Abstract
The current research has been conducted with the aim of explaining the relationship between emotional intelligence and self-management with organizational innovation of health network employees of Tonkabon city. The research method was descriptive-correlative in nature, and applicable in terms of purpose. The statistical population of the research was made up of 181 employees of Tonkabon health network. For this purpose, 123 employees of the mentioned department were selected as the statistical sample of the study by simple random sampling method. In this research, three standard questionnaires of emotional intelligence by Nwaka and Ahayuzu (2009), self-management skills by Manz et al. (2000), and organizational innovation by Amid et al. (2002) were used. The findings of the research showed that the research model had a favorable fit and indicated that emotional intelligence and self-management were directly related to the organizational innovation of employees. The results of the research also showed that the components of social awareness and reward had the highest correlation with organizational innovation.
Extended Abstract
Introduction
Emotional intelligence is among the features that can help managers in the field of design and new thinking and compromise and adaptation to new conditions, especially in the field of decision-making in critical and undetermined conditions (Enayat Sani, 2018). In order to survive in the new paradigm of competition, organizations must look at innovation as a necessary strategy in the current era and, while recognizing environmental changes and developments, identify organizational indicators that influence organizational innovation in order to deal with them, and give the most appropriate answers to these changes (Akbari Zanjani, B. 2016).
Another category that causes employees' innovation in the organization is their self-management. Self-management is the foundation on which other management skills are built. In other words, intrapersonal skills are the introduction to interpersonal skills; and knowing and managing others requires knowing and managing yourself. This process is a sequential strategy through which individuals and employees of a group encourage and guide themselves to achieve a specific behavior and desired result (Mirkarimi, 2015). Self-management is a process in which employees in the organization motivate, guide, and direct themselves in order to achieve behavior, performance, or a special goal, or in the process of achieving them (Mirsafian, 2018; Bues, 2013).
Considering that emotional intelligence and self-management can play an important role in employee innovation and organizational performance, the researcher in this research seeks to answer the question whether there is a relationship between emotional intelligence and self-management with organizational innovation in the employees of Tonkabon health network.
Theoretical framework
Emotional intelligence is a factor that motivates a person when he fails, and due to having high social skills, leads to establishing a good relationship with people (Safari, 2020). Today, emotional intelligence has been explained as a type of intelligence that includes both the accurate understanding of one's own emotions and the accurate interpretation of the emotional states of others. He is aware of his feelings and how he controls and manages them. The remarkable thing about emotional intelligence is that the abilities of emotional intelligence are not inherent, they can be learned (Aflakifard, 2020).
Self-management is an orderly process through which individuals and employees of a group encourage and guide themselves to achieve a specific behavior and desired result (Mousavi & Sardari, 2019). The root of this concept goes back to the theories related to the impact on themselves, in which the emphasis on themselves is to find ways to control themselves and manage themselves (Heydari & Dasht, 2021).
Innovation refers to the ability to combine resources in a new way to create goods and new production methods and open new markets and even sometimes reorganize the industry (Azeem et al, 2021).
Jena & Goyal (2022) in their research investigated the sequential mediating effect of individual-group fit and adaptive performance in the relationship between emotional intelligence and employee innovation, and concluded that intelligence leads to better performance and ultimately organizational innovation, and individual- Group fitness and adaptive function change the strength of this effect incrementally.
Ziaei et al. (2022) investigated the relationship between organizational innovation and emotional intelligence with organizational commitment. The results of this research, which was conducted among the librarians of public libraries in Rasht city, showed that organizational innovation is a positive and significant predictor of organizational commitment, and emotional intelligence is a positive and significant predictor of organizational commitment.
Methodology
The research method is descriptive-correlative in nature, and applicable in terms of purpose. The statistical population of the research was made up of 181 employees of Tonkabon health network. A number of 123 people were selected as the statistical sample of the study based on the Karjesi and Morgan table and by simple random sampling. In order to collect data related to the variable of emotional intelligence, the questionnaire by Nwaka and Ahayouzo (2009); and for the variable of self-management skills, the questionnaire of Manz et al. (2000); and for the variable of organizational innovation, the questionnaire of Amid et al. (2002) were used.
Discussion and Results
In order to investigate the hypothesis of the research, the modeling of structural equations, the method of structural equation modeling with the help of spss software was used to test the hypotheses from inferential statistics. Then PLS software was used to test the hypotheses or the conceptual model of the research, and the results showed that the path coefficient of the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational innovation is (0.241). The t-statistic for this coefficient is also (5.271) and its value is more than the significance threshold, i.e. (1.96). Therefore, the first hypothesis based on the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational innovation is confirmed. The path coefficient of the strength of the relationship between self-management and organizational innovation is (0.559). The t-statistic for this coefficient is also (5.631) and its value is more than the threshold of significance i.e. (1.96). Therefore, the second hypothesis based on the relationship between self-management and organizational innovation is confirmed.
Conclusion
The present research was conducted with the aim of explaining the relationship between emotional intelligence and self-management with organizational innovation of employees of Tonkabon health network. This finding is consistent with the results of Mardani (2018) and Younesifar et al. (2014); Emotional intelligence is a set of abilities which helps us to establish a friendly and tolerant relationship with others in our personal or professional life. Emotional intelligence alone is the biggest factor for predicting a person's performance in the work environment and the strongest force for leadership and success. Characteristics such as the ability to excite and arouse oneself, endurance and stability against failure, not losing the spirit of empathy and hope are related to emotional intelligence. Creativity and innovation are essential elements in maintaining the life and movement of any society in an organizational environment (Singhai & Agrawal, 2021). Self-management is an orderly process through which individuals and employees of a group encourage and guide themselves to achieve a specific behavior and desired result (Arif & Akram, 2019). Increasing self-awareness and behavioral management, setting personal goals, self-encouragement and self-punishment, visualization of successful performance are the characteristics of people with self-management skills. Self-management skills are critical to exhibit innovative behavior (Heydari & Dasht, 2021). In this regard, the following practical suggestions can be proposed: The value of applying knowledge and performance pressure as a whole provides a suitable environment for the implementation of emotional intelligence and innovation, which is suggested to be given more attention and more detailed planning. Sufficient care should be taken in attracting and recruiting human resources to their self-management category, and then, continuous training and necessary skills should be designed to maintain and update the knowledge of these resources and strengthen their memory and individual innovation. In terms of informing and empowering employees in the field of intelligence and its types, especially emotional intelligence, the heads of the Tonkabon health network have made the necessary arrangements, including holding a workshop on emotional intelligence and its effects on the organization, in order for the employees to achieve organizational learning and become a learner organization, and finally do organizational innovations; because emotional skills can be used to create a favorable environment for learning and effective communication in organizations.