Contextualizing emotional intelligence for commercial and social entrepreneurship

Plain English SummaryEmotional intelligence operates above and beyond just the individual. It can manifest itself as culturally contextualized emotional competencies and present as national framework conditions affecting social and commercial entrepreneurship. Our study proposes that the four components of emotional intelligence, such as well-being, self-control, adaptability, and sociability, are societal-level reserves of psychological capital that influence individual-level social and commercial entrepreneurship in different ways. Analyzing Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) data from 24 countries, we show that while societal eudaimonic well-being and sociability components of culturally contextualized emotional intelligence increase the likelihood of social entrepreneurship more than commercial entrepreneurship, the hedonic well-being, adaptability, and self-control increase the likelihood of commercial entrepreneurship more than social entrepreneurship. Our findings can inform government policies to develop country-specific programs to tap societal reserves of emotional competencies specifically to drive both commercial and social entrepreneurship. Rendering four emotional competencies of the trait emotional intelligence model, well-being, self-control, adaptability, and sociability as culturally contextualized societal psychological capital, we explain their cross-cultural comparative influences on social and commercial entrepreneurship. We use psychological capital theory to establish emotional intelligence as one's emotional competencies. Societies with an augmented supply of individuals with such competencies will have higher reserves of positive psychological capital making emotional intelligence as culturally contextualized that shape both commercial and social entrepreneurship. Using 30,924 responses from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) survey of 24 countries and supplementing data from World Values Survey (WVS), our multilevel analyses show that societal eudaimonic well-being and sociability increase the likelihood of social entrepreneurship more than commercial entrepreneurship whereas societal hedonic well-being, adaptability, and self-control increase that of commercial entrepreneurship more than social entrepreneurship, implying that culturally contextualized emotional intelligence shapes commercial and social entrepreneurship differently across nations. Our findings offer policy implications for country-specific programs that tap into societal emotional competencies for entrepreneurship pedagogy, sustainability goals, and emotional intelligence-based training for entrepreneurs.