Role of Emotional Intelligence in Career Crafting: Direct and Mediated Effects Through Work Effort

Abstract

Purpose: To increase the understanding of how emotional intelligence impacts career crafting(CC), emphasizes on individual proactive behaviour for shaping career paths. Self determination theory is used to build the model, with a mediator of work effort. Data collected from 532 full-time employees from private organisation, it covers respondents from service, manufacturing, IT sectors. Using a quantitative, correlational research design, we investigated how EI influences career crafting both directly and indirectly through work effort. Emotional Intelligence was measured using REIS scale, Work Effort with the WESC, and Career Crafting with the CCA. Our findings reveal that EI has a significant positive effect on both WE (β = 0.2877, p < 0.001) and CCRF (β = 0.461, p < 0.001), with work effort also significantly predicting career crafting (β = 0.1329, p < 0.001). The mediation analysis confirms that WE partially mediate the relationship between EI and CCRF, with an indirect effect estimate of 0.0346 (p < 0.05). The study's demographics show a sample predominantly composed of middle-aged adults, with a notable presence of males, married individuals, and those with undergraduate degrees, mostly from non-IT sectors. These results underscore the dual role of emotional intelligence in enhancing career crafting directly and through the mediation of work effort, providing insights for organizations to foster career development by focusing on emotional intelligence training and encouraging higher work effort. The novel evidence is that middle age adults are having high focus on career crafting with proper balance on work effort and emotional intelligence.