Relationship between Organizational Politics, Emotional Intelligence and Career Success – An Indian Perspective

Abstract

Success in career is a great concern and challenge for any individual in the prevailing competitive scenario. This paper discusses about two main issues that influence the career success of an employee. They are employees‘ perception of organizational politics and emotional intelligence in workplace. An employee irrespective of any industry is involved in several behavioural aftermaths in the emotional survival in the chosen career. The employee either involves oneself in organizational politics in workplace or tackles the organizational politics effectively due to emotional intelligence in the conflict of surviving in the organization. This study hence proposes to explore the relationship between organizational politics, emotional intelligence and career success. A sample of 272 employees were chosen through judgement sampling by non-probability sampling method from manufacturing sector from the most predominant metropolitan city namely Chennai, in south India. Karl-Pearsons‘ Correlation analysis was exploited to analyse the data using SPSS. It was found from the study that balancing emotions intelligently helps in career success in addition to coping with organizational politics. This research highlights on the need for emphasizing on emotional intelligence to tackle organizational politics effectively which will by itself contribute to the career success of an employee.