تاثیر هوش هیجانی در عملکرد کاری کارکنان واحد IT: یک مطالعه جنسیتی Effect of Emotional Intelligence on Job Performance of IT employees: A gender study

1. Introduction National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) reported that IT sector has become the most important factor for growth in Indian economy and it has contributed towards growing international presence in India. IT sector is also influencing the lives of people as it is contributing towards various socioeconomic parameters like employment and helping people improve their standard of living [1]. The growth and contribution of IT sector makes it an important area of study particularly with respect to enhancing the performance of employees and selecting the right candidates for important jobs [2]. Research suggests that IQ accounts for only 20-25% variance in predicting one’s personal and professional success and factors like Emotional Intelligence are more essential than academics [3]. Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to perceive emotion, integrate emotion to facilitate thought, understand emotions, and to regulate emotions to promote personal growth [4,5]. Gender Differences in Emotional Intelligence have been given blended reactions from various analysts. It was noticed that when Emotional Intelligence was taken as a competence there were no huge contrasts in the EI of men and women though EI varied with gender at whatever point Emotional Intelligence was dealt with as an ability. Analysts like Goleman [3], Bar-on [6], Petrides and Furnham [7], Alumran and Punamaki [8] proposed that Emotional Intelligence did not vary with gender while researchers like Mayer et al. [9], Schutte et al. [10], Brackette and Mayer [11], Ciarrochi et al. [12], Palmer et al. [13], Mandell and Pherwani [14] recommended that Emotional Intelligence is different among men and women. As the researchers in the current paper have taken Emotional Intelligence as an ability, we expect contrasts among EI scores of male and female respondents, which characterizes the first and second hypothesis of this research. H01 = There are no gender differences in Emotional Intelligence. Confirmation of gender differences at workplace can be found in numerous fields [15,16]. The embodiment of gender differences is that when confronted with a decision between similarly qualified men and women, bosses want to select men. Therefore, gender difference prompts a higher obstacle for ladies, and henceforth ladies who can cross the obstacle would outperform than their male counterparts. A few researchers propose that gender difference is a huge indicator of job performance among workers. Burleson et al. [17] recommended that a specific gender performs better in specific jobs over the other gender and said that gender is a critical indicator of execution at working environment. This suggests that gender difference exists in job performance which makes us define our second hypothesis.