The effect of spouse emotional intelligence on employee work engagement: The mediating role of employee life well-being and the moderating role of gender

Abstract

<p id="p00005">Extant emotional intelligence (EI) research has documented its <italic>intrapersonal</italic> benefits and has begun to examine its <italic>interpersonal</italic> effects. However, this line of research has primarily focused on the interpersonal effects of EI in the work context, while ignoring the potential influences from non-work domain. Considering employees’ family may have a spillover effect on their work behaviors, in this research, we propose that spouse EI will affect employees’ work engagement. Specifically, integrating effort-recovery model with the EI literature, we argue that spouse EI exerts a positive impact on employee work engagement through improving employees’ life well-being. Furthermore, we argue that employee gender alters the aboved relationships such that the positive interpersonal influences of spouse EI will be stronger among male employees than among female employees. <break/>We conducted two studies to examine the hypothesized model. In Study 1, we collected two-wave survey data from a large bank. At time 1, 126 employees and their spouses rated their own EI and provided their demographic information. At time 2, two weeks later, 126 employees evaluated their own life well-being and work engagement. The final valid sample consisted of 124 employee-spouse dyads. In Study 2, we collected three-wave survey data from an internet company. At time 1, 80 employees assessed their own EI and some control variables (i.e., leader EI, coworker EI, job demands, and job control); and their 80 spouses evaluated their own EI and provided their demographic information. At time 2, one month later, 78 employees rated their own life well-being. At time 3, another month later, 73 employees rated their own work engagement. The HR department of the company provided the archival data of employees’ demographic information. The final valid sample included 73 employee-spouse dyads. Regression analysis and bootstrapping technique were used to test the mediation, moderation, and moderated-mediation effects. <break/>In line with the hypotheses, two studies consistently showed that: (1) Spouse EI was positively related to employee life well-being; (2) Employee life well-being was positively related to employee work engagement; (3) Employee life well-being served as a mediator to transmit the effect of spouse EI on employee work engagement; (4) Employee gender moderated the relationship between spouse EI and employee life well-being such that when employees were male, the positive effect of spouse EI on employee life well-being was stronger; (5) Employee gender also moderated the indirect effect of spouse EI on employee work engagement via employee life well-being such that the indirect effect was stronger among male employees than among female employees. <break/>Our theoretical contributions are threefold. First, our research has deepened our understanding on EI, as it is among the first to establish a link between spouse EI and employee work engagement and supports the interpersonal effects of EI from the family to the work domain. Second, our research identifies employee life well-being as a key mediator that explains <italic>how</italic> spouse EI affects employee work engagement. Third, our research highlights the role of employee gender and unravels the conditions under which spouse EI exerts more or less effects on employee work engagement. Practically, our research offers implications to improve employee life well-being and work engagement through improving spouse EI, especially wife EI.