Engage Them through Emotions: Exploring the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Public Sector Engagement

• Date: 01 November 2019
• Published date: 01 November 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/puar.13113
• Author: Dana R. Vashdi,Zehavit Levitats,Eran Vigoda‐Gadot

Research Article

Engage Them through Emotions: Exploring the Role of Emotional Intelligence in Public Sector Engagement 841

Abstract: The public administration literature has demonstrated the valuable impact of employees’ engagement

on public service. However, studies conventionally deal with engagement as a unidimensional construct, with few

explanations for its evolution. To promote knowledge in this arena, the authors propose public sector engagement (PSE)

as a multidimensional construct, comprising social responsibility, work engagement, and organizational citizenship

behaviors at the individual level. The authors develop and examine a set of hypotheses proposing that PSE may be

augmented by enhancing civil servants’ emotional intelligence (EI) as well as their supervisors’ EI. Using a two-study

multimethod approach (i.e., an experiment and a survey), the authors identify employees’ and managers’ high EI as a

critical resource in enhancing PSE. The article concludes by theoretically framing the findings using the job demands-

resources model and illuminating the practical value to public service of better selection and training of high-EI

employees and managers.

Evidence for Practice

• Public organizations should strive to enhance employees’ public sector engagement by recruiting employees

with high emotional intelligence (EI).

• Training professionals in public organizations can improve civil servants’ social responsibility and work

engagement by actively investing in their on-the-job EI training.

• Public employees’ enhanced EI as a result of training may have a negative short-term effect on their

organizational citizenship behaviors at the individual level.

• Human resource professionals should attempt to recruit high-EI managers to facilitate the positive effect of

employees’ EI on their social responsibility and work engagement. This facilitation effect was not supported

for organizational citizenship behaviors at the individual level.

Zehavit Levitats

Eran Vigoda-Gadot

Dana R. Vashdi

University of Haifa

Engage Them through Emotions: Exploring the Role of

Emotional Intelligence in Public Sector Engagement

Work engagement has become a subject of

studies seeking to improve the quality

of public work and the level of services

provided to citizens (e.g., Hameduddin and Fernandez

2019). Scholars have theorized and established that

engagement has a positive relationship with desirable

work outcomes, such as task performance (Rich,

Lepine, and Crawford 2010) and job satisfaction

(Saks2006), and a negative relationship with

undesirable outcomes, such as turnover intentions

(Schaufeli and Bakker 2004). Such findings have

led scholars to examine the construct’s antecedents.

Only a few studies have demonstrated the potential

impact of emotional intelligence (EI) on work

engagement (e.g., Brunetto et al. 2012). However,

existing knowledge has two major limitations: First,

most studies so far have used a unidimensional

conceptualization of engagement in the public sector,

assuming that engagement in the public sector is

similar to its meaning in the private sector. Second,

the findings of past studies are highly limited in their

causal interpretative power as a result of simplistic

research designs.

Our study attempts to address these limitations

by proposing public sector engagement (PSE) as a

multidimensional construct with special meaning

for public worksites and then conducting a field

experiment to examine its antecedents. Relying on the

job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Bakker 2011;

Bakker and Demerouti 2017), which was extended

by Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), we propose that

employees’ EI may serve as a personal resource that

enhances PSE. Furthermore, managers’ EI is examined

as a possible job resource that may moderate the

relationship between subordinates’ EI and PSE.

Thus, the contributions of our study are theoretical,

empirical, and practical. First, engagement in the

public arena is highlighted as having a special

meaning. Like the construct of public service

motivation, PSE may have additional dimensions,

Dana R. Vashdi is senior lecturer in the

Division of Public Administration and Policy

at the University of Haifa. She received

her PhD in industrial psychology from the

Technion, the Israel Institute of Technology.

Her research focuses on teamwork and

specifically on learning and innovation

in teams. She also investigates factors

influencing public employee well-being.

She has published research in leading

scholarly journals, including the

Academy

of Management Journal

and the

Journal of

Applied Psychology

.

E-mail: dvashdi@poli.haifa.ac.il

Eran Vigoda-Gadot is professor of

public administration and management,

political science, and governance

and founder of the Center for Public

Management and Policy (CPMP) in the

School of Political Science at the University

of Haifa. For the past three years, he has

been dean of the Herta and Paul Amir

Faculty of Social Sciences at the University

of Haifa.

E-mail: eranv@poli.haifa.ac.il

Zehavit Levitats completed her

doctoral studies in the School of Political

Science at the University of Haifa. She is

a postdoctoral fellow in the Center for

Emotional Intelligence at Yale University.

She specializes in studying the role of

emotions and emotional intelligence

in public administration. Her research

interests include organizational behavior

and human resource management in public

administration, engagement and burnout,

and employee health and well-being.

E-mail: zhavit@gmail.com

Public Administration Review,

Vol. 79, Iss. 6, pp. 841–852. © 2019 by

The American Society for Public Administration.

DOI: 10.1111/puar.13113.