The relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict and creativity of employees in the General Department of Education in Gilan province

Dissertation for Master's Degree

Public Administration Field Human Resource Orientation

Abstract

The general purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict and creativity. The research method is descriptive and its purpose is practical, and the data collection method is field and the tool is questionnaire. In the current research, the statistical population under investigation is the employees of the Education Department of Gilan province with a number of 1568 people. Considering the normality of the statistical population, the minimum sample size was calculated as 308 people through Cochran's formula, and in the continuation of the work, the researcher distributed 350 questionnaires among the employees using random sampling method, and finally 310 acceptable questionnaires were collected through which the data could be analyzed. By analyzing the data, it was determined that there is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and creativity at the 95% confidence level, and also a negative relationship between emotional intelligence and conflict.

Key words: emotional intelligence, creativity, conflict, General Directorate of Education and Training of Gilan Province

Introduction

At the dawn of the new century, when organizations face a global competitive environment, there is always a need for changes in work habits and creativity, global competitive force, organizations It has forced today to adopt new working methods after decades of following their fixed work methods and procedures, so that organizations do not have work stability and have a kind of relative stability. The management of large and advanced organizations owes to the efforts of competent, knowledgeable and efficient managers who have succeeded in doing this important task by applying management knowledge and techniques (Hadavi, 2012). The most important feature of its organizations is uncertainty, complexity, globalization and increasing technological changes. Therefore, the most important concern of most organizations is to formulate and implement strategies that guarantee their success and survival in changing and complex environmental conditions. What today's organizations desperately need in order to have a place in today's dynamic and complex markets and gain a competitive advantage for themselves, is the ability to produce new, unique and competitive products and services in today's changing markets. And this is only possible with the innovation and creativity of managers and the influence of managers on cultivating the creativity of employees who, with the help of each other, strive for the growth and development of their organization (Mahdoimzdeh-Zarghami; 2013). It is clear that the business strategy of any organization that is a guide in this field plays an important role in achieving the desired status among competitors, and as stated, creativity and innovation also play a role in improving the status of the organization and maintaining its long-term survival and creating a competitive advantage for the organization (Torka et al., 2012). On the other hand, people with high emotional intelligence skills quickly and easily make their minds calm and clear, thus opening the way to access inner insight and creative ideas. Employees who have stronger emotional intelligence are socially balanced, happy and lively and have no worries, express their feelings directly and are creative and innovative in academic affairs (Hashmi, 2013).

One of the things that shows the importance of emotional intelligence at work is the use of differences and diversity of opinions, in other words, conflicts and pressures for the advancement and success of the organization. A manager who has high emotional awareness easily and quickly identifies the sources of conflict and uses it to increase the effectiveness of the organization. Successful conflict resolution depends on taking into account the feelings of all people. A favorable solution is obtained when people are in direct contact with each other, have learned the basic skills of emotional intelligence such as listening and approval (Afzalur-Climent, 2013).

1-2) Statement of the problem

In recent years, many organizations have made great efforts to encourage their people to be creative. Creativity is necessary and a precursor to the development, progress and excellence of an organization and society, and knowledge of its techniques is an inevitable necessity for managers and employees of the organization. Today, organizations are successful and can survive in a highly competitive world that constantly apply new thoughts and ideas in the organization, and this is possible by creative managers and employees. The basic measure of a system's success is how many thoughtful and creative people it trains, and in a sense, a good manager is considered to be someone who teaches employees how to think and how to use information.The basic measure of a system's success is how many thoughtful and creative people it trains, and in a sense, a good manager is considered to be someone who teaches employees how to think and use information and makes them creative (Fiest, 2013). Unlike economists, social scientists believe that the cause of low economic growth is not only the lack of capital and financial resources, but also the lack of creativity in some societies (Shojaei; 2017). Weakness of creativity in service and educational organizations can lead to the reduction of service quality, reduction of useful efficiency, creation of unfair competition, failure to achieve competitive advantage, inadequacy of management skills, reduction of horizontal communication and such things (Golestan Hashemi, 2019). In fact, all sciences, techniques, and arts, and in general, all human achievements and civilization, are the product of creativity and innovation (Rasouli et al.; 2013). In this field, the importance of creativity is clearly visible because if this force, which is actually the main source of energy in the organization, is neglected or suppressed, the organization will become weaker day by day and its wheels will stop moving one after the other. According to this key factor and what is currently in the focus of attention of the organization and human societies in the world, this is a huge source of human power and the skill of managers in identifying the behavior and personality of people and dealing with it appropriately, which is considered the human and communication skill in creating the right environment. The emergence of creativity and the cultivation of creative human forces is of great importance (Fiest, 2013).

Creativity is the ability of a person to create ideas, theories, insights into new objects and reconstruction in science and other fields, which is considered by experts as an innovative phenomenon and scientifically, aesthetically and socially valuable. and this matter exists in all organizations in various forms such as conflict between boss and subordinates, employer and worker, conflict between colleagues and even intra-personal conflict. Differences in perception, personality, beliefs, politics and the like on one hand and different inferences about individual, organizational and society goals on the other hand create various conflicts in collective environments (Mozaffari et al.; 2013). When the conflict causes a major rift within the organization, the time and effort that should be spent on greater productivity must be used to resolve the conflict. The presence of too much conflict in educational organizations causes failure to achieve personal and organizational goals, which in turn leads to a decrease in performance and productivity (Faizi et al., 2019). Researches have shown that managers of organizations spend a quarter of their time dealing with conflict, and educational managers spend almost half of their time on this matter, while managers usually have a negative attitude towards conflict and try to suppress it, but behavioral scientists believe that the goal of a successful management system is to create an appropriate level of conflict. Therefore, conflict is one of the issues that have attracted the attention of researchers, and therefore it is important to study it because managers and employees of organizations spend a lot of time on it (Kordenuqabi et al.; 2019). Conflict is an open conflict between at least two people in such a way that one person feels that the lack of facilities, the incompatibility of goals and the interference of other people prevent a person from reaching his goals (Lewis, 2011). Conflict includes three dimensions of frustration, goal conflict, and role conflict (Suliman, 2012).

Suliman and Al-Sheikh (2007) in a study concluded that one of the factors related to creativity and conflict is emotional intelligence. They stated that the available evidence shows that intelligence alone does not explain success in the organization or life, but emotions play a key role in the success of the organization (Suliman-Al sheikh, 2007). By using the abilities of emotional intelligence, managers can effectively and efficiently reduce the conflicts of the organization or use it in some way to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the organization and accelerate and facilitate the achievement of the organization's goals (Eshaghi; 2013). Also, researchers have argued that emotional intelligence can improve organizational performance due to employee creativity (Suliman-Al sheikh, 2007). According to Golman, emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to organize one's own and others' emotions, self-motivation and manage emotions and relationships with others (Sawitri-Laksmi Riani, 2012).