Emotional and social competencies and perceptions of the interpersonal environment of an organization as related to the engagement of IT professionals

Abstract

There is a dearth of research focused on the engagement of information technology (IT) professionals. This study analyzed the relationship between emotional and social competencies and the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment in an organization as they relate to employee engagement. Validated instruments were used and data was collected from 795 IT professionals in North America to quantitatively analyze the relationship between emotional and social competencies, role breadth self-efficacy (RBSE), with the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment, and those perceptions with employee engagement. The study results indicate that specific emotional and social competencies and RBSE relate differently to the quality of the perceptions of the interpersonal environment. The study also reveals how the quality of the IT professional’s perceptions of the interpersonal environment relates to how much they engage in the organization. The findings indicate that the relationship between achievement orientation and the perceived interpersonal environment was positive and the relationship between influencing others and the perceived interpersonal environment was negative. Understanding such relationships offers much needed insight to practitioners and can benefit organizations that wish to increase the engagement of their IT professionals. The findings also can support practitioners to more effectively select and develop talent with the desired motives and traits. By doing so, organizations can experience increased employee satisfaction, engagement, and retention, resulting in higher productivity, quality, and profitability.

The role of the positive emotional attractor in vision and shared vision: toward effective leadership, relationships, and engagement

“…In the technical occupation realm, Buse and Bilimoria (2014 , this issue) show that vision, hope, and a sense of purpose are key drivers in women being engaged and committed to technical careers. Meanwhile, Pittenger (2015 , this issue) shows that emotional and social intelligence competencies predict organizational citizenship of IT managers, but it is fully mediated by the degree of shared vision and other elements of the PEA perceived in their relationships. Mahon et al (2014 , this issue) show, in technical knowledge worker teams, shared vision is an important antecedent of organizational engagement, enhanced by the emotional intelligence (as rated by others) of the technical works.…”

Higher Employee Engagement through Social Intelligence: A Perspective of Indian Scenario

“…These employees give priority to organizational goals and align self-goals with those of the organization. Engaged workers are more passionate and loyal about their jobs and have high social and emotional competencies (Pittenger 2015 ). They develop a sense of loyalty towards their work and can well survive in globalization and competition.…”

“…As a matter of fact, any/all performance issues result from poor social competencies, social skills, and social awareness, as the cause (Ebrahimpoor et al, 2013 ). Thus, the social skills cannot be rendered negligible attention to garner employees’ commitment and engagement in the organization (Pittenger 2015 ). An engaged workforce with enhanced social skills helps in decent talent holding.…”

“…Social Intelligence is swiftly becoming important and gaining popularity in the job and influencing organizations in many ways. In direct relation to Social Intelligence, higher employee engagement highlights the significance of social intelligence for a successful business (Katou et al 2021 ; Pittenger 2015 ; Dazel 2013 ). The present study is conducted to find out the relevance of social intelligence in the active engagement of the employees.…”

Brazil-Portugal Transcultural Adaptation of the UWES-9: Internal Consistency, Dimensionality, and Measurement Invariance

“…Globally, work engagement is referred to a cognitive-affective persistent state in time, which is not focused on an object or a specific behavior (Salanova et al, 2000 ; Schaufeli, 2017 ). It is related to performance (Pittenger, 2015 ; Knight et al, 2017 ; Reijseger et al, 2017 ) and to economy, governance, and culture (Schaufeli, 2017 ). A recent report presented by Schaufeli ( 2017 ) analyses data from 43,850 employees from thirty-five European countries, from the “ 6th European Working Conditions Survey– 2015,” aiming to identify the relationships between work engagement at the country level and several national economic, governance and cultural indicators.…”