Impact of Emotional Intelligence on Organizational Commitment; Moderating role of Organizational Politics in Pakistan

The purpose of this paper was to investigate the effect of emotional intelligence on the three dimensions of organizational commitment (Affective, Continues and Narrative), specifically this research proposed that organizational politics moderate the relationships between emotional intelligence and Affective, Continues and Narrative organizational commitment in the private Pharmaceutical companies in Pakistan. Quantitative and descriptive approach was used based on cross sectional research design. Data was collected from 193 employees of five pharmaceutical companies of Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan using a self-administered questionnaire. Preliminary analyses were performed to satisfy the assumptions, which allow us to analyze the data through SPSS Version 26 and Smart PLS Version 3. Present research found a positive and significant relationship between emotional intelligence and Affective and Narrative organizational commitment. While found negative relationship with Continues organizational commitment. In addition, the research also found that organizational politics moderate the relationship between emotional intelligence and Affective & Continues organizational commitment. While found no moderating effect on the relationship between emotional intelligence and Normative organizational commitment Present study recommends that Pharmaceutical companies’ management to facilitate employee’s development through training and knowledge sharing sessions to enhance emotion intelligence and create a political free atmosphere in their firms Thus, this result provides significant value and knowledge to the Pharmaceutical companies’ management to create free organizational politics environment that will increase organizational commitment, which will lead to higher productivity and will help to enhance Pakistan economy.


Introduction
Emotions are an integral feature of society and play a major role in an individual's job and cultural aspects. Emotions are phases of thoughts that can dramatically alter the determinants of behaviors such as mindsets, inferences, and beliefs (Alsughayir, 2021). Emotional intelligence is not a new concept; scholars have been working in this field from early 1920 in different context, however Salovey and Mayer are the real pioneers, who's introduced emotional intelligence in Organizational context in 1990's (Carmeli, 2003). Emotional intelligence is the ability of a person to identify her or his own emotions as well as the emotions of others, allowing her or him to establish positive interactions with others. (Salovey & Mayer, 1990). Employee Emotional Intelligence is linked to organizational outcomes such as job involvement, productivity, and Organizational commitment from an Organizational point of view (Prentice et al., 2020). These insights have consequences for employee productivity and effectiveness as well as organizational revenue (Prentice et al., 2020). The notion of emotional intelligence gives a new avenue for academics to explore the impact of emotional intelligence on individual and organizational level variables. (Hakim & Anggraeni, 2019). Several existing researches explored the association between emotional intelligence and job performance, and the most of them found a positive and significant link between emotional intelligence and employee job performance. (Ahad et al., 2021;Chong et al., 2020;Geun & Park, 2019;Li et al., 2018). Several researchers suggest that organizational politics is an exceptional social phenomenon, whereas others consider it is a workplace occurrence that depicts an organization's political atmosphere (Khan et al., 2019). Because of the negative consequences on a broad range of workplace consequences, and also individual job attitudes and behaviors, management and organizational research contribute to Organizational politics (Park & Lee, 2020). In a recent survey, an employee identified organizational politics as among the top obstacles to job outcomes, indicating the importance of the topic (Park & Lee, 2020). In early Ferris et al., (1989), introduced Perception of Politics (POP) model and got scholars concentration towards organizational politics. organizational politics has a detrimental impact on employee job outcomes, enhancing employee stress, absenteeism, and declining job performance and job satisfaction. Prior research has found that OP has a negative influence on organizational and employee outcomes such as employee commitment, satisfaction, and work performance. Furthermore, organizational politics is linked to job stress, employee burnout, and turnover intention (Khan et al., 2019). In general, studies have indicated that organizational politics have an adverse impact on job outcomes, some research, however, failed to find negative correlations and had unclear results (Hochwarter et al., 1999;Harrell-Cook et al., 1999).
Nevertheless, most organizations are suffered from organization politics up to certain extend. However, no one is able to explain its negative or positive phenomena as a whole; and majority of researchers' studies explored negative consequences of organizational politics (Ferris et al., 2012). The negative effects of organizational politics and the favorable association of emotional intelligence with employee job outcomes idea compelled academics to categorize the purpose of emotion in politics in an organizational environment. Affective events theory related to emotional functions at workplace, boost employee attitudes and behaviors and able them to use emotional experiences in their job outcomes specially where they perceiving organizational politics within organization (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996). But besides the above, the variety of researchers in the western culture evaluated the positive effects of emotional intelligence on organizational and individual job outcomes, yet few researches were undertaken to explore these relationships in the eastern cultural context. Emotional intelligence drives emotions and is seen as a fundamental human ability. Behavior is determined by abilities, which differ between cultures. (Shrestha & Baniya, 2016). Emotions are differed from one culture to the next (Planalp & Fitness, 1999). Simalirly, in public and private sectors, organizational levels and consequences are varies (Vigoda & Meisler, 2010). Several talented personnel in Pakistan's private and public sectors have left their employment due to the significant influence of Organizational politics (Asad et al., 2020). Moreover, political activities have been shown to be a component of organizations in reality, and political mindset can also have both beneficial and detrimental consequences on employees. (Khalid et al., 2018). Intense environment, uncertainty, unemployment, job insecurity, which ultimately has a multi-dimensional effect on humans (Saif et al., 2020). Organizational distrust has a negative impact on organizational commitment (Saif et al., 2020). Currently, Pakistani organizations are performing poorly and are confronted with a number of uncertain circumstances such as low economic, natural, and political improvement strategies, ongoing inefficiency due to a lack of leadership, and mismanagement. (Abbas & Awan, 2017;Planning Commission, 2011). Individuals or organizations in Pakistan utilize authority and politics to assert influence over others and enhance their personal interests at the expense of others. (Abbas & Awan, 2017). The Pakistan's pharmaceutical sector is a major employer in both urban and rural areas (Ahmed et al., 2018). Pharmaceutical industry in Pakistan contributing steady growth to the economy of the country (Hafeez & Akbar, 2015). Despite of its importance and significant economy growth to the country; Pharmaceutical industry employees are often reported to have stress relation issues and job dissatisfaction (Hafeez & Akbar, 2015). In Pakistan, work stress was found toward being negatively and strongly connected to Organizational commitment (Malik et al., 2019). Emotional intelligence has the potential to help Pakistani pharmaceutical employees overcome issues such as work-life balance and job outcomes. Emotional intelligence, is more important to Multi-National Corporations (MNCs), health care related MNCs in Pakistan, Because of the volatile corporate climate, they are having difficulty managing and establishing control over their enterprises (Khalid et al., 2018). The purpose of this study was to determine if emotional intelligence responds the same way across cultures, as well as the moderating effects of organizational politics in the private sector. As a result, an investigation of the eastern cultural environment, such as Pakistan, was undertaken. Specifically, the study examined the association among emotional intelligence and three dimensions of organizational commitment (affective, continuance, and normative). In addition, present study also explored the moderating role of organizational politics between emotional intelligence and the three dimensions of organizational commitment (affective, continuance, and normative). The research tried to accomplish the objectives, by empirically testing of emotional intelligence of employee in pharmaceutical companies located at Peshawar Khyber, Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan.

Literature Review Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence gained lot of attention for scholars over the past decade and many scholars declared that it has the significant strength to manipulate optimistic behaviors, attitudes and employee job outcomes (Sony & Mekoth, 2016). Mayer and Salovey (1997) definition are the best definition for emotional intelligence (Vigoda-Gadot & Meisler, 2010). Emotional intelligence refers to four abilities such as "1) the ability to recognize accurately, appraise, and express emotions; 2) the ability to access or produce feelings when they assist thought 3) the ability to know emotions and emotional knowledge; and 4) the ability to control emotions to support emotional and intellectual development" (Mayer & Salovey, 1997). Emotional intelligence (EI) is a favorable human trait that leads to positive life outcomes. It is a mixture of skills and knowledge to perceive, recognize, control, and express one's own and other emotions, as well as the ability to control and utilize feelings. Emotional intelligence drives human external conditions of adjustment, which helps to maximize benefit and minimize weakness (Salovey & Mayer, 1990).
Salovey and Mayer are the pioneers in introducing emotional intelligence theory. Goleman (1995), explained the concept and classified into different models like mixed models and ability models (Neubauer & Freudenthaler, 2005). Previous research has demonstrated that high emotional intelligence improves employee job performance, leadership, and conflict resolution (Wong & Law, 2002;Mayer et al., 2008). Employees with high emotional intelligence are more committed to the organization than those with low emotional intelligence, which is related to a lack of emotion management and the ability to cope with anxiety effectively (Poon, 2003). Emotional intelligence concept changed human's intellect to observed emotions and intelligence separately and the relationship between them, capabilities to classify, understanding and express emotions of own and other leads to better interactions, which will result positive outcomes in their lives (Beck, 2013). Emotional intelligence is effective social factor of personality (Van der Linden et al., 2017). Cognitive efficiency, favorable human engagement, longer telomeres, and improved health are all characteristics of emotional intelligence (Schutte et al., 2016). Because cognitive ability and emotional intelligence are completely indifferent to personality characteristics, and each component has a unique impact on job effectiveness, the work associated to self-reported emotional intelligence remains unclear. (Newman and colleagues, 2010).

Hypotheses Development
Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Commitment Mowday et al (1979) defined Organizational commitment as "the relative strength of identification and participation of an individual in a given organization" (p.226). Commitment is a phenomenon, where a social individual offers their services to the social system and produce efforts with allegiance (Kanter, 1968). This moves beyond organizational loyalty to develop a more proactive, passionate engagement with the organization including both beliefs and behavior (Alsughayir, 2021). Organization commitment is an attitude of human mindset towards organization (Allen & Meyer, 1990). Allen and Meyer (1990) introduced the revolutionary "three-component model of commitment" which categorized organizational commitment into three distinct types: Affective commitment referred to employees' willingness to stay in their organizations; Continuance commitment refer to employees' need to stay in their organizations and Normative commitment refer to employees' self-obligation to stay in their organizations (Alsughayir, 2021). Employees with high affective commitment stay because they want to; employees with high continuance commitment stay because they need to; and employees with high normative commitment stay because they feel obligated to (Carmeli, 2003). Organizational outcomes and motivation are significantly influenced by emotional intelligence. As a result, studies are focusing more on the relationship between organizational commitment and emotional intelligence (Meyer & Allen, 1997). Higher emotional intelligent are more efficient and committed compare to lower emotional intelligent, who's unable to tackle difficult and motional situation. Employee that are unable to control their emotions also has weak organizational commitment (Taboli et al., 2013). Carmeli (2003) established that emotional intelligence had positive impact on affective Organizational commitment, whereas continuance organizational commitment had a negative and significant relationship with emotional intelligence. Previous studies show a positive correlation between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment (Ramli & Novariani, 2020;Shafiq & Rana, 2016). In contrast Güleryüz et al. (2008) and Wong and Law (2002) found that emotional intelligence was not related to organizational commitment. According to Aboramadan et al. (2019) that organizational commitment was not analyzed in its three sub-dimensions (affective, continuous, and normative commitment). Therefore, the all three dimensions of organizational commitment should be investigated (Alsughayir, 2021). However, more research into the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment is needed (Ahad et al., 2021;Geun & Park, 2019;Ramli & Novariani, 2020). Based on the above-mentioned literature reviews and the study's gap, the following hypothesis was developed. H1: There is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and affective organizational commitment H2: There is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and continuous organizational commitment H3: There is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and normative organizational commitment

Moderating Role of Organization Politics on the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Organizational Commitment
Organizational politics can be described in two ways: first, general perspective as an illustration of a social influence approach that results in positive organizational outcomes, and second narrow perspective, as self-serving and unauthorized efforts that frequently violate organizational objectives (Shrestha & Baniya, 2016). Organizations are social entities, where conflicts, groups and individual influences, individual and resources utilization for revenue generation and goals achievements are the routine activities (Molm, 1997). Utilizing individual and recourses within organization through planed manners for their self-well-being are the history of organizational politics (Fedor et al., 1998). Organizational politics are employee-planned efforts for gaining self-interest through the use of authority over others (Vigoda-Gadot & Vigoda-Gadot, 2003). Organizational politics is the pursuit of self-interest by employees while disregarding the interests of others and the organization (Mintzberg, 1985). Scholars claimed that because politics is a natural occurrence in organizations, it must be studied extensively empirically (Melese & Das, 2019). Organizational politics is commonly defined as "a social influence process in which behavior is strategically structured to maximize short-term or long-term self-interest that is either congruent with or at the expense of others' interests" (Ferris et al., 1989). Besides job satisfaction, organizational commitment is widely considered as the second highest frequently encountered concept in the category of job characteristics (Melese & Das, 2019). Mostly in research, the notion of recognizing organizational commitment to be an attitude has a broad definition (Solinger et al., 2008). Organizational commitment is an attitude that reflects a psychological state that connects an individual to an organization depends on their connection with the organization 's goals and objectives (Judge & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2012). Job outcomes such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment are indeed linked to emotional intelligence (Wong & Law, 2002). Employees that are unable to recognize and control their emotions are less committed to their employers (Carmeli, 2003). People with strong emotional intelligence may also be more committed to their organizations and accomplish job more effectively (Melese & Das, 2019). Emotionally intelligent people focus their emphasis on settlement instead of logic since they have optimistic and positive characteristics (Abraham, 1999). According to investigations, lower employee commitment is caused by a person's beliefs of more political attitudes in their organization (Utami et al., 2014). Research on the association between OP and commitment has been inconsistent (Miller et al., 2008). Despite the fact that the majority of studies have found a negative correlation between organizational politics and organizational commitment (Chen & Indartono, 2011;Melese & Das, 2019;Rong & Cao, 2015). According to other investigation, these two variables have a positive connection (Miller et al., 2008). Conversely, Randall et al. (1999) and Cropanzano et al. (1997) found no link between OP and OC in their research. As a result, there's a strong possibility that organizational politics influences the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment . Studies suggested that further investigation should done to examine the moderating role of organizational politics on the relationship between emotional intelligence and the three dimensions of organizational commitment (affective organizational commitment, continuance organizational commitment, and normative organizational commitment) due to inconsistencies in the previous results (Poon, 2006;Rauf et al., 2020;Shrestha & Baniya, 2016;Miller et al., 2008). Based on the review of the literature and the gap in the study, the following hypothesis was developed. H4: Organizational politics moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and affective organizational commitment. H5: Organizational politics moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and continuance organizational commitment. H6: Organizational politics moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and normative organizational commitment.
The following research model (Figure 1) was established based on the literature review.

Research Design & Methods
Present study was grounded based on the qualitative approach hence survey method was adopted. Respondent of this study, consist of employees in five (5) key Pharmaceutical companies in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa, Pakistan. Total number of populations for this study was five hundred (500). Based on G*Power Method 217 sample size were determined. The research data for this study were gathered using convenient sampling method. Selfadministrated questionnaire was used for data collecting from 217 employees of Pharmaceutical companies. Nevertheless, 193 out of 217 questionnaires distributed were received. Present study measurement was adapted from the existing literature. Wong and Law's emotional intelligence scale (WLEIS) was adapted, which was developed in 2002. The Organizational commitment measurement was adapted from Allen and Meyer (1990). The organizational politics measurement was adapted from Kacmar and Ferris (1991). The items are rated on a five-point scale ranging from (1)'strongly disagree' to (5)'strongly agree.' Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) 23V and Smart PLS Package 3 were used for data analysis. Bootstrapping of 5000 were run to test the research hypothesis.

Measurement Model (PLS SEM Model Assessment)
The validity and reliability of the models were determined using model measurement. Furthermore, for the reflective model, factor loading analysis is performed first and see which of the items included are problematic in this analysis. Items loadings below 0.60 should be deleted (Hair et al. 2006). Upon trimming the items, the loading ranges from 0.673 to 0.883, where it is within the 0.6 limit recommended by Hair et al (2006). Internal consistency reliability was used to examine data reliability, and composite reliability (CR). Table 2 reveals that the Composite reliability value ranges from 0.923 to 0.950, this being higher than the proposed threshold by Hair (2010). The data validity of the measurement model was confirmed using the convergent and discriminant validity of variables. (Chin, 2010). Therefore, each latent AVE variable should be greater than 0.50 (Hair et al., 2010). Table 2 also shows the values for each AVE, which are ranges between 0.532 and 0.734. Shown in Table 3, discriminatory validity was assessed using the Fornell and Larker (1981) technique. Their independent variance was bigger than the component's common value. Discrimination is demonstrated since all square roots of AVEs are bigger than all interconstruct correlations. The Heterotrait-Monotrait (HTMT) correlation ratio was conducted to establish discriminant validity (Henseler et al., 2015). A HTMT value larger than 0.90 indicates that discriminant validity is lacking;

Path Coefficient Analysis
The data was examined using the bootstrapping process in Smart PLS, and the structural model is shown in Figure 2. There is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and affective organizational commitment. Based on the results obtained, (β = 0.388, t-value = 3.491, p-value < .001), the p-value was less than the significant level of 0.05, hence H1 was supported. The results affirmed that emotional intelligence has a positive and significant relationship with affective organizational commitment H2: There is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and continuous organizational commitment. Based on the results obtained (β = -0.392, t-value = 3.338, p-value < .001). Despite the p-value was less than the significant level of 0.05, but the β value is negative, hence H2 was not supported. The results affirmed that emotional intelligence emotional intelligence has a negatively significant relationship with continuous organizational commitment H3: There is a positive relationship between emotional intelligence and normative organizational commitment. Based on the results obtained (β = 0.657, t-value = 6.023, p-value < .000), the p-value was less than the significant level of 0.05, hence H3 is supported. The results confirmed that emotional intelligence has positive and significant relationship with normative organizational commitment. Table 6 shows Moderation Analysis Results and figure 3 shows the moderation results based on bootstrapping procedure.  affective organizational commitment. Based on the results obtained (β = 0.340, t-value = 5.882, p-value < 0.00), the p-value was less than the significant level of 0.05, hence H5 is supported. The findings confirmed that Organizational politics moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and affective organizational commitment. Hence, the simple slope plot (Figure 4) backs up our earlier explanation of the term "positive interaction": Higher degrees of organizational politics will result in a weaker relationship. between emotional intelligence and affective organizational commitment. continuous organizational commitment. Based on the results obtained (β = -0.165, t-value = 2.237, p-value < 0.026), the p-value was less than the significant level of 0.05, hence H6 is supported. The results acknowledged that Organizational politics moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and continuous organizational commitment. Hence, the simple slope plot ( Figure 5) supports our previous discussion on the negative interaction term: higher organizational politics levels will entail a weaker relationship between emotional continuous organizational commitment. Based on the results obtained (β = 0.036, t-value = 0.392, p-value < 0.695), the p-value was greater than the significant level of 0.05, hence H7 is not supported. According to the findings, Organizational politics did not moderate the association between emotional intelligence and normative organizational commitment.

Discussions & Suggestions
The current study examined the relationships between emotional intelligence (EI) and three dimensions of organizational commitment (affective, continues and normative). Present study also examined the moderating effect of organizational politics (OP) on the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment three dimensions (affective, continues and normative). According to the findings, EI was a positive and significantly related to two (2) dimensions of organizational commitment (affective and normative organizational commitment). The results are consistent with the finding of (Alsughayir, 2021;Carmeli, 2003;Shafiq & Rana, 2016). While on the other hand the study results found that emotional intelligence has negatively related to continues organizational commitment. The finding is consistent with the results of (Carmeli, 2003;Güleryüz et al. 2008;Wong & Law, 2002). Organizational Politics moderates the relationship between Emotional Intelligence and affective organizational commitment, continues organizational commitment. Consistent with the findings of previous studies (Ahad et al., 2021;Alonazi, 2020). While the study didn't find the moderating role on the relationship between emotional intelligence and normative organizational commitment. According to the study's findings, the Organizational politics moderates the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment. Organizational politics can harm an organization and lead it to become unstable over time (Malik et al., 2009). Individual preferences; broken organizational nationality behaviors between employees are integrated as depressive organizational politics influences (Chang et al., 2009). Organizational politics reduces organizational commitment (Witt et al., 2000); adopting destructive behavior, which leads to negative employee job consequences (Vigoda, 2000).

Conclusions
Emotional intelligence has a direct impact on organizational commitment, which was investigated and supported, results may have practical implications in organization and can be a turning key for boosting employee organizational commitment. The association between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment is moderated by organizational politics, reflects employee perceptions about organizational politics, may have a negative impact on emotional intelligence's positive influence on organizational commitment. As a result, senior managers or executives must establish a clear environment in which employees are not affected by organizational politics and increase emotional intelligence in order to inspire higher and stronger organizational commitment. The current study's findings identified some key significance of employee emotional intelligence in workforce well-being. Firms should support employee growth by providing continuing training sessions and cutting-edge knowledge to help them improve their emotional intelligence (Dulewicz & Higgs, 2004). These results can be used by stakeholders and policymakers to develop policies and practices to minimalize adverse employment organizational politics. Previous literature indicates the, increased emotional intelligence decreases organizational politics and their effects; as a result, EI may increase employee organizational commitment while also decreasing negative employee job outcomes such as absence and attrition (Miller et al., 2008;Ahad et al., 2021;Alonazi, 2020;Chang et al., 2009;Kacmar & Baron, 1999).

Limitations & Future Research
Whereas the findings are promising and the objectives were accomplished, there are a number of limitations. Firstly, even though this is a cross-sectional research using data obtained only once over a certain time frame, the study's results are limited to that time frame and cannot be applied to time periods pre or post the study is performed. Additionally, because data obtained by a single method cannot be considered an actual fact, the acquired data may not be an essentially or perfectly true picture of reality. Although the current study has limitations, these imitations do not diminish its academic or practical significance. As a result, future researchers will need to keep identifying and overcoming current study constraints. As a result, additional study is advised to extend the current study framework by investigating other business aspects that may affect employee performance (job involvement, job performance and organizational commitment). In the future, research could strengthen the theoretical framework by examining other mediating or moderating variables that may have an impact on the relationship between emotional intelligence and organizational commitment.