Emotional Intelligence, Its Association with Working Environmental Factors and Spiritual Intelligence among Government Doctors in Malaysia: A Multi-Site Study

Abstract

Emotional intelligence is undoubtedly one of the most important findings in psychology to which determine an individual’s career success, and more so for doctors. It has been proven from literature, that high emotional intelligence leads to job satisfaction, retention, reduced turnover, reduced burnout, and good performance. This particular study determines to measure emotional intelligence and its association with working environmental factors, i.e. the organisational culture, cultural competence and cultural awareness; and spiritual intelligence. This study investigates 704 doctors who work in 5 different state hospitals in Malaysia. These state hospitals are from each region of Malaysia. The results show that organisational culture, cultural competence, cultural awareness, and spiritual intelligence have a positive and significant effect on trait emotional intelligence. In this study the CFA model has shown good fit in its fit indexes. In the SEM model, there is a positive and significant effect of all three domains towards emotional intelligence. There were good composite reliability and discriminant validity shown in all independent variables used in this study. In conclusion, this study is successful in determining the emotional intelligence among the doctors in government hospitals in Malaysia and have been associated with working environmental factors, namely organisational culture, cultural competence, cultural awareness, and spiritual intelligence.