Influence of emotional intelligence of employees on their inovative behaviour and the mediating effect of internal social capital

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the influence of the emotional intelligence (El) of employees on their innovative behaviour, and examine how the influence mechanism is mediated by internal social capital. The El was broken down into four dimensions, namely, self-emotion appraisal, other's emotion appraisal, use of emotions, regulation of emotions. The research data were collected through a questionnaire survey on 250 employees. Through data analysis, it is learned that all four dimensions of the El promote the innovative behaviour and internal social capital of employees; internal social capital partially mediates how the El influences the innovative behaviour of employees; an enterprise must improve the El of its employees, boost their internal social capital, and facilitate communication between employees, thereby enhancing their innovation ability and performance. The research results provide a feasible way to improve innovation in enterprises.