Melika Shirmohammadi

Effects of an emotional intelligence training program on service quality of bank branches

Purpose – The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of an emotional intelligence (EI) training program on: the EI of service providers; and the service quality provided by employees who have received such training.Design/methodology/approach – Employees of five branches of a large public‐sector bank in Iran are randomly selected as the “treatment group” to undertake a tailored eight‐session EI training program, while employees of another homogenous sample of five branches are selected as the “control group” (involving no EI training). EI is measured by the ECI‐2 instrument before and after training. Two samples of customers (150 customers of the “treatment branches” and 150 customers of the “control branches”) are utilised to evaluate the perceived service quality of both groups of branches before the training and two months after the training.Findings – One of four dimensions of EI (“relationship management”) is found to be enhanced by EI training. Moreover, the EI training program is shown...

Work‐family conflict and its antecedents among Iranian operating room personnel

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between work-family conflict and its antecedent variables. The researchs dependent variables include work interference with family (WIF) and family interference with work (FIW). Independent variables consist of work-related (hours spent at work, role conflict, role ambiguity, supervisor support, and work shifts), family-related (hours spent with family, marital status, spousal employment, number of children, and age of the youngest child), and demographic (gender, age, tenure, and education) variables. Design/methodology/approach - In total, 333 operating room personnel in ten Iranian hospitals completed a survey questionnaire, which consisted of 38 questions administered to participants in the workplace. Findings - Analysis of data revealed that among work-related variables, the role conflict was positively associated with WIF. Supervisor support and working shifts were also weakly related to WIF. No significant relationships were found between family-related variables and FIW. Among the demographic variables, only gender influenced FIW in a manner that men experienced more FIW than women. Originality/value - The research findings contribute to understanding work-family conflict in a new cultural setting. The empirical evidence of work-family conflict in Iran, among operating room personnel, shows that experiences and antecedents of work-family conflict vary among diverse cultures and industries. Models of work-family conflict may need to be modified to reflect the experiences and antecedents that explain work-family conflict in cultures similar to that of Iran.

Attitudes toward teamwork: are Iranian university students ready for the workplace?

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to determine whether Iranian student attitudes toward teamwork are relatively favorable or unfavorable. The authors also examine the influence of variables that affect student attitudes toward teamwork, including concerns about teamwork evaluation and perceptions of the environment for teamwork, gender, age, GPA, education level, major, and teamwork training.Design/methodology/approach – A questionnaire developed to measure the study variables was administered to 1,811 students across different majors in three large Iranian universities.Findings – The results indicate that Iranian students have moderately positive attitudes toward teamwork, contrary to the prevalent belief that Iranians are not much interested in teamwork. The results indicate that Iranian students are concerned about how teamwork is evaluated. They believe that the environmental facilities at their universities for teamwork are weak and not supportive. Structural equation modeling showed that stu...

Training employees of a public Iranian bank on emotional intelligence competencies

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the possibility of developing emotional intelligence (EI) as conceptualized in Boyatzis et al.s competency model.Design/methodology/approach – Designing a context‐based EI training program, the study utilized a sample of 68 fully‐employed members of five branches of a public bank in Iran; each branch underwent an eight‐week (each session 120 minutes) EI training program. Pre‐ and post‐tests were conducted to assess EI development using emotional competence inventory (ECI‐2), a 360‐degree measurement tool.Findings – Only one EI cluster out of four improved significantly and only some of the specific dimensions showed this significant improvement, while others did not have a clear change and even some self assessments deteriorated.Research limitations/implications – Lack of a control group, small sample size, and short training program are the main limitations of this study.Practical implications – Detailed explanation of the method could be a guide for ser...

AHRD! Take the opportunity and pioneer vocational MOOCs

In this perspective, we advocate that the Academy of Human Resource Development (AHRD) can play a significant role in pioneering and promoting vocational Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). To do so, we introduce Coursera, an online educational portal that provides a variety of MOOCs for free and serves adult learners, as an example. In addition, we discuss lessons AHRD can learn from Coursera’s experience. We also explore the benefits of leading vocational MOOCs for the academy. This paper has implications for the Human Resource Development scholarly and practitioner communities.

Living the academic life: A model for work-family conflict.

BACKGROUND Work-family conflict (WFC) is an inter-role conflict, which suggests that fulfilling expectations of family roles makes it difficult to satisfy expectations of work roles, and vice versa. Living an academic life includes balancing multiple work demands and family responsibilities, which may generate WFC for many faculty members. Researchers have emphasized the need for further studies of how faculty integrate work and family demands. OBJECTIVE This study explores WFC among Iranian faculty. We examine relationships among work hours, time spent with family, work-interference with family (WIF), family-interference with work (FIW), and job satisfaction. METHODS Faculty members from 25 Iranian public universities completed a questionnaire. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses in a single model. RESULTS Findings suggest a positive relationship between faculty weekly work hours and WIF, and between time spent with family and FIW. WIF correlated negatively with job satisfaction, and work hours correlated positively with job satisfaction. Time spent with family and FIW had no influence on job satisfaction, and spouse employment moderated the relationship between WIF and job satisfaction. CONCLUSIONS Findings have implications for human resources and organizational development professionals seeking insight into how faculty members and other knowledge workers experience work-family interrelationships.

Women Leaders in China Looking Back and Moving Forward

The Problem Leadership research has received extensive attention; however, leadership research that focuses on women is still not part of the mainstream. Furthermore, our current knowledge about leadership is primarily built upon studies situated in the Western context. As a result, while we know much about leadership in general, our understanding of women leadership in a non-Western setting, specifically in China, is still limited. The Solution This scoping study was conducted to provide a holistic and balanced picture of women leadership progress in China through a literature review. By focusing on women leaders in China, we intend to extend our current understanding of the leadership phenomenon beyond the Western context and the mainstream research foci. The Stakeholders Developing women leaders is a collaborative effort, requiring multiple stakeholders. For China, findings from this research will benefit national policymakers, organizational leaders, human resource development practitioners, and women leaders. It will also inform Western organizations and managers who will interact with women leaders in China, as well as all scholars who pursue this line of inquiry.

Flexible Work Arrangements and Work–Family Conflict: A Metasynthesis of Qualitative Studies Among Academics:

Quantitative research has reported variable and inconsistent findings regarding the relationship between flexible work arrangements (FWA) and work–family conflict (WFC). In this article, we address this inconsistency through the lens of qualitative research. We synthesize the findings of 45 qualitative studies from a variety of disciplines that have explored work–family interface (WFI) among academics whose profession offers high levels of FWA by nature. Analyzing the findings of these qualitative studies, we developed six themes of which five could be translated to moderators of the relationship between FWA and WFC. These moderator variables are boundary management preferences, time management skills and approach, career/family stage, nature of an academic job, and workplace culture. Our findings have theoretical, methodological, and practical implications for work–family and human resource development (HRD) scholars and practitioners motivated to improve the quality of employees’ work–life through initiation of FWA interventions.