The influence of emotional intelligence and organizational politics on employee turnover and performance

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Employees are viewed as the most valuable organizational assets especially in today’s competitive environment. Accordingly, it is essential to retain skilled employees and provide a supportive environment to improve their performance especially in service companies as their employees have direct communication and interaction with customers. The purpose of this research is to examine the influence of organizational politics and emotional intelligence on two fundamental employee outcomes: turnover intention and employee performance. In addition, the current study examined the moderating impact of emotional intelligence on the relationship between organizational politics and turnover intention, and on the relationship between organizational politics and employee performance. Further, the study examined the association between employee characteristics: gender, age and work experience, and their turnover intention and performance. This study employed a quantitative research method and used administered survey questionnaire to collect data from 400 employees working in four service industries in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor states, Malaysia: banking, telecommunication, insurance and tourism. Structural equation modelling using Smart-PLS was used to analyze collected data. The research findings revealed that organizational politics and emotional intelligence had a significant impact on turnover and employee performance. However, emotional intelligence had no significant moderating impact on the relationship between organizational politics and the two employee outcomes: turnover intention and employee performance. Moreover, employees’ age was found to be significantly related to their turnover intention as employees as older employees were found to have a low turnover intention. The findings of this research provide a significant managerial implications which revolve around the need for managers to ensure a fair and effective organizational politics and retain employees with good level of emotional intelligence.