Perceived Emotional Intelligence, Organizational Justice, and Counterproductive Work Behaviors Among Government Employees

Abstract

The goal of the current study was to study the association of emotional intelligence, organizational justice, and counterproductive work behaviors among government employees. Total (N=250) employees participated in this study among which 51.4 % (n=128) were men employees and 48.6% (n=121) were women employees. Three scales were used in this study i.e., Self-Report Measure of Emotional Intelligence (Khan & Kamal, 2010), Organizational Justice Scale (Rasul, 2022), and Counterproductive work behaviors Scale (Rasul, 2021). Quantitative cross sectional research design was employed for this research. The study findings showed that emotional intelligence and organizational justice have a significant and negative relationship with the counterproductive work behaviors of the government employees. Moreover, Emotional intelligence is significantly and positively correlated with its subscales (emotional self-regulation, emotional self-awareness, and interpersonal skills); organizational justice, and its subscales (distributive justice, procedural justice, and interactional justice). Furthermore, Emotional intelligence has significant negative relationship with the counterproductive work behaviors and with its subscales (dysfunctional behaviors, misuse of authority, deviant behaviors, aggressive behaviors, biased behaviors, and antisocial behaviors. Furthermore, the mediating role of organizational justice between emotional intelligence and counterproductive work behaviors was studied. Results depicted emotional intelligence and perceived organization justice are significantly and positively correlated. Organizational justice and counterproductive work behaviors of government employees are significantly and negatively correlated. However, the indirect effect of organizational justice was found to be negatively significant between emotional intelligence and counterproductive work behaviors of government employees. Group differences across various demographics were also studied showing that men exhibited higher emotional intelligence than women. The results showed that gender differences on organizational justice and counterproductive work behaviors of government employees are not significant.