THE MODERATING EFFECT OF WORK EXPERIENCE ON THE RELATIONSHIP

OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

(A Case Study of Pakistan and China Banking Sector)

Proposal for PhD thesis

Rabia Kanwal

1. Working Title
 Emotional Intelligence
2. Statement of Topic & Aims
The main focus of this research is to explore the relationship between emotional
intelligence and employee engagement with work experience as a moderating variable in the
banking sector of Pakistan and China. The banking sector is very imperative as it plays an
important role in the economy of Pakistan and China in both countries. The relationship of EI
and employee engagement has attracted considerable attention. Previous researchers focused
on various HR behaviours. Yet not much research has been conducted to examine the impact
of emotional intelligence and employee engagement in the banking sector of Pakistan and
China. This research, therefore, will facilitate to fill the gap and try to improve the
comprehension of the function of emotional intelligence in the banking sector of China and
Pakistan.

This research provides an absolute indulgent of the significance of emotional intelligence

to work experience and employee engagement. This research contributes a quota to
increasing the partial level of academic discussion on these variables from China and
Pakistan’s perspective and provides proposals for future study in this area.

3. Introduction
In the modern era, every organization is trying to create a competitive edge and fabricate a
well known reputation that facilitates it to achieve its intended goals. Employee engagement
is considered as one of the important factors that contribute in satisfying in the competitive
world. [ CITATION Woo06 \l 2057 ] States that engagement of employees’ should be
considered as main organizational strategy as engaged employees can create a competitive
edge in any organization. As stated by [ CITATION Ras13 \l 2057 ], employee engagement is
becoming an important topic for all organizations and among decision making personnel’s as
it associates positively to business performance results like productivity, employee retention,
customer loyalty, profitability, customer satisfaction and safety revenue growth.

Engagement of employees is a big challenge for the organizations. Managers of the

organizations must consider how to engage organization employees. To achieve an
organization’s strategic goals, organizations demand engaged employee who is energetic,
passionate and vicarious about his work. It demands employees’ who can exercise
discretionary efforts. Furthermore, organizations should direct emotions of the employees and
their hearts towards work and all this can be done by integrating EI into the work
environment [ CITATION Sul15 \l 2057 ].
 According to [ CITATION Kar07 \l 2057 ], disengagement of employee costs
organizations great amount of money as it hampers the goal attainment due to disengaged
employees’ turnover. Employees’ disengagement is becoming a global dilemma. [ CITATION
Gop06 \l 2057 ] argues that disengaged employees’ in Singapore are increasing at an
alarming level, which costs organizations billions of dollars, hence make decision makers
anxiety about the alarming phenomenon and trying to put its attempts to decrease it.
Disengagement of employees’ lead to physiological and physical health problems as it costs
organizations a lot, which deteriorate its business climate [ CITATION Cra05 \l 2057 ].

The Impact of emotional intelligence leads to positive emotions which can help to increase
engagement of employee. As stated by [ CITATION Rob06 \l 2057 ] employees’ engagement
can be achieved by creating a positive organizational environment where emotions such as
pride and involvement are encouraged, resulting lowers employee turnover, improving
organizational performance and better health. This research reveals that employee
engagement is affected by organizational environment. So if employees are encouraged by
such an environment, then it will increase the engagement level and this will help in retaining
the employees’ hence will result in enhancing the organizational performance. Emotional
intelligence is negatively associated with job burnout. Job burnout will decrease by
increasing emotional intelligence and this will lead to increased employee engagement as
described by [ CITATION Sch04 \l 2057 ].

Employee engagement role in the management is of great importance in the current

emotional intelligence literature. Furthermore, manager’s emotions have a strong impact on
the employee’s behaviours [ CITATION MBa00 \l 2057 ], emotional intelligence capability
is considered as an important factor to differentiate between unsuccessful and successful
managers [ CITATION Dul00 \l 2057 ]. When the impact of EI is fostered by the organization
managers, it will increase employees’ motivation, performance, cooperation, profit and
productivity as explained by [ CITATION Geo00 \l 2057 ]. Hence, due to these reasons, the
EI concept cannot be separated from the employee engagement concept.

Past studies investigated the association between emotional intelligence and constructive
organizational outcomes like employee engagement [ CITATION Rav11 \l 2057 ]
[ CITATION Sch14 \l 2057 ], organizational citizenship behaviour [ CITATION Yun10 \l
2057 ], organizational commitment [ CITATION Ala13 \l 2057 ] , leadership effectiveness
[ CITATION Ros05 \l 2057 ], job satisfaction [ CITATION Ngi14 \l 2057 ] but emotional
intelligence factors have not been studied widely with employee engagement and work
experience as a moderating variable in the banking sector of Pakistan. Hence, this research
fills the gap in the literature.

Emotional intelligence and employee engagement have attained considerable attention. Yet
not much research has been conducted to check the impact of emotional intelligence on
employee engagement, particularly in the banking sector of Pakistan. This research, therefore,
will assist to fill the gap and attempt to improve employee engagement and emotional
intelligence role in the banking sector of Pakistan [ CITATION Ban13 \l 2057 ].

In global economic recession view and heightened competition in the international

banking sector, it is indisputable that bank management seeks to recognize and control
outstanding strategies for service delivery [ CITATION Eme15 \l 2057 ].

The banking sector of Pakistan is very important because it contributes a major portion in
Pakistan’s economy in services sector. Regardless of the world global financial disaster and
bad economic conditions banking sector had produced unwavering results [ CITATION
Ban13 \l 2057 ].

Hence, the general purpose of this research is to advise different ways to the managers to
control their emotional intelligence for increasing the engagement of employee in the
organizations [ CITATION HoN15 \l 2057 ].

4.Research Question
Several research questions have been developed in the research to examine and explore the
effect of emotional intelligence on the employee engagement in the banking sector of district
Multan, Pakistan. Following are the research questions communicate directly to the ideas of
this research by seeking to describe the emotional intelligence and engagement relationship
between employees of the banking sector.
1. What impact emotional intelligence has on the engagement of managerial and non
managerial level employees in the banking sector of China and Pakistan?
2. What is the role of work experience as a moderator on the relationship of
emotional intelligence and employee engagement?
Hypothesis
From the above statement of the problem, following hypotheses are developed.
The main hypotheses
1. Emotional intelligence has a positive impact on employee engagement in the
banking sector of Pakistan and China.
 2. Work experience has a moderating effect in the relationship between emotional
intelligence and employee engagement in the banking sector of China and
Pakistan.

Conceptual Framework

Emotional Intelligence
Employee Engagement
 Self emotions appraisal
 Others emotions appraisal  Vigour
 Use of emotions  Dedication
 Regulation of emotion  Absorption

Work Experience

Figure.1.A proposed research Framework

In this research, it is to recognize the association between emotional intelligence and

employee engagement. Figure 1 demonstrates the planned conceptual framework of EI and
employee engagement in the banking sector of Pakistan and China.

5. Literature Review

5.1. Employee Engagement:

Employee engagement can be explained as employing employee’s selves towards
organization roles; employees’ exert themselves physically, in engagement, emotionally,
cognitively and mentally when playing their roles in their respective organizations. The
physical area of employee engagement associated with physical energies utilized by the
employees’ to perform their tasks. The cognitive area is related to employee’s beliefs about
their organization, working conditions and about their leaders. The emotional area of
employee engagement is associated with employee’s emotions towards organization, working
conditions and about their leaders [ CITATION Sul15 \l 2057 ]

[ CITATION Kah90 \l 2057 ] Explained employee engagement as the binding of people’s

selves to the work; they fully invest their cognitive, emotional and physical resources in their
employment. In essence, engagement of the work is visible as involvement, energy and
striving towards organizational goal achievement (Macey & Schneider, 2008; Schaufeli,
Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002). According to [ CITATION Esc12 \l 2057 ],
emotions play an important role in connecting people and people in their organizations. As a
result, emotions play a significant role in employee engagement.

Employee engagement leads to constructive organizational outcomes like organizational

productivity, customer satisfaction, decrease turnover of employees, increase profitability and
mishaps at the workplace [ CITATION Har02 \l 2057 ]. Employees’ engagement unlocks
potentials and is the key to increase productivity. Engagement of employee shapes the lives
of working employees’ to job satisfaction which allows an organization to compete and
sustain in globalization and in a competitive world [ CITATION Mac11 \l 2057 ].

Employee engagement is an important part of HR managers because if managers fail to

engage employees’, organization’s strategy would be failing to achieve. Engagement of
employee manipulates performance of employees’ greatly [ CITATION Dal12 \l 2057 ],
hence leads to job commitment, job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behaviour
[ CITATION Sak06 \l 2057 ].

Engagement of employee is a psychological state with behavioural expression that is

associated with performance (Rich, Lepine, & Crawford, 2010; Shuck, Reio, & Rocco, 2011).
According to Kahn, engagement of employee was introduced for the first time in the research
literature in 1990. Moreover, some researchers argued that employee engagement is still a
new concept [ CITATION Mac08 \l 2057 ].

Engaged employees are the real assets to the organization and are linked to provide the
following values; more committed to their organization, commitment to their roles, more
productive, lower turnover rate, helping behaviour towards their colleagues, better
professional relations with supervisors, colleagues, clients, higher profitability, higher energy,
efficacy and involvement (Abraham, 2012; Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, & Taris, 2008;
Catteeuw, Flynn, & Vonderhorst, 2007; Granatino, Verkamp, & Parker, 2013).

The questionnaire relating to employee engagement includes three dimensions which are
vigour, dedication and absorption developed by (Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova, 2006).

Vigour can be defined as resilience, high energy, employees’ willingness to put their efforts
on the job, persistence when confronted with problems.

Dedication can be explained as a strong participation in work, sense of pride, enthusiasm and
inspiration.
Absorption can be narrated as a pleasant state of being absorbed in the work, being unable to
disengage from the job and experiencing time passing speedily.

5.2. Emotional Intelligence:

The emotional intelligence subject was first introduced in 1880 by Charles Darwin and he
published his first most popular work in 1872 in the field. Emotional intelligence first
definition was originated from Mayer and Salovey works in 1872. Fundamental definition by
Mayer and Salvie on emotional intelligence was as follows: "Emotional intelligence is a kind
of emotional information processing which includes accurate evaluation of one's own and the
others' emotions, appropriate expression and arrangement of emotions to enhance living level
both quantitatively and qualitatively" [ CITATION Fat12 \l 2057 ].

Emotional intelligence literature grew drastically over the last two decades when
[ CITATION May90 \l 2057 ] published their first paper on the emotional intelligence subject.
The academic society has also participated to the emerging popularity of EI.

Emotionally intelligent employees’ are able to save the resources due to their capability to
comprehend their own as well as others emotions and their ability to regulate and use their
emotions successfully. They have the ability to deal well with stressful conditions and
safeguard their cognitive and physical energy to execute their duties well [ CITATION
Sul15 \l 2057 ].

Emotional intelligence studies and employee engagement are starting to construct a case
that EI and EE concepts are linked to individual improvement, organizational performance
and leadership. Emotionally intelligent individuals have been found to accept higher
performance, generally perform well those with low intelligence and have a higher position
within an organization (Law, Wong, & Song, 2004; Lopes, Grewal, Kadis, Gall, & Salovey,
2006; Van Rooy & Viswesvaran, 2004).

A unique perspective was offered by Mayer and Salovey (1997) model of emotional
intelligence in contrast to the Bar On model (2006) and Goleman models (1995, 1998).The
Mayer and Salovey model focused on abilities whereas other models have a greater emphasis
on personal characteristics. Less criticism is received by Mayer and Salovey model instead of
Bar On and Golman models and is considered to be more accurate and scientific as it ties
closer to a true picture of emotional intelligence tests instead of self assessment [ CITATION
Spe05 \l 2057 ]. The evaluation can be distinguished as a standard report and is considered
the valuable criterion for psychometric examination (Mayer, 2007). Many other researchers
have argued that the model of Mayer and Salovey has the most guarantee for widespread
recognition in the academic society [ CITATION Das07 \l 2057 ][ CITATION Sal05 \l 2057 ],
and considered as a valid model of EI [ CITATION Dau05 \l 2057 ].

Past researches check the relationship between EI and leadership (Fu, 2014; Gopal,
Worker disengagement continues to cost Singapore, 2006; Littlejohn, 2012; Podsakoff,
MacKenzie, Lee, & Podsakoff, 2003; Reed, 2014, 2014 Jun 02), between EI and
values/culture (Robertson-Schule, 2014; Rustucci, 2011), and between values/culture and
leadership (Rosete & Ciarrochi, 2005; Reed, 2014, 2014 Jun 02).

According to Wong and Law (2002), a new questionnaire was developed based on the
emotional intelligence model established by Mayer and Salovey in 1997 [ CITATION
Law04 \l 2057 ]. Many researchers have used WLEIS and verify its validity as well as
reliability [ CITATION Nas11 \l 2057 ](Fukuda, Saklofske, Tamaoka, Fung, Miyaoka, &
Kiyama, 2011; Li, Jian An, Yuping, Yuantuo, & Sida, 2014). The dimensions of WLEIS
consist of four sections and sixteen items. It was calculated on a 7 point scale.

5.3. “Meyer and Salovey" Emotional Intelligence Model

Self emotions appraisal judges the employees’ self perceived talent to comprehend his or
her feelings.

Others emotions appraisal assesses the self perceived capability to identify his or her
feelings.

Use of emotions gauges the self perceived inclination to stimulate oneself to increase
performance.

Regulation of emotion highlights on the self perceived talent to control one’s feelings.

Experience is associated to individual knowledge, skills and abilities which can be developed
through informal and formal education [ CITATION Van12 \l 2057 ]. [ CITATION She11 \l
2057 ] explained experience as the skills and knowledge that individuals possess through the
participation or experience to a specific event.

Moderating variable can be defined as one that exerts strong contingent hallmarks on the
relationship of dependent and independent variable [ CITATION Sek10 \l 2057 ]. At the
same time, [ CITATION Bar86 \l 2057 ] recommended that moderator variable function is to
modify the strength or the path of the relationship between dependent and independent
variables. Though, this research managed to maintain the relationship between dependent,
independent and the moderating variable, however, the impact of work experience as a
moderator of the relation between EI and Employee engagement.

6. Method/ Approach
6.1Population and Sample

The researcher will select Pakistani and china domestic and foreign banks for the study as
this financial sector considers the most vibrant and dynamic sector of the economy.
Development in banking sector taking place during the past few years in terms of
geographical coverage, range of services, technology etc. Managerial and non managerial
level employees with convenience sampling will be selected for the study as managers are
considered the most important and appropriate respondents.
6.2Data Collection and Analysis

The researcher will adopt a quantitative technique for the study. Both primary and
secondary data collection techniques will be used for the study. Primary data will be collected
through a structured questionnaire. Secondary data will be collected through articles, internet.
Internal validity will be measured by using Cronbach Alpha technique. Data analysis will be
done by using SPSS software. Statistical tools such as regression and correlation matrix will
be used to analyze the data.

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