International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology (IJCIET)
Volume 7, Issue 4, July-August 2016, pp. 339–344 Article ID: IJCIET_07_04_029
Available online at [Link]
ISSN Print: 0976-6308 and ISSN Online: 0976-6316
© IAEME Publication
ROLE OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE IN
CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: A REVIEW
Anshul Saini
P.G. Student, Department of Civil Engineering, Chandigarh University, Gharaun, Punjab, India
Navpreet Soni
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, Chandigarh University, Gharaun, Punjab, India
ABSTRACT
In last two decades huge amount of researches have been done which have largely increased
the knowledge about Emotional Intelligence (EI).These researches have shown that EI plays an
important role in professional success and performance related to workplace. Several of
organizations of various industries are accepting the importance of EI and training their employees
to become more emotionally intelligent. It results in increasing performance and productivity. In
Construction projects various professionals like clients, architect, contractors, subcontractors,
suppliers, engineers etc. have to work together to achieve the organizational goals. Due to this
complexity it becomes a challenging environment to organize the people in a better way so that the
goals of the organization can be achieved. It requires a good interaction between the participants
of the project by which the construction activities can be managed successfully. This clearly means
that high level of emotional intelligence (EI) is necessary in participants of project. Many
organizations are realizing that their employees should also have non-technical or soft skills like
team work, leadership, communication and management. These all skills are the part of emotional
intelligence (EI) and it has been found in various researches that high level of these skills results in
better performance, management and success in various professions. This paper provides a better
understanding of emotional intelligence and shows how it is related with the performance of
construction project management. Literature on emotional intelligence is studied deeply and
organized in such a way that it becomes easy for construction management authorities to
understand emotional intelligence and its importance in the construction industry or construction
management programs.
Keywords: Emotional Intelligence, Construction Industry.
Cite this Article: Anshul Saini and Navpreet Soni, Role of Emotional Intelligence in Construction
Industry: A Review. International Journal of Civil Engineering and Technology, 7(4), 2016,
pp.339–344.
[Link]
1. INTRODUCTION
It is one of the most important aspect in any industry to manage the people in most effective way so that
the organizational and project goals can be achieved. Construction industry is considered as the industry
which has the most challenging conditions to manage the workforce in a better way to achieve
organizational success (1). As construction activities are the project based in nature so it has the
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Anshul Saini and Navpreet Soni
combination of different professionals like designer, contractor, suppliers etc. and they work together for a
short period of time to bring the success in achieving organizational goals. And generally they all focus on
motives of their own organization. It becomes a challenge for the project manager due to multidisciplinary
nature of his project team to appoint right staff for different stages of project (1). And for project managers
various skills and traits are essential in order to manage the whole activities of the construction project.
There are mainly five general skills which are the base for enhancing the skills of project management, i.e.
communication, leadership, negotiation, problem solving and marketing (2). All these skills are known as
non-technical or soft skills and these are dimensions of `Emotional Intelligence (3). Since last two decades
project Managements are paying more attention towards creating an environment where there is more
collaboration and team work. Better interaction between the participants is necessary for this. When we
focus on better interaction it becomes clear that Emotional Intelligence is the key factor. In order to
increase the basic components of better interaction, it is essential to investigate for Emotional Intelligence.
Emotional skills which deals with Emotional Intelligence are: perfectly becoming aware of the
emotions and expressing them; harmonizing emotions in rational way: understanding various emotions and
their inference in different situations; and controlling emotions (4). To improve the productivity at
workplace and to improve the management performances new concepts are being discovered. Many
studies regarding this have proven that EI plays a major role in improving productivity at workplace,
management performance and success of an individual also depends upon EI (5). This study aims at
providing a clear view of need of exploration of emotional intelligence in construction project
management.
Confirming Studies
Repeatedly it has been found in several studies that EI has effect over capacity and personality of a person
(6). Studies show that EI has the direct connection with the success in social relationships and one`s
capability to achieve the goals (7). There are a lot of research studies that have proven that EI has positive
impact on leadership of individual (8); performance in interview (9); better academic performance (10);
and benefaction in the team performance (11). Most importantly several studies are done in order to find
out the impact of EI on job performance and leadership ability of the individual (12). Researches reveal
that leadership has a great influence on the various features of an organization such as efficiency, quality,
flexibility, production, satisfaction, competitiveness, and development (13).
Large amount of researches have been done in regarding EI and management but still a few empirical
studies have conducted which show the link between EI and construction (e.g. Chinowsky and Brown
(2004), Butler and Chinowsky (2006), (Songer and Walker 2004). All these studies demonstrated that,
there is an urgent need of introducing EI in construction domain.
Emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence is gaining more attention since last decade. It has improved the traditional view of
intelligence by focusing the personal, social and emotional contribution to intelligent behavior (14) (15)
(16). Salovey and Mayer (1990) firstly give the definition of EI as the ability of persons to handle with
different emotions. After this more interest of the people was drawn towards the EI. There is a common
view about EI that it is the capability of a person to perfectly perceive, regulate, evaluate and express one`s
own emotions (17). Concept of Emotional Intelligence became more popular after the book `Emotional
Intelligence `written by Daniel Goleman (1995). He strongly claimed that EI has major contribution in
workplace success and also in individual`s personal success. Goleman (1998) defined EI is the ability of
the person by which he identifies his own emotions and also of others, so that one can motivate himself
and also can control the emotions in himself and in relationships also. After his research he found out that
intellectual intelligence plays 20 percent part in life success and Emotional Intelligence plays rest of 80
percent part. EI is the how a person faces the challenges and find out the opportunities from the situations
that he encounters (18).
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Role of Emotional Intelligence In Construction Industry: A Review
Now organizations are paying more attention towards EI because it has been strongly claimed that EI
has the major role in the managerial effectiveness. Such as it has been shown that EI effects the workplace
performance and success in life (19); team work (20) (21) (22).
According to the Goleman EI contains four parts: Self Awareness; Self- Management; Social
Awareness; and Social Skills. He further divided these four dimensions in twenty emotional abilities like
teamwork, leadership, conflicts management, collaboration, communication etc. and these all important
emotional components in the Construction Project Management.
The necessity of the exploration of the role and importance of EI in Construction Project
Management
It has been stated earlier that construction industry has more complicated and dynamic workplace
environment. In order to achieve the organizational goals and personal success, the construction project
manager and other participants are required to have the high level of EI. Construction industry contains the
large amount of workers and it has the important role in the economy of the country (23). Construction
industry has the project based nature due to which people from different groups with difference in opinion,
goals, are brought together for a short period of time. They insist for establishment of a co-operative
contacts with everybody (24). For managing all these variations in order to achieve the target of the project
the project managers need to have high levels of interpersonal skills, leadership qualities, personal
characteristics (25). These all skills are the part of Emotional Intelligence. There are many studies which
show that there is a positive impact of manager`s high level EI on the output of the workers. Managers who
have high level of EI interacts positively with the workers and which leads to better co-operating
environment (26), coordination (27) and better relationships in the organization which improves the
performance (28) (29). Employees having high EI perform well and they feel much more satisfaction from
their job (29) (30).
Butler and Chinowsky (2006) have demonstrated from their research that EI is very much relevant in
the construction sector. Their work effectively showed that EI has a positive impact on the construction
participants and concluded that construction project management should make the managers aware of the
value of EI and other construction executive`s performance. A survey was conducted by the Jagger and
Connor (1998:463) which explored that the employees particularly want more soft skills among the
professionals like: interpersonal skills, teamwork, communication skills, flexibility, business awareness
etc. (31). one more survey was conducted by Davis (1996) in which it was found that the employers want
candidates who have more interpersonal skills such as: problem solving skills, language ability, team
players who can also lead the team (32). All these surveys provide the clear evidence that how much EI in
important in Construction Project Management. Organizations at every level are now asking for the
employees who have more non-technical skills or soft skills such as teamwork and trustworthiness (33).
ABET (2005) set criteria for the engineering graduates of 2020 as they should have more analytical skills,
leadership, creativity, professionalism and ingenuity (34).
Love et al. (2011) review the literature and they demonstrated that EI is essential in construction
industry. Construction industry is one of the fastest growing industry. Research done by Love et al. (2011)
has found out that since last two decades industry has progressed only marginally, in fact new technologies
are being used in all area of construction process. They suggested that more attention should be given
towards the project teams and the participants which are working at every level as they are the ones who
are using new tools and methods. For better skills, personal characteristics they suggested for an effective
CPM and it is easy to understand that CPM is much concerned with the current EI research. Team and
individuals with high EI provides a better platform for the CPM to manage the Human resources of the
project (35).
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Anshul Saini and Navpreet Soni
Role of Emotional Intelligence in Workplace Success
Construction industry deals with a different work context as it is generally associated with the aggressive
management styles (36). There is huge amount of competition and there is extreme pressure at work.
Studies are carried out in order to find out the ways by which the workplace performance can be improved.
Many studies which have been discussed and tested several time have suggested the performance
dimensions for managers such as: project resources should be managed effectively; good coordination;
handling of information; conflict handling and motivating. These aspects play significant role in achieving
workplace success (37)
A number of studies have shown that job performance has direct relationship with EI, Tests like
WLEIS were carried out to measure this relation (7). Various organizations are now coming to realize the
value of using EI to improve leadership abilities and also for effective human resource management (38).
Studies depict that those employees having high level of EI have been found as of better job satisfaction
and they were found to have much better job performance than those who have low EI. Love et al. (2011)
demonstrated that employees at workplace always act emotionally to the situations but not institutionally
and these emotions effect their workplace performance. EI is the more accurate forecaster of success than
the conventional measures of rational ability (39).
Emotional Intelligence has significant effect on Team Effectiveness, EI helps in better decision
making, EI plays an important role in resolving the conflicts, EI enhances the management, leadership,
communication and other interpersonal soft skills which are essential in order to achieve the organizational
goals.
2. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
From material presented above, it can be stated that EI is essential for the construction participants to
successfully achieving their goals. It is very much clear that EI has a positive impact on the construction
professional`s performance. EI is the key to managing the people in most effective way in construction
industry. In this paper previous EI studies conducted in different organizations and industries were
reviewed and it was found that EI is the one of the most important factor in construction project
management and a powerful tool for one to succeed in job. The review of EI studies, surveys, researches in
various fields made the context of work to be established. The EI studies which were conducted previously
on construction domain clearly show the importance of exploring the role and importance of EI in
construction project management. This paper has reviewed the EI literature and has expressed its
importance in construction domain. It aimed at providing a basic understanding of emotional intelligence,
explore the areas where emotional intelligence is applicable specially in construction project management.
It is very much understood to everyone that to work in workplaces where the tasks have to perform in
more and more teams is becoming difficult day by day. And to that point this study shows that how EI at
team level and individual level helps in working more effectively. Individual`s performance and also of
team`s performance increases with EI. In the present scenario of construction industry where almost all
tasks are performed in teams and where there is always a pressure on employees which lead to emotional
outburst, the findings of this study have a practical application.
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