The effects of emotional intelligence and innovative work behaviors on job satisfaction in the banking sector

Nowadays, in order to perform efficiently and productively, all companies either in national or international arena need to have employees whose emotional intelligence and job satisfaction levels are high, and who can keep up with all kinds of changes and developments. Thus it can be easier for the companies to resist and gain advantages over their competitors in the competitive environment caused by globalization. It has started to become more of an issue for the companies especially in the service sector to include such employees to be able to get global competition power. Accordingly, in this study it is aimed to set forth the effects of emotional intelligence and innovative work behaviors on job satisfaction of bankers employed in both state-owned and private banks in the banking sector, and also the interaction of these variables with each other. In addition, it has been also investigated if emotional intelligence, innovative work behaviors and job satisfaction differ in terms of the institution or not. Questionnaire technique has been used as a data collection tool in the research. It has been benefitted from the emotional intelligence scale developed by Wong and Law to obtain the data related to emotional intelligence level; the innovative work behavior scale developed by Janssen to obtain the data related to innovative work behaviors and; the short form of Minnesota job satisfaction scale developed by Weiss, Davis, England and Lofquist to obtain the data related to job satisfaction. The findings obtained from the questionnaire applied to 332 people have proven that there are significant relations and effects of emotional intelligence and innovative work behaviors with job satisfaction. When analysis results have been examined in terms of institutional factors, it has been confirmed that there have been significant differences on emotional intelligence and innovative work behaviors while there have not been any considerable differences on factors affecting job satisfaction.Key Words: Emotional Intelligence, Innovative Work Behaviors, Job Satisfaction, Banking Sector