Emotional intelligence (EI) is a well established personal characteristic. It has been viewed as a critical factor which can influence an individual's academic achievement, ability to work and potential to succeed. When working in a group, emotion is fundamentally connected to the group members' interaction and ability to work as a team, and the ability of a group member to intelligently perceive and understand other members' emotions could make themselves more effective in their work. This ability is known as Group emotional intelligence (Group EI). Previous research has shown that a group with high Group EI performs better when working as a team than groups with lower Group EI, as well as achieves better outcomes. Despite the acknowledged importance of Group EI, most research presents Group EI using the average of each group members' individual EI. It is argued that this Group EI measurement is less representative, as it does not consider other factors within a group (e.g the composition of a group and the role of each individual). Thus, this research looks into the question of how to more representatively measure Group EI in group work. It is proposed that the use of the weighted average of each individual's EI is more representative if the weight is based on an individual's influence in the group. Recent research also demonstrates that the Group EI is a powerful predictor for the group performance. As the proposed Group EI measurement in this thesis claims to be more representative, it is also necessary to demonstrate the impact of the Group EI using the proposed measurement approach on group performance.
This research adopts a multi-methodological research design and a mixed methods approach, involving a combination of both qualitative and quantitative techniques to establish a metric for Group EI and to assess its impact on group performance. It involves 12 case studies on 12 project groups composed of 70 MSc Engineering Management students, and quantitative data collection from individuals as well as groups using two questionnaires. The information recorded from the case study is interpreted to reflect the emotional characteristics of each group, and the data collected using the questionnaires is analysed using statistical analysis. The results demonstrate that the proposed Group EI measurement is more representative than previous approaches. In addition, the results also demonstrate that teams with a high Group EI are more likely to have a better group performance.
The findings from this research provide a new method for understanding and measuring Group EI, which will potentially provide new insights into the way team members are selected or prepared for project work. It will be beneficial to those in charge of organising groups if the proposed Group EI measurement approach is adopted
