Emotional Intelligence

Emotional Intelligence

1. Emotional Intelligence in Different Cultures:China.

Organisations compete and succeed when they are able to identify and implement effective strategies. In The Art of War, Sun Tzu states: “The one with many strategic factors on his side wins….The one with few strategic factors on his side loses. In this way, I can tell who will win and who will lose.” (Sun Tzu)

Emotional intelligence in the work place is one strategic factor that organisations can leverage through human resources management to create competitive advantage.

Emotional intelligence is broadly defined as: “The ability to perceive accurately, appraise, and express emotion; the ability to access and/or generate feelings when they facilitate thought; the ability to understand emotion and emotional knowledge; and the ability to regulate emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth.” (Mayer and Salovey in Salovey and Sluyter 1997, p. 10)

Abilities relating to emotional intelligence are generally categorised into five domains: self-awareness, managing emotions, empathy, handling relationships and motivating oneself (Mayer et al. 1999). Although there are variations of the domains in literature, these categories are generally accepted by many theorists in this emerging field of research (Ashkanasy et al., p. 273).

China has been getting a lot of attention from business professionals, economists, and politicians (The Economist, 2004). China has the largest trade surplus with the United States and it is expected to overtake United States' gross domestic product by 2039 (Chandler, 2004). Its large labor pool and market has attracted billions of dollars from multi nationals and lifted over 250 million out of poverty since Deng Xiaoping initiated his “open door policy.” But moving from a centralized system of control to a market-oriented system has created its own set of problems for China (Tam, 2002).

Strategy that Chinese firms can use is to provide training to current employees to raise their ...