Emotional intelligence and service quality: a meta-analysis with initial evidence on cross-cultural factors and future research directions

In an increasingly competitive market economy, retailers are seeking ways to manage customer perceptions of their service quality. Selecting employees who are high on emotional intelligence (EI), and training employees in emotional competencies, may be ways to improve service quality. This meta-analysis tests the claims that EI improves service quality. The findings indicate that EI is significantly and positively related to service quality and that this relationship is stronger (1) for cultures that are short (versus long) term oriented and that are indulgent (versus restrained), and (2) for professional services and service shops than for mass services. The EI–service quality relationship does not differ between cultures that are masculine versus feminine and high versus low in uncertainty avoidance.