Employee emotional intelligence, organizational citizen behavior and job performance: a moderated mediation model investigation

Purpose Emotional intelligence (EI) affect behavior and thinking patterns are linked to physical and mental health, employee interpersonal relationships and job performance. Regarding individual EI, workplace employees expect high organizational support with positive employee relations, because they regard employee relations as a perceived support from the organization, which reflects a positive organization's citizenship behavior. Thus, in terms of human resource management, enhancing organizational citizen behavior can ensure that employees continue to improve job performance by maintaining a positive psychological state and employee relations. Design/methodology/approach Using a questionnaire survey and structural equation modeling, this study aims to investigate the relationships between EI, psychological capital, job performance, organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and perceived organizational support. The research subjects (N = 536) were in life insurance companies in Taiwan. Findings The results showed that psychological capital plays a mediating role in the effect of EI on OCB. Perceived organizational support is used to determine the existence of the effect of moderated mediation in the proposed research model. Originality/value This is the first study to find that the indirect effect of EI on organizational citizen behavior through psychological capital is stronger when there are higher levels of perceived organizational support than when there are lower levels of perceived organizational support. In addition, in terms of employee relation development, employee perceived organizational support from organizations is a critical influence which bridges employees' EI and organizational citizen behavior through psychological capital on the human resource management.