Emotional intelligence and job performance in the hospitality industry: a meta-analytic review

Purpose Hospitality workers are emotional labor workers because they must display appropriate emotions to their customers to provide outstanding service. Emotional intelligence (EI) helps employees regulate their emotions and display appropriate emotions, and hence should help hospitality workers provide outstanding service. However, the strength of the relationship between EI and hospitality workers’ job performance substantially varied across studies. Hence, the purpose of the present study is to clarify the mixed findings and to examine if EI can improve hospitality workers’ job performance. Design/methodology/approach A meta-analysis was performed to investigate the relationship between EI and hospitality workers’ job performance as well as the moderators which condition this relationship. Findings The present meta-analysis indicated that EI is positively related to hospitality workers’ job performance ( ρ ̅̂ = 0.54); the relationship between EI and hospitality workers’ job performance is stronger when the percentage of married subjects is low and in feminine cultures; and this relationship does not differ between male-dominated and female-dominated studies, across educational levels, between collectivistic and individualistic cultures, between low and high power distance cultures and between low and high uncertainty avoidance cultures. Research limitations/implications This study uncovers theoretically important moderators that contribute to cross-cultural research, work–family literature and gender-related literature in hospitality research. Originality/value The present study builds a theoretical foundation and performs a meta-analysis to elucidate the relationship between EI and hospitality workers’ job performance and to identify the moderators which condition this relationship.