Title: Managing self towards managing people: role of perceived emotional competencies in healthcare organisations

Authors: Tanusree Chakraborty; Parijat Upadhyay

Addresses: Thiagarajar School of Management, Madurai, India ' IMT Ghaziabad, Rajnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract: Creating a performance based culture needs an understanding that high performers are self-managers; self-management is the most important competency of successful people. Coming to the healthcare industry, where services surround managing people, healthcare providers, especially the physicians are very closely related with patients in the hospital; when patients come for treatments leaving their family and near and dear ones; the healthcare providers are expected to identify and manage the emotional aspects of health related issues of those healthcare seekers. The purpose of this study was to identify the nature of perceived (as the patients perceive them to be, not what they actually possess) emotional contagion and empathy among physicians (N = 115) in private hospitals. Responses have been collected from the 115 patients in those hospitals under the care of employed physicians, and the study attempted to explore the relationship between emotional contagion and empathy as perceived by patients in those physicians; and how it impacted the satisfaction of the patients and their further care seeking intention in those hospitals. The study found that empathy and emotional contagion are very significant contributors to patient satisfaction as well as return intention in the hospitals.

Keywords: emotional contagion; empathy; physicians; patient satisfaction; return intention; managing people; emotional competencies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJWOE.2018.091333

International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, 2018 Vol.9 No.1, pp.4 - 20

Received: 14 Feb 2017
Accepted: 09 Apr 2017
Published online: 25 Apr 2018 *

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