Date

12-4-2025

Department

Graduate School of Business

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy in Business Administration (PhD)

Chair

R. Mark Bell

Keywords

emotional intelligence, affective organizational commitment, turnover intentions, millennial employees, technology sector, cross-sectional quantitative research

Disciplines

Leadership Studies

Abstract

This study examined the relationships among emotional intelligence, affective organizational commitment, and turnover intentions among millennial employees in Washington State’s technology sector. A fixed, cross-sectional quantitative design was used with data from 459 participants collected through the Wong and Law Emotional Intelligence Scale, the Meyer and Allen Affective Commitment Scale, and the Cohen Turnover Intention Scale. Statistical analyses were conducted with IBM SPSS Statistics (Version 30; IBM Corp, 2023) for simple regression analysis and the PROCESS Macro (Version 5.0, Model 1) for moderation analysis. Findings showed that emotional intelligence was positively associated with affective organizational commitment and negatively associated with turnover intentions. Affective organizational commitment was a significant negative predictor of turnover intentions; however, emotional intelligence did not significantly moderate this relationship. Rather than functioning as a moderator of the relationship between affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions, emotional intelligence demonstrated significant direct effects on both affective organizational commitment and turnover intentions. The results suggest that employees with higher emotional intelligence tend to be more loyal to their organizations and less likely to consider leaving, primarily due to emotional intelligence’s positive effect on affective organizational commitment. This study contributes to business leadership research by emphasizing emotional intelligence as a measurable construct that supports employee retention and organizational commitment.

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