Assessing emotional intelligence competencies in two global context

Emotional Intelligence (EI) competencies have been shown to predict effectiveness in leaders and managers in many countries around the world. Many of these studies use qualitative methods that are sensitive to cultural differences in style, such as critical incident interviews, but many also use questionnaire-based measures. Once respondent measures are used, issues of cultural compatibility and cross-cultural meaning arise as potential challenges to validity and interpretation. In this study, data come from two management schools: MBA and EMBA students at Weatherhead School of Management, at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA; and ESADE, at Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain. The ECI-U (Emotional Competency Inventory - University version) is the questionnaire used to determine whether the assessment of EI competencies means the same in samples reflecting different cultural backgrounds. The ECI-U is a 360º instrument collecting data from the student and others around him/her. Multiple group analysis using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) examines the psychometric properties of the ECI-U responses from informants for both competency scales and clusters of competencies. This allows for a more accurate comparison of means and variances than would be obtained by traditional means using ANOVAs or t-tests. But prior to making any comparison, factorial invariance has been assessed to evaluate the degree to which items, scales, and competency clusters have the same meaning for the different groups. Problems with comparability (that may have arisen through translation problems, cultural interpretation of the behaviour being assessed, cultural appropriateness (i.e., degrees of good versus bad) of the behaviour exhibited) are discussed before any substantive conclusion is reached.