Why is employees’ emotional intelligence important? The effects of EI on stress-coping styles and job satisfaction in the hospitality industry

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of hospitality employees’ emotional intelligence (EI) on their stress-coping styles and job satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach: The sample consisted of 366 food and beverage employees in the Korean hospitality industry. The validity and reliability of the respondents’ replies regarding EI, stress-coping styles and job satisfaction were tested through exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Once the measure was validated, a structural equation model was used to test the validity of the proposed model and hypotheses. Findings: The results showed that the elements of EI (i.e. self-emotion appraisal [SEA], use of emotion [UOE], regulation of emotion [ROE] and others’ emotion appraisal [OEA]) had a significant, positive effect on the cognitive-appraisal coping style, whereas only SEA and UOE had a significant, positive effect on the problem-solving coping style. Meanwhile, SEA had a significant, negative effect on the emotion-focused coping style. In addition, employees’ problem-solving and cognitive-appraisal stress-coping styles showed a significant, positive effect on their job satisfaction. Employees’ UOE and ROE demonstrated a significant, positive effect on job satisfaction. Research limitations/implications: The generalizability and, therefore, implications are limited to the Korean hotels and family restaurants. Future research needs to closely examine models and variables which may become the causes of individual traits, relationship traits and leadership. Originality/value: Strategies to cope with stress and job satisfaction used by family restaurant employees showed more sensitive effects of control than hotel employees did in the organic causal relationships between EI and strategies to cope with stress/job satisfaction. The results of this study, which indicate that hospitality companies can increase employees’ job satisfaction by enhancing their employees’ EI, suggest detailed and practical alternatives to human resource management, as employees with higher degrees of EI can bring positive outcomes to both organizations and employees. Hospitality employees’ EI is significant in terms of organizational performance.