Role of Gender-Based Emotional Intelligence in Corporate Financial Decision-Making

Zou Ran; Azeem Gul; Ahsan Akbar; Syed Arslan Haider; Asma Zeeshan; Minhas Akbar

doi:10.2147/PRBM.S335022

Role of Gender-Based Emotional Intelligence in Corporate Financial Decision-Making

Psychol Res Behav Manag. 2021 Dec 29:14:2231-2244. doi: 10.2147/PRBM.S335022. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Zou Ran^{1

2}, Azeem Gul³, Ahsan Akbar⁴, Syed Arslan Haider⁵, Asma Zeeshan⁶, Minhas Akbar⁷

Affiliations

¹ Kunming LIH SkyCity Rehabilitation Hospital, Kunming, People's Republic of China.
² Faculty of Education, Segi University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
³ Department of International Relations, National University of Modern Languages, Islamabad, Pakistan.
⁴ International Business School, Guangzhou City University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510080, People's Republic of China.
⁵ Department of Management, Sunway University Business School (SUBS), Sunway University, No 5, Jalan Universiti, Bandar Sunway, 47500, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia.
⁶ Department of Management Sciences, Bahria University, Islamabad, Pakistan.
⁷ Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS University Islamabad (Sahiwal Campus), Sahiwal, 5700, Pakistan.

Abstract

Purpose: Business competition is getting more intense nowadays, and corporate survival is getting harder; consequently, corporate managers have to make financial decisions in complex and globalized scenarios. As a result, in order to compete in today's global economy, businesses are contemplating incorporating behavioural components of human psychology into their decision-making processes. Corporations are masters of quantitative analysis, but they rarely pay attention to behavioural elements of organizational success. Emotional intelligence is important in many parts of life; therefore, it is crucial to look at its dimensions when it comes to corporate financial decision-making.

Methods: A simple random sampling technique was used to collect data from 200 senior-level managers from the corporate sector located in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad of Pakistan. SPSS version 22 was used to test the hypotheses.

Results: Results of the study show the gender-based variation in corporate financial decision-making detailing the higher impact of EI of males on CFD than their counterparts in the corporate sector organizations. The elements of self-awareness, empathy, motivation and self-regulation affect the financial decision-making of both the genders with varying degrees of influence, whereas social skills do not affect CFD of both genders.

Conclusion: The study findings explicate that the influence of self-awareness and empathy constructs of EI on corporate financial decisions is stronger in female managers than their male counterparts. However, male managers exhibit a significantly stronger influence of motivation, social skills, and self-regulation dimensions on their financial decisions compared to female managers in a corporate setting. Overall, the impact of EI on CFD is slightly higher in male managers. These empirical outcomes imply that organizations should assess the employees not only for technical skills but also based on their emotional intelligence during the recruitment process.

Keywords: corporate financial decision; emotional intelligence; empathy; motivation; recruitment process; self-awareness; self-regulation; social skill; training and development.

Grants and funding

The study has not received any external funding from any sponsor or donor agency.