Intra-department communication and employees' reaction to organizational change The moderating effect of emotional intelligence

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate the moderating effect of employee emotional intelligence on the relationship of intra-department communications and employee's reaction to organizational change in China. Design/methodology/approach - Based on the literatures in organizational change, organizational communications and emotional intelligence, the authors derived three hypotheses which were tested with data collected in a large state-owned enterprise (SOE) in the telecommunication industry. Factor analysis and regression analysis were combined for the hypothesis tests. Findings - It was found that intra-department communications positively influenced employee's reaction to organizational change with employees' emotional intelligence moderating the relationship. When employee's emotional intelligence is higher, intra-department communication has greater positive effect on employee's reaction to change. Research limitations/implications - With the adopted western measurement scales, this study was unable to reveal the Chinese contextual aspect of organizational communications. As the data were self-reported, they may have common source deviation. Practical implications - To foster and maintain employees' positive reactions to change, managers and organizations may consider developing strategies to improve employees' emotional intelligence, so as to embrace future changes. Originality/value - This is an initial effort in examining the joint effect of intra-department communications and employee's emotional intelligence on employee's reaction to organizational change. It may lead to additional research on organizational change management.