The extent to which various levels of emotional intelligence affects one’s ability to cope with stress regarding self-employed entrepreneurs in small medium enterprises in Ireland

Abstract

The focus of this paper will be to determine the extent to which emotional intelligence (EI) plays a role in the entrepreneurial ability to cope with role overload. Particular focus will be on self-employed entrepreneurs running small medium enterprises (SME) in Ireland. The current literature rarely discusses entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence and role overload as three interlinked topics. In addition, individually these topics have depicted inconclusive findings as many researchers have formed various opinions which are often in contradiction of each other. This paper brings the three topics together, with the research question; How entrepreneurs with varying levels of emotional intelligence cope with role overload, in attempt to form conclusive findings. For this inductive, qualitative paper, three questionaries were distributed to entrepreneurs through a snowball sampling method. Thematic analysis (TA) was then used, analysing the transcribed data for trends and patterns. From that, five themes have emerged: interpersonal skills, self-motivation, adaptability, intrapersonal skills and stress management. This paper deduces that entrepreneurs with various level of EI do, indeed, cope differently with role overload. It may be insightful for future researchers to consider conducting a personality test in their analysis to gain more insight into the entrepreneur’s mindset.