The Contribution of Emotional Intelligence to Social Skills and Stress Management Skills Among Automated Foodservice Industry Executives

This study revalidated three dimensions of emotional intelligence (EI) and examined EI's contribution to social skills and stress management skills among members of the National Automatic Merchandising (NAMA), representing executives of the vending, coffee services, and foodservice management industries. After performing Confirmatory Factor Analysis, a sample of 191 was spilt into high EI and low EI groups, based on respondents' overall EI and each dimension of EI median scores. Differences between high and low EI groups for both overall and each dimension of EI scores in social skills and stress management skills were statistically significant, implying that the EI contributes to NAMA members' social skills and stress management skills. KEYWORDS: Emotional intelligencesocial skillsstress management skillsvendingcoffee service Acknowledgments Authors' Note: This research was supported in part by a grant from The NAMA Foundation. Mi Ran Kim and Julie Tkach, doctoral students in the Department of Community, Agriculture, Recreation, and Resource Studies at Michigan State University, were research assistants on this project. Notes a Initial model containing 37 items. b Revised model obtained by deleting 20 items from initial model, resulting in 17 items remaining. a Initial model containing 6 items. b Revised model obtained by deleting 1 item from initial model, resulting in 6 items. a Initial model containing 7 items. b Revised model obtained by deleting 2 items from initial model, resulting in 5 items. a Standard Deviation, b Cronbach's α provides an estimate of the inter-item reliability or consistency. * Mean differences were all significant at p < 0.01. * Mean differences were all significant at p < 0.01. * Mean differences were all significant at p < 0.01. * Mean differences were all significant at p < 0.01.