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Laszlo Balazs

Organizational culture and emotional intelligence in school

Translated byJudit Szilvia Varnai and Mariann Vaczi

For the Colleagues

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Contents

Introduction ......................................................................................................... 5

Research areas ..................................................................................................... 9

Hypotheses .......................................................................................................... 11

Theoretical and methodological background ................................................. 16

Quinn’ organizational culture questionnaire .............................................. 16

Robbins’s questionnaire on organizational culture dimensions ................ 18

Halász’s organizational climate questionnaire ............................................ 19

Bar-On’s emotional intelligence scale .......................................................... 21

Thomas-Kilman`s conflict management model questionnaire .................. 23

The participants of the study ........................................................................ 26

The results of the study ..................................................................................... 27

The identification of the characteristics of organizational culture ........... 27

The identification of organizational culture types ........................................ 27The identification of differences between organizational cultures ............... 27Emotional intelligence results ....................................................................... 28Emotional intelligence differences between cultures .................................... 29Conflict management patterns ...................................................................... 30Variations between cultures on the basis of conflict management patterns . 30Investigating organizational climate values ................................................. 31The summary of variation among culture types ............................................ 32

Relationship and concurrence analysis ........................................................ 34

The examination of the direct relationship between organizational culture and emotional intelligence .......................................................................... 34

The impact of organizational culture on emotional intelligence .................. 35The impact of emotional intelligence on organizational culture .................. 37The relationship between culture types and conflict management

strategies ................................................................................................... 38The impact of organizational culture on the development of conflict

management strategies .............................................................................. 42

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The effect of conflict management strategies on organizational culture ...... 44The relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict

management strategies .............................................................................. 45The impact of emotional intelligence on conflict management strategies .... 45The impact of conflict management strategies on emotional intelligence

development .............................................................................................. 49The identification of the relationship between emotional intelligence and

organizational climate .............................................................................. 50Groups that don`t fin in the culture .............................................................. 52Group training for individuals and organizations ........................................ 52

Discussion of results .......................................................................................... 61

Hypothesis1 ...................................................................................................... 61

Hypothesis2 ...................................................................................................... 65

Hypothesis3 ...................................................................................................... 68

Hypothesis4 ...................................................................................................... 72

Discussion and implications .............................................................................. 75

Summary of results ........................................................................................ 75

The evaluation of the research ...................................................................... 78

Theoretical and practical overview .............................................................. 81

References .......................................................................................................... 87

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Introduction

One of the most popular phenomena of organizational psychology is to study the

phenomenon of organizational culture. The exploration of various relations within

organizational culture, and to study its development and eventual changes together

with describing its methodology provides for furthering proper workplace results and

the formation of a positive workplace atmosphere. Thus, the literature studies this

phenomenon mainly in the context of workplace effectiveness and efficiency.

While the study of culture is typically within the scope of anthropology,

organizational culture is mainly analyzed by organizational psychology. Applying the

concept of culture to organizations has offered several examination aspects and

methods for the researchers of organizations that emerged within the context of

national culture. Browsing the literature which partly or wholly deals with culture,

there were several researchers studying the relationship between emotions and

culture: Darwin (1859/2000), Geertz (1973/1994), Levy (1984), Lutz (1986/2009),

Ekman (1989). Parallel to these studies, the analysis of emotions have become a

typical research area of social and cultural studies, anthropology and psychology.

Nowadays, several studies are published as related to organizational psychology

researches that examine the role of emotions within the operation of the organization

and at the workplace (Gibson 2005, Payne–Cooper 2004, Lazányi 2011). Besides

examining emotions, there are more and more studies on the handling and applying

of emotions and the role of emotions in information processing (Forgas 2001, 2003,

2011, Oláh 2005). By the end of the 20th century, a new research area emerged

focusing on the perception, processing, handling and applying of emotions. This is

the study of emotional intelligence. Researchers of this phenomenon make efforts to

define this construct as precisely as possible and to outline the relations of this

phenomenon as deeply as possible. Thus, the study of organizations allows for

examining the role of emotional intelligence. At the same time, the focus is on

defining its relationship with effectiveness and efficiency, just like in the field of

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organizational culture. It is well illustrated by the fact that textbooks used in higher

education apply the same approach – leader’s efficiency, efficient group. (See Kelin–

Klein 2006.) So far, there are only few publications on the relationship between

organizational culture and emotional intelligence.

As regards school application of emotional intelligence, the Hungarian literature

focuses mainly on the possible development of the emotional intelligence of teachers

or students (see Szitó 2009). Besides, there are a lot of studies in the field of

pedagogy, which are to apply already existing theories on emotional intelligence in

an abductive way in some process of education (e.g., Hegyiné 2001). It is widespread

in the international literature to analyze emotional intelligence from the aspect of

pedagogy. These include problem-centered (Roberts–MacCann–Matthews–Zeidner

2010) and summarizing (Mortiboys 2005, Coetzee–Coetzee–Jansen 2007) studies,

either. Examining the international literature of organizational psychology, it is

evident that school aspects are rarely studied, although there are a lot of studies of

emotional intelligence in different organizational contexts, perhaps due to the oeuvre

of Goleman.

When studying the literature of these two constructs, it became evident for me

that exploring the relationship between organizational culture and individual

emotional intelligence has both theoretical and social relevance, which directs one’s

attention on examining these in school organizations. According to examinations on

the relationship between emotions and culture, it is evident that there is a relationship

between emotional intelligence and organizational culture as well, especially when

we take into account links between national culture and organizational culture (e.g.,

Hofstede–Hofstede 2008).

In my research, I applied two ways of approach parallel to each other, in order to

grasp the possible link between the two constructs. On the one hand, it seems self-

evident, based on former research on culture that there is a direct link between

emotional intelligence and organizational culture. On the other, it is also possible that

we need some medium in between to grasp the link.

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When defining this medium, we had to find a phenomenon, with a view to the

functions of emotional intelligence and organizational culture, the appearance of

which is likely to try emotional intelligence of the individual and which also has a

cultural embedding that we can describe meaningfully. Both statements proved true

regarding conflict. When examining the latter, I focused on conflict management

methods used by the individual, either supported or rejected by culture.

When further exploring the links, the following question emerged: if we can

prove the link, how does it affect the individual if his or her conflict management or

emotional intelligence patterns differ from that accepted in culture? To answer this

question, we needed to introduce a new variable. Examining organizational climate

shows how the individual perceives the organization around him. It seems evident

that the individual perceives a more negative climate if their previously mentioned

patterns are not in line with values supported by culture. The examination of this link

is important basically when analyzing the link between emotional intelligence and

organizational culture.

Summing it up, my study examines the mutual relationship between

organizational culture and individual emotional intelligence in a way that I make a

parallel between the features of organizational culture and the individual’s emotional

intelligence, conflict management repertoire and the organizational climate. Each of

these concepts is studied by science; however, they have not or only partly been

studied together, with their effects exerted on each other. Figure 1 illustrates possible

links and questions that have emerged in relation to these thoughts.

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Figure 1. Possible links between the studied constructs