Apparel employees’ creative, analytical and emotional intelligences and their job and career satisfaction

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how apparel employees’ analytic, creative and emotional intelligence (EI) influence their job (JS) and career satisfaction (CS) from the theory of EI perspective.

Design/methodology/approach

An online survey was administered to apparel employees with a response of 135 participants. Regression-based conditional process analysis using bootstrapped confidence intervals was employed to analyze the study’s hypotheses.

Findings

Findings indicated that, using EI, overall participants had higher JS and, therefore, CS. However, the degree of such relationships was different for the analytic and creative groups. Specifically, when the analytic group has high EI, the direct effect of EI on JS and CS was higher than the creative group had on high EI. That is, EI seems to help the analytic group to achieve their JS and CS more directly and, respectively, while the creative group gets more indirect benefit of JS between EI and CS.

Originality/value

This study is one of the first to empirically investigate the apparel work environment by assessing employees’ analytic, creative and EIs and their relationships with JS and CS. Implications for the apparel industry and academia show that apparel companies and educators may need to enhance EI for their current and future employees to help create a more positive and long-lasting career in the apparel industry.

Citation

McAndrews, L. and Ha-Brookshire, J.E. (2020), "Apparel employees’ creative, analytical and emotional intelligences and their job and career satisfaction", Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management, Vol. 24 No. 1, pp. 33-48. https://doi.org/10.1108/JFMM-11-2018-0149