Driving Creativity and Innovation through Emotional Intelligence (EI): A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

With the advancing customer needs, it becomes important for companies to predict what they will think and feel and adapt accordingly. Understanding and managing the emotions of internal and external stakeholders can help organizations improve the quality of their innovations. The purpose of this paper is to understand how EI skills can drive creativity and innovation in organizations. The paper through a systematic literature review presents the various intervening variables, that is strategies and behavior, that can ignite the relationship, highlights the role of EI in various stages of the innovation process, proposes a conceptual model illustrating how EI drives creativity and innovation, and identifies research gaps in the area. The findings will help professionals build EI competencies and use them to drive creativity and innovation, and organizations to promote factors that support the relationship. It will allow academics to drive new research using the research gaps identified.