Journals Proceedings

Abstract

The study focuses on the cross-cultural study of emotional competence and its role on work-family conflict among 437 purposively selected call center representatives (CSRs) from the Middle East, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, India, and the Philippines. The paper aims to establish a baseline literature on the link between emotional competence and work-family conflict and the interplay of each on demographic variables such as age, gender, civil status, work time schedule, and nationality. Moreover, the study leads to an organizational change management program to aid organizations to cope with diversity concerns. The descriptive, comparativecorrelational methods were employed as this paper also threshes out whether CSRs differ on emotional competence and work-family conflict based on demographic characteristics. The researchers utilized three instruments, namely: The Demographic Profile Sheet, Emotional Competence Inventory, and Work/Family Conflict Scale. The general findings confirm that with emotional competence, CSRs did not significantly differ in terms of age. But in terms of gender, civil status, work time schedule, and nationality, CSRs demonstrated significant differences in emotional competence. Male CSRs and those who are single are higher in all areas of emotional competence as well as in their overall emotional competence. CSRs whose work time schedules are opposite or have a time difference of more than ten hours with the businesses they serve are likewise higher in all areas of emotional competence and in the overall emotional competence. In terms of nationality, there was a significant difference in social awareness only.As for work-life conflict, the CSRs’ gender is the only demographic variable that did not yield differences in emotional competence. Finally, there is a significant relationship between emotional competence and workfamily conflict, particularly on the areas of selfmanagement, social awareness and relationship management.