Journal of Organisational Studies and Innovation

The Link between Emotional Intelligence (EI) and Cultural Dimensions in the Context of the Micro Hospitality Sector
Lena Fedoruk* and Maryvonne Lumley*
*University of West London

Abstract: This paper aims to contribute to the understanding of the cultural awareness and emotional intelligence factors that prevail amongst owner managers in the micro restaurant sector.
The micro hospitality sector is an important part of the hospitality industry, which plays a vital role in the UK economy. A significant feature of this sector is the multicultural composition of both the owner-managers and the staff. In a customer focused industry emotional intelligence has major significance, and sensitivity to cultural norms can play an important part in the success of an enterprise.

This paper utilised an original data set of 99 owner-managed, micro businesses, employing a maximum of ten people, and often fewer. A Kruskal-Wallis test was run to assess whether the EI construct generalised across the studied cultural groups and it was concluded that there are no differences in EI scores with respect to ethnicity and therefore, the outcome of this research is that the EI construct generalised across the studied cultural groups.
This paper is relevant in enriching the understanding of the benefits of EI, which appear to reside in raising awareness of emotional issues in the multicultural environment of the micro restaurant sector where the manager-owners are demonstrated to have a significant influence on the motivation of employees.

Keywords: Emotional Intelligence (EI), Hospitality Industry (HI), Micro Restaurant Sector (MRS), Cultural Dimensions.