A Study on Emotional Intelligence and University Citizenship Behavior of Students Pursuing Management Education in the Universities of Tripura, India

Abstract

Young men and women study management courses from Universities to take up responsible jobs in Corporate Sectors where they need to display high Emotional Intelligence (EI) and citizenship behaviour. Universities try to develop EI of its students pursuing management courses and citizenship behaviour by involving them in several activities. Some researchers have indicated that EI of the employees relates positively to their organizational citizenship behaviour, hardly any study has explained the relationship between EI and University Citizenship Behaviour (UCB) of the students. This study has been undertaken to examine the relationship between EI and UCB, and its different dimensions. This study has also been made to explore the differences in emotional intelligence, its components, and that of UCB and its dimensions between Postgraduate (PG) and Undergraduate (UG) Management Students and female/male students. Sample of 217 full-time management courses from two Universities of Tripura, India, participated in the study, half of them were from UG and almost half were male. The scale designed by Schutte et al. (1998) on EI and that of U-Thaiwat, Supparerkchaisakul, Mohan, and Fansler (2017) about UCB was used in the study; data were analysed using different parametric tools. The findings of the study show that the EI of the students affects positively their UCB and its different dimensions. PG students scored higher in EI and all its components, UCB, and all its dimensions, university environment, and curriculum of management education may be attributed to these differences Female students ranked higher in Perception of Emotion component of EI and all dimensions of UCB. This finding can be ascribed partially to the Indian value system where women are expected to empathize more about the need of the others than men. This study may be useful for University Authorities to devise a curriculum for their management education.