EMOTIONAL MATURITY AND LOCUS OF CONTROL AS PREDICTORS OF PERSONAL EFFECTIVENESS

Abstract

The study aimed at examining the influence of emotional maturity and locus of control on employee personal effectiveness. Specifically the study investigated that how the dimensions of emotional maturity (emotional stability, social adjustment, personality integration, emotional progression, and independence) and locus of control (internal locus of control and external locus of control) influences employees’ personal effectiveness dimensions (self-disclosure, openness to feedback and perceptiveness). The present study also examined the role of demographics (age, gender and hierarchical level) in impacting the dependent and independent variables of the study. To accomplish the objectives of the study the data were collected from 410 Indian employees. The convenient sampling technique has been chosen for administering the survey for this study. The organizations selected for this study were from Haridwar, SIDCUL and Bagwanpur region of Uttarakhand State of India. The researcher target organisations with at least 1000 employees and an annual turnover of INR 100 crore. The organisations selected belonged to power, cement and manufacturing sectors. The different statistical techniques are used in this study are correlation analysis, multiple hierarchical regression analysis, independent sample t-test and MANOVA. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS and AMOS. Before analyzing the data were subject to preliminary screening of data, normality test and the assessment of common method bias (CMB). After the preliminary data screening, the confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were conducted to test the factor structure of study variables in Indian context. Further various hypotheses were tested. Following this, the role of demographics has been tested using independent sample t- test and MANOVA. Further, multiple hierarchical regression were employed to determine the influence of emotional maturity and locus of control on employees personal effectiveness. In the final section of analysis, multiple hierarchical regression analysis was deployed to test all dimensions of emotional maturity and locus of control on all the dimensions of personal effectiveness. The findings revealed that emotional stability, social adjustment, personality integration and emotional progression associated with an emotional maturity varied with employees’ age and the only dimension, i.e. independence did not vary with employees’ age. Further, it was found that there exists no difference between the perception of males and females concerning all dimensions of emotional maturity. Finally, the results revealed that there exists significant difference among employees’ hierarchical levels and their perception iv with dimensions of emotional maturity, i.e. emotional stability, personality integration, emotional progression and independence, however, there are no differences among employees’ hierarchical levels for social adjustment dimension of emotional maturity. The findings revealed that all dimensions of locus of control, i.e. internal locus of control and external locus of control differ significantly depending upon employees’ age. Further, it was found that there exists no significant difference among employees’ gender concerning both dimensions of locus of control, i.e. internal locus of control and external locus of control. Finally, the results revealed that their exist a significant difference in the perception of internal locus of control and external locus of control as perceived by the employees in different hierarchical levels. The results revealed that there exists significant difference among employees’ age concerning dimension of personal effectiveness, i.e. self-disclosure. However, there are no significant differences among employees’ age for other dimensions of personal effectiveness, i.e. openness to feedback and perceptiveness. Further, while examining the influence of employees’ gender on the dimensions of personal effectiveness, it was found that there exist no significant differences among employees’ gender with respect to both dimensions of personal effectiveness, i.e. self-disclosure, and perceptiveness; but there exists significant differences of employees’ gender on the dimension of personal effectiveness i.e. openness to feedback. Finally, the results demonstrated that there exists significant difference among employees’ hierarchical levels and their perception about the dimension of personal effectiveness, i.e. self-disclosure. However, there are no significant differences among hierarchical levels with respect to other dimensions of personal effectiveness, i.e. openness to feedback and perceptiveness. The results of the study revealed that overall emotional maturity was found to be significantly associated with employee personal effectiveness. The results demonstrated that emotional maturity dimension (emotional stability) has a significant effect on personal effectiveness dimension (self-disclosure and openness to feedback). Further, emotional stability dimension of emotional maturity has an insignificant effect on perceptiveness dimension of personal effectiveness. The results demonstrated that an emotional maturity dimension (social adjustment) has a significant effect on personal effectiveness dimension (self-disclosure and openness to feedback). Now the research diverts the attention concerning non-significant results which assert that social adjustment dimension of emotional maturity has an insignificant effect on perceptiveness dimension of personal effectiveness. The results demonstrated that an emotional maturity dimension (personality integration) has a significant v effect on personal effectiveness dimension (self-disclosure and openness to feedback). Now the research diverts the attention concerning non-significant results, which assert that personality integration dimension of emotional maturity has an insignificant effect on perceptiveness dimension of personal effectiveness. Now the research diverts the attention concerning non-significant results which asserts that emotional progression dimension of emotional maturity has an insignificant effect on all dimensions of personal effectiveness (i.e. self-disclosure, perceptiveness and openness to feedback). Further, the results demonstrated that emotional maturity dimension (independence) has a significant effect on personal effectiveness dimension (self-disclosure). Now the research diverts the attention concerning non-significant results which asserts that independence dimension of emotional maturity has an insignificant effect on other two dimensions of personal effectiveness (i.e. openness to feedback and perceptiveness). The results demonstrated that overall locus of control (internal locus of control and external locus of control) is significantly associated with personal effectiveness. The result revealed that internal locus of control has a significant effect on (self-disclosure and openness to feedback). The results also showed that internal locus of control dimension of locus of control has an insignificant effect on perceptiveness dimension of personal effectiveness. Finally, the result revealed that external locus of control has a significant effect on all the dimensions of personal effectiveness (i.e. self-disclosure, openness to feedback and perceptiveness). The study has many key implications: First, this study suggested that creation of emotional maturity is not limited to the process of recruitment. This study strongly suggests the yoga (like pranayama), training, spiritual counselling sessions and meditations activities at the workplace enhance the emotional maturity, positive self-concept and self-esteem. Thereby enabling employees to maintain their performance without external intervention and keep them motivated to work better than their normal limits to enhance the workplace performance. Second, organizations and managers need to plan accordingly and enable HR manager to strategically plan HR policies in line with the organizational objectives that eventually sustain a higher level of emotional maturity and internal locus of control within the employees. Third, the study recommends organizing employees’ social gathering, festival celebration, and recreational activities that are likely to create a positive feeling and enhances the sense of belongingness to official group as a family; eventually it will lead to reasons for better interpersonal relationship and favourable work climate, which in turn to enhance the personal effectiveness. Fourth, the study suggested that organizations strongly stress to vi develop the self-disclosure among employees. This helps to enhance positive feeling at workplace and reduces negative thought, which in turn improve the collective work culture and positive work environment. Further, the results of the study effectively contribute to existing literature on emotional maturity, locus of control and personal effectiveness in following ways: First, this study attempted to investigate the influence of emotional maturity and locus of control with personal effectiveness. Therefore, by exploring and investigating the impact of relatively unknown relations between proposed relationships, this study fulfils the gap in existing literature and overcome the limitations in the academic research. Secondly unlike earlier studies which principally intended to investigate individual dimensions of emotional maturity and locus of control on personal effectiveness. This study is offers an insight where the influence of all dimensions of emotional maturity and locus of control on all dimensions of personal effectiveness was empirically examined. Third, literature claimed that personal effectiveness issues are culture-specific; thus, what is rejected in one culture may be appreciated in other cultures. Importantly, literature continuously stresses on the culturally situated study of personal effectiveness may lead to insights about essential variables affecting personal effectiveness. It is notable, because of cultural complexity of India; it would be beneficial to the personal effectiveness literature to investigate the varied dimensions that likely to enhance the personal effectiveness in understudied, non-Western culture, like India. The study helps to clarify better how personality variables, i.e. emotional maturity and locus of control influence the individual personal effectiveness in a culture outside that of the Western countries like the United States. Conclusively, this study contributes to the literature by fulfilling the existing gap by providing empirical shreds of evidence supporting the relationship between the emotional maturity, locus of control and personal effectiveness.