A Non-parametric Analysis of Emotional Intelligence Among Family Businesses in the Philippines

Research by: Kris G. Lobo, John Paolo R. Rivera, & Babak Hayati

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Being a dominant form of business organization in the Philippines, the contribution of family businesses in creating job opportunities cannot be undermined. As such, the discourses on the various facets, and functional areas in family business organization have grown. While this is the case, the gender, relationship, and emotional intelligence dimensions of family business dynamics in the Philippines have not been thoroughly studied. Hence, by subjecting survey data to non-parametric techniques, we seminally probed on whether gender and relationship explains emotional intelligence.

Our research design is inspired by the findings of Astrachan and Jaskiewicz (2008) and Zellweger and Astrachan (2008) wherein emotional return on costs and emotional value explain how emotions affect the value of the individual’s position in the family enterprise. That is, emotional ownership is metric of successors’ feelings towards the firm (Björnberg & Nicholson, 2012); emotional cohesion is a factor in understanding the unity of family and business systems and how the emotions can affect the dynamics of these systems (Pieper, 2007); and EI has a role in reinforcing the ability of family members to find future opportunities for the family firm (Boyatzis & Soler, 2012).

In addressing our research question and objectives, we subjected survey data of family business founders and successors containing their perceived degree of overall EI and its facets on a non-parametric approach. We found that data from the Philippines does not concur with established findings from scholarly literature that: (a) women are more emotionally intelligent than men; and (b) women or daughter successors have difficulty to claim their position and power in the family business. This is because gender and relationship dimensions do not determine EI. This is because of the peculiarities of family businesses in the Philippines being influenced by a rich cultural dimension particularly on family dynamics (i.e., close family ties, relationship with parents and kins, preserved family traditions, religion, among others, varying patriarchal and matriarchal family and business models) (Alvarez & Alavarez, 1972).

From our results, we surmise that EI is taught, learned, and does not depend on gender and relationship. Furthermore, given that EI is acquired through experience, it is progressive. To be emotionally intelligent, it requires wisdom and challenges. EI’s true value is to acknowledge the level of EI dimensions to be aware and identify the areas for improvement.

There are, however, two limitations of this EI study.

First, in terms of methodology, we focused on relationship dynamics and gender and did not include other related factors that can influence EI. This reflects the purpose of the study to lay the groundwork regarding EI dimensions and associations with relationship dynamics and gender. The study may be fruitful if this is tested with other antecedents that may describe other characteristics and links.

Our second limitation reflects restraint and novelty. All the data in this research were collected in the Philippines. The generalizability of the results may be of concern. While this is a concern for quantitative researchers, this limitation serves as a departure point that while EI results are stable, EI is independent regardless of gender and relationship dynamics. When we reviewed the literature, most of the literature have predicated the strong relationship between gender and EI. Our empirical results say differently. Hence, here lies the novelty of our work. Our position to understand EI through relationship dynamics is evidence that there is a cross-cultural variation between the West and Asia. And, to our knowledge, relationship dynamics was not tested quantitatively—only in this research study.

Keywords: emotional intelligence, family business, family business owners, non-parametric, founder successor

To cite this article: Lobo, K. G., Rivera, J. P. R., & Hayati, B. (2022). A non-parametric analysis of emotional intelligence among family businesses in the Philippines. Vision. https://doi.org/10.1177/09722629221092138

To access this article: https://doi.org/10.1177/09722629221092138

About the journal

Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective, a collaborative endeavor of the Management Development Institute, Gurugram, and SAGE Publications, aims at driving forward research in the field of business and management sciences by providing high-quality evidence-based papers for academics, researchers, managers, and policymakers.

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