Emotional intelligence and employee productivity in a developing economy: analysing the moderating and mediating effect of gender and teamwork

Apart from the academic intelligence quotient of job applicants, employers also seek applicants who are emotionally balanced since mood swings can affect productivity and employee relations at work. Despite the relevance of emotional intelligence on productivity much is not known in terms of the mediating and the moderating roles of teamwork and gender respectively in the relationship between emotional intelligence and productivity from the Global South. This study therefore examined emotional intelligence and employee productivity in a developing economy: analysing the moderating and mediating effect of gender and teamwork. The study was guided by the explanatory design from the quantitative approach and the positivist philosophical position due to the objectivity, empiricism, and quantification of data that characterised this study. Data was collected from 463 public sector workers from the Audit Service and Local Government workers in Ghana, with the help of a structured questionnaire, and analysed with partial least square structural equation modelling. The study found that gender significantly moderated the relationship between emotional intelligence and teamwork, teamwork and productivity. Gender/sex however had a non-significant relationship between emotional intelligence and productivity among public sector workers in a developing economy. Teamwork significantly mediated the relationship between emotional intelligence and productivity among public sector workers. It was, therefore, recommended that managers in public sector organisations should consider emotional intelligence as an important factor in hiring applicants and forming work teams.