Emotional Intelligence Competencies as Antecedents of Innovation

Abstract

Abstract: Innovation is the process of bringing new products and services to the marketplace. The innovation process engages mixed teams with personnel from design, engineering, manufacturing and marketing working in tandem at all times. Given the complexity of the information flows in such a process, value creation in new product development is almost exclusively based on intangible resources. The successful management of intellectual capital has emerged as a key condition for effective organizational learning in the innovation process. The study of creativity and innovation has occupied a broad spectrum of experts across the fields of behavioral science, human cognition and organizational behavior. Empirical research in the past has provided some evidence that a team leader’s emotional intelligence impacts new product outcomes. Recent research however indicates that emotional intelligence at the individual team member level may contribute more to creativity in new product development. This paper builds upon the results of a small pilot study designed to assess the way group member emotional competencies impact the success of the innovation process in the presence of moderating factor such as project complexity. The outcome of this pilot study, the design of which is detailed in this paper, indicates that emotional intelligence improves team interactions, facilitates the management of intellectual capital and does indeed affect innovation performance. More importantly, the pilot study identified distinct differences in the ways individual emotional intelligence competencies behave as antecedents of innovation. This paper seeks to illuminate these differences by examining a larger sample of engineering and management individuals and focusing on the relationship between individual emotional intelligence competencies and their effect on the collective emotional intelligence continuum.