The Ascendency of Emotional Intelligence on Academic Teaching Staff Stress with the Mediating Role of Psychological Capital

Abstract Purpose According to the Workplace Health Reports 2023, around 76% of employees worldwide have experienced moderate-to-high stress levels. Around 26% of Indians are stressed due to their current work environment with long working hours, lack of job security, low wages, and growing competition. It is often believed that teaching is an extremely difficult job, in particular, academic staff experience a lot of stress due to several stressors. Emotional intelligence is a set of non-cognitive abilities, to effectively handle environmental demands and stresses. The current investigation seeks to project the effect of psychological capital as a mediator linking emotional intelligence (EI) and occupational stress to academic teaching faculties in Chennai City. Research Methodology The proposed study used a questionnaire prepared, and distributed among college faculties of various levels of 325 respondents in Chennai city. Findings The research results indicate that while psychological capital acts as a mediating factor in the association between EI and occupational stress, EI itself has a favorable impact on both psychological capital and occupational stress. Research Limitations We suggest delving further into this in subsequent research to ascertain the degree to which the findings may be generalized outside the study population. Secondly, we neglected to examine the influence of additional work-related stressors on the degree of work-related stress. Practical/Social Implications The investigation’s implications can be used by top management authorities of private colleges and universities to concentrate on the enhancement of EI and how it reduces the work-place stress of teaching faculties with the mediating variable as psychological capital, which improves the productivity of the employees.