Essay on Emotional Intelligence

The influence of cultural difference on managing emotions in project management teams.

Abstract
Managing emotions is a part of emotional intelligence that is, according to previous researches, counted as a significant aspect for successful management of project teams. With globalisation companies hire employees with different cultural backgrounds which is in its turn may lead the possibility of misunderstandings between team members. The purpose of current study is to examine the relationship between the outcomes of managing emotions test and different cultural background of individuals. In this study 30 participants of 6 different nationalities took part whose professional field is project management. Data collection process was conducted through self-report scaled questionnaire based on Mayer–Salovey–Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT) but only four factors of MSCEIT that relate to emotional management branch was used for assessment. However, the findings of the survey indicated that ability to manage emotions does not relate to nationality. Also, the limitations and obstacles of this study are presented.

1 Introduction
1.1 Background
The first definition of emotional intelligence that was given by Professors P. Salovey and J. Mayer states that emotions can influence the logical thinking and goal focused actions. Moreover, it can improve rationality. There were many debates around emotional intelligence mostly because it combines fundamentally unrelated psychological aspects such as emotions and intelligent. Beforehand, emotions were considered as things that hamper the rational thinking. However variety of studies proved that well managed emotions can even enhance abilities like thinking rationally, making decisions and guide the proper behavior of people (Obradovic et al., 2013). According to Mayer, Salovey and Caruso (2004), the concept of emotional intelligence contains four sections which are named as follows Reading people, Using emotions, Understanding emotions and Managing emotions. Managing emotions is viewed as an essential part of emotional intelligence. Management of emotions is the ability to control and adjust any emotions in oneself and others in order to achieve planned targets. This section includes subscales such as Openness, Monitoring, Self-control and Managing others. Openness describes the level of willingness of individual to manage different situations whereas Monitoring examines the ability to ignore emotions during the actions. Management of emotions makes it easier to perform tasks that require self-control or the ability to stay calm while working under the pressure or stressful situations. Finally, managing others is the ability to influence and manage the other’s emotions and feelings, for example, calming someone if the argument accrues (Austin and O’Donnell, 2013).

1.2 Current study and literature review

Previous studies show that emotional intelligence plays an important role in management and interpersonal relationships within team which helps to increase the quality of work and ability to solve problems as well as impact the overall success of a team. One of the most popular concept of management is a project management. The ability to work in teams is an essential skill for project management field. Consequently, development process of a team depends on the ability of team members to manage own emotions and emotions of their peers (Obradovic et al., 2013).

Nowadays, the growing complexity of projects causes the formation of teams by people with different cultural backgrounds. It is almost impossible to avoid multicultural environment within the modern companies. Cultural differences of employees can bring new approaches in solving problems, creativity and new ideas for the project. However, cultural background of team members may influence their behavior and perception of the problems (Popescu et al., 2014) that can cause misunderstanding and

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