The way to improve organizational citizenship behavior for the employees who lack emotional intelligence

Previous literature on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has emphasized that service employees’ emotional intelligence (EI) is an essential antecedent to perform OCB. However, the malleability of EI is not always guaranteed, so it is necessary for the success of the organization to make the employee who lacks the EI perform OCB. In this regard, this study aims to discover other competencies that complement EI by reflecting the organic nature of individuals and organizations. This study collected data from 310 hair salon employees working at 20 different locations of the same franchise. The data were analyzed through a method of hierarchical multiple regression and bootstrapping. The results of the present study reassured that service employees’ EI is positively related to their OCB, which is consistent with previous literature. More importantly, this study showed that managers’ EI and service employees’ perseverance increase employee’s OCB, especially for the employee low in EI compared to those high in EI. The results also showed that the effects of service employees’ EI and perseverance on OCB are mediated by deep acting strategy among emotional labor acting strategies. This paper initially found that service employees low in EI can perform beneficial extra-role behaviors with supervisors’ or own support. Additionally, the present research examines the interplay of emotional ability, personality trait, the emotional labor acting strategies, and OCB in an integrated framework.