emotional intelligence gives an ability to test reason with emotions and to apply the emotion to improve
the thought. EI is defined as how to behave with the right people at the right place at the right time.
Though the field of emotional intelligence is a fairly new one the word emotional intelligence itself
was coined first and used in literary writing by Peter Salovey and John Mayer in 1990, the concept has
become immensely popular as it explains and provides evidence on how people with a good IQ
sometimes fail.
Emotional intelligence is of four mental processes, which are,

Perception
Assimilation
Understanding
Managing

Emotional Intelligence has two types of competencies personal and social competencies. These
competencies include five major factors namely self-awareness, self-control, self-motivation, empathy
and social skills. Bar - on et.al, (2006) defined EI as the sum of social and emotional competencies of
individuals communicating with himself and others in order to cope with environmental pressure and
demands. He also maintained that emotional intelligence is a series of collection of unknown
capabilities, competencies, and skills which can have a strong effect on individuals capabilities in order
to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures.

3. COMPONENTS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Self-understanding
Managing emotion
Motivating oneself
Empathy
Social skills

1) Self-Understanding
This means the ability to notice perceptions of you. It means also the ability to recognize your emotion
day by day. Its the start for successful decision making. The real knowledge of your emotion gives a
reliable feeling of what kind of consequence follow from different choices. How our emotions have an
impact on our activities and what we think. These skills are determined to make ourselves to have a
clear understanding.
2) Managing Emotions
Managing emotion is also important in the situation in which we are filled with worries, troubles,
irritability. If a superior cannot manage his/her own emotion, it is not very probable that he/she is good
in understanding the complicated net of the subordinate. All the talents drive our emotions and
willingness. Emotions help to:

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International Journal of Research in Management Sciences

Volume-3, Issue-1, January-March, 2015, www.iaster.com

ISSN

(O) 2347-5943
(P) 2347-8780

1) Identify and make a note on our own emotions and also on our opponents.
2) Clearly tell the source of the feelings.
3) Share about the feelings of you and your opponents.
4) Convey your feelings in a diplomatic way. This can be done easily by understanding the situations
correctly and reacting to them.
3) Empathy
Empathy is defined as Understanding other people and to feel compassion to their feelings and emotion. It
also tells that we should understand the needs of other people and the capacity to see different persons. The
Higher level employees with low level of understanding arent good to understand weak signals from their
low level employees. Understanding superiors are subtle, which is said that they have the good skill to
avoid hurting the emotions of their people. These skills determine how we manage with other people.
Understanding is the ability to identify a person's feel, and link it to the situation. In this corporate world
Falvey (1986) has said the need of saying "Thank you" to increase productivity. Understanding the
feeling of others is a signal level of our Emotional Intelligence. Empathy is not just a dreamy idea, it is a
truth. Being able to understand another's feeling is not only a theoretical concept.
4) Social Skills
The superior with a high level of social skills have the ability to use these skills in leading, persuading,
negotiating, and in teamwork. Superior should understand the short period motivators and also the long
period motivators in variety of people. In communication skill the most important thing is not always the
real message but the impact and reaction it makes these skills are important in making desired reaction in
those people.

4. DIRECT EFFECT OF EI IN ORGANIZATION

EI is claimed to affect a wide array of work behaviors, including employee commitment, teamwork,
development of talent, innovation, quality of service, and customer loyalty. According to Cooper Research
attests that people with high levels of emotional intelligence experience more career success, build stronger
personal relationships, lead more effectively, and enjoy better health than those with low EQ.
Emotionally intelligent individuals presumably succeed at communicating their ideas, goals, and
intentions in interesting and assertive ways, thus making others feel better suited to the occupational
environment also EI may be related to the social skills needed for teamwork, with high EI individuals
particularly adept at designing projects that involve infusing products with feelings and aesthetics.
EI may also be useful for group development since a large part of effective and smooth team work is
knowing each others strengths and weaknesses and leveraging strengths whenever possible (Bar-On,
1997). EI has also been claimed to be an important factor in organizational leadership. George (2000)
used the Salovey, Mayer, and Caruso four branch model of EI as a heuristic framework for outlining the
importance of EI in effective leadership.

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International Journal of Research in Management Sciences

Volume-3, Issue-1, January-March, 2015, www.iaster.com

ISSN

(O) 2347-5943
(P) 2347-8780

Leaders can use intense emotions as signals to direct their attention to issues in need of immediate attention,
and can use emotions to prioritize demands. They can also better anticipate how well their followers will
react to different circumstances and changes. High EI leaders are claimed, according to this model, to
generate excitement, enthusiasm, and optimism in the work environment and are said to be able to maintain
an atmosphere of cooperation and trust through the development of high quality interpersonal relations.
Finally, EI is claimed to influence ones ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and
pressures, clearly an important set of behaviors to harness under stressful work conditions.

5. REVIEW OF PAST RESEARCH

Few past researches on this study include:
Mishra, Prashant & Dhar, Upinder. In his research Emotional Intelligence as a correlate of Thinking
Orientation among future managers, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 2001, Vol.36, No.3, Jan
01. pp. 323-344, aims to know about the EI among the future managers in a survey of 210 students from
management institutes explored the relationship between thinking orientation and emotional intelligence.
Results revealed that students with whole brain thinking possess significantly higher emotional
intelligence than those with right brain or left brain thinking. Age was found to be significantly correlated
with emotional intelligence irrespective of thinking orientation.
Priti Suman Mishra and A K Das Mohanputra in their study Relevance of emotional intelligence for
effective job performance: An empirical study published in Vikalpa, Vol. 35, Issue. 1, January-March
2010 aims to know about the effective job performance in relation with emotional intelligence among
various organizations in Delhi NCR. Having the sample size of 90 the study explored the relationship
between the emotional intelligence and performance assessment, which resulted that the executives with
high level of experience are significantly higher on emotional intelligence when compared with less
experienced executives.
Dr. Vanathi vembar and Dr. S. NAgarajan in their study Emotional intelligence and organizational
stress, in the journal IPEDR, Vol. 12, 2011, assessed the psychological effects of emotional intelligence
and organizational stress with the sample size of 480 executives from the banking industry in Chennai.
Since there is a need to correlate emotional intelligence and organizational stress simple correlation was
adopted. The study resulted that executives with high and moderate levels of emotional intelligence had a
similar levels of organizational stress.

6. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The study focused on identifying the factors related to emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence may
play a positive and negative role in work place. Positive emotions create a more expansive and inclusive
range of behaviors with a win-win bias. They encourage more creative and generative thinking and exchange
of ideas and creation of consensus. Negative emotions like anger, fear or disgust spur to immediate action and
under dangerous or extreme circumstances such a fight or flight mechanism can ensure survival in the work
place. Research suggests that positive people tend to do better in the work place, and it isnt just people love
having them around when compared to cynical or negative people tend to have better capacity, increased
attention with correctness, which is best in creating new ideas when compared to person who are unhelpful.

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International Journal of Research in Management Sciences

Volume-3, Issue-1, January-March, 2015, www.iaster.com

ISSN

(O) 2347-5943
(P) 2347-8780

7. OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

The purpose of the research is,

To understand the socio demographic profile of the respondents.

To study the level of EI among the IT sector Employees.

8. HYPOTHESIS OF THE STUDY

H1: There is no significant relation between the demographic profiles of the respondents and assessing
level of EI among themselves.

9. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study is to know about the phenomena related to emotional intelligence of IT sector employees from
Bangalore city. It identifies the level of emotional intelligence based on gender, educational level. The
study provided a foundation in exploring the impact of emotional intelligence of IT employees in their
career success which will further help the organizations to create best ideas and draw suitable plans to
increase the level of emotional intelligence among them.

10. METHODOLOGY
The IT sector of Bangalore city is the sampling frame for this study, Four different IT companies were
selected for the study where the population was around 500 employees. The sample size was confined to
200 employees to represent the optimal of the total employees engaged in IT companies. From the sample
of 200 respondents was drawn by systematic random sampling technique. Descriptive research design
was used for this study.

11. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Table 1: Chi-Square
Designation and Assessment of Emotion in IT Employees

Designation
HR manager
Software engineer
Assistant software engineer
Technical lead
Team leader
Program analyst
Total

Assessment of Emotion in Oneself

Low
Moderate
High
10
74
14
10.2%
75.5%
14.3%
3
19
8
10%
6 3 .3 %
26.7%
2
16
1
10 .5 %
8 4 .2 %
5 .3 %
2
21
4
7.4%
7 7 .8 %
14.8%
5
4
2
45 .5 %
3 6 .4 %
18.2%
2
8
5
13 .3 %
5 3 .3 %
33.3%
24
142
34

18

Total
98
100%
30
10 0 .0 %
19
10 0 .0 %
27
10 0 .0 %
11
10 0 .0 %
15
10 0 .0 %
200

International Journal of Research in Management Sciences

Volume-3, Issue-1, January-March, 2015, www.iaster.com

ISSN

(O) 2347-5943
(P) 2347-8780

Particulars
Value DF Asymp. Sig. (2- sided)
Pearson chi-square
20.895 a 10
.022
Likelihood Ratio
16.970 10
.075
Linear by linear association
.013
1
.911
N of valid cases
200
Null Hypothesis (Ho)
There is no significance association between designation and assessment in emotion on oneself.
Alternative Hypothesis (H1)
There is significance association between designation and assessment in emotion on oneself.

12. DISCUSSIONS
Percentage of respondents with high level of assessment in emotion on yourself is found high among the
respondents who belong to program analyst. The percentage of respondents with low level of assessment in
emotion on oneself is found high among the respondents who belong to technical lead. The interpreted
results by chi-square as above, reveals that at 5% level of significance the table value of chi-square is 16.92
which is less than the calculated chi-square value (20.895) and then the alternative hypothesis is accepted.

13. RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the findings it is recommended that :

IT jobs involve interaction with co-workers or external stake holders, so employees need EI to
work effectively.

Emotional intelligence is suggested as an essential learning outcome in collaborative movement

towards job involvement.

IT professionals must develop EI for individual development which influences high job
involvement.

Capitalizing on personal strengths and improving on weakness must be a target for IT

professionals.

14. CONCLUSION
The study has demonstrated the use of statistical tool to know the level of emotional intelligence among
IT employees. Emotions and emotional intelligence have been established as being highly relevant
aspects of the work place. Although the study has not used the statistical methods exhaustively, this
study will be a framework for researchers for the measurement of level emotional intelligence among IT
employees. It is seen that the suppression of emotion is not useful and that teaching people to suppress
their emotions is part of trying to control them. Emotionally competent people will express emotion
appropriate to the situation and their needs and they will not seek to suppress emotions in others.

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International Journal of Research in Management Sciences

Volume-3, Issue-1, January-March, 2015, www.iaster.com

ISSN

(O) 2347-5943
(P) 2347-8780

REFERENCES
[1] C.R. Kothari, Research Methodology Methods and Techniques, Wishwa prakashan, second edition1990

[2] K. N. Krishnaswamy, Sivakumar, M. Natarajan, Management Research Methodology, Dorling

Kindersley (India) Publications.

[3] Kumar Pranit, Organizational Behavior, Gen next publication, 2010.

[4] Steven L. MCshane, Mary Annovon Glinow, Organizational Behavior, Tata McGraw-hill Publishing
Company, 2007.

[5] Daniel Goleman, Working With Emotional Intelligence, Bantam Books Publications, 2001.
[6] Mishra, Prashant & Dhar, Upinder. Emotional Intelligence as a Correlate of Thinking Orientation
among Future Managers, Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 2001, Vol.36, No.3, Jan 01. pp.
323-344.

[7] Priti Suman Mishra and A K Das Mohanputra. Relevance of Emotional Intelligence for Effective
Job Performance: An Empirical Study published in Vikalpa, Vol. 35, Issue. 1, January-March 2010.

[8] Dr. Vanathi Vembar and Dr. S. Nagarajan.Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Stress, in the
Journal IPEDR, Vol. 12, 2011.

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