The relationships between emotional intelligence level, problem solving ability, organizational ethical climate and employee performance: A research in tourism business

The purpose of this study is to analyze the emotional intelligence levels of the employees in tourism, to identify problem solving skills, to determine whether the organization has an organizational ethical climate and to describe the relationship between these four variables by measuring employee performance of employees. In this study, emotional intelligence scale consisting of 4 dimensions and 16 items, problem-solving scale consisting of 6 dimensions and 35 items, one-dimensional organizational ethical climate scale consisting of 9 items and one dimensional employee performance scale consisting of 4 items have been used. The hotels, food and beverage companies and travel agencies in Istanbul have been included in this study by the help of convenience sampling method and the data has been obtained from employees through survey. A total of 475 tourism business employees have participated in the study, including 132 hotel enterprises (5 star), 132 restaurant establishments (1st class) and 211 travel agencies (A group) employees. When analyzed the obtained data, SPSS 22.0 package program has been utilized and simple correlation, pearson-product moment correlation, multiple regression, linear regression, independent samples t test, one way analysis of variance, Tukey's test etc. analysis methods have been used. Based on the results of the study, the average scale of emotional intelligence level, problem solving ability, organizational ethical climate and employee performance scales have been high. There have been positive relationships and significant effects between the tourism employees' emotional intelligence levels, problem-solving abilities, organizational ethical climate and employee performance. Moreover, this study has proven that employee performance has had a mediating effect on the relationship between emotional intelligence level, problem solving ability and organizational ethical climate. Key Words: Emotional Intelligence, Problem Solving, Organizational Ethical Climate, Employee Performance, Tourism Employees.