Emotional intelligence: Rhetoric or reality?

The construct of emotional intelligence is confusing, and emotional intelligence researchers must "seem mad" to be embroiled in debate. To be sure, emotional intelligence has been one of the more controversial constructs to be considered in personnel psychology. There have been wide-ranging and substantial claims about the potential of emotional intelligence in predicting a broad range of workplace behavior. This article assesses the efficacy of the emotional intelligence construct by examining variables that have an impact at the organizational level. In particular, it examines the impact of emotional intelligence on prosocial behaviors, antisocial behaviors, and leadership. This article concludes with some recommendations for advancing research into emotional intelligence in the area of personnel psychology, and in particular, it comments on the need for emotional intelligence research to be extended to cover macro-organizational variables such as culture and climate

We are all mad in wonderland: an organizational culture framework for emotions and emotional intelligence research

Despite ongoing controversy, emotional intelligence is emerging as a potentially important variable in furthering our understanding of individual behavior in organizations. In this respect, however, most of the research in relation to emotional intelligence has been at the individual level of behavior. In this chapter, we develop a framework for considering the impact of emotional intelligence at the organizational level. Specifically, we map Mayer and Salovey's four emotional intelligence abilities onto Shein's three-level organizational culture schema. We conclude with a discussion of implications for managers and suggest that the model we propose may prove to be a useful starting point for future research into emotional intelligence as an organizational phenomenon

A call to context

The novel format of IOP focuses on interactive exchanges on topics of importance to science and practice in our field. The journal takes a focal article-peer commentary-response format. A focal article is a position paper on an important issue for the field (or potentially a pair of papers taking opposite sides in a debate). Such a focal article might summarize evidence on an issue and take a position as to implications for science, practice, or public policy. The paper might focus on a basic science issue, an applied science issue, a practice issue, or a public policy issue; many would be a blend. The focal article will be followed by a series of peer commentaries. These could challenge or critique the original article, expand on issues not addressed in the focal article, or draw out implications not developed in the focal article. The goal is to include commentaries from various perspectives, including science, practice, and international perspectives. These commentaries will be followed by a response from the original author of the focal paper