Emotional Intelligence and Creative Performance in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Sector: The Mediating Role of Psychological Well-Being and the Moderating Role of Cultural Intelligence.

Emotional intelligence is the capacity to understand, regulate, and manage one's emotions, and it has significant effects on employees' psychological adjustment, interpersonal relationships, and job performance. However, the specific psychological mechanisms by which emotional intelligence influences employees' creative performance, and the conditions under which this relationship is strengthened, remain not fully understood. The aim of this study is to examine the mediating role of psychological well-being and the moderating role of cultural intelligence in the relationship between emotional intelligence and creative performance among individuals working in the information and communication technology (ICT) sector. Research data were obtained from 409 participants working in large-scale information and communication technology companies operating in Turkey, and the research hypotheses were tested using the bootstrap method with the Hayes PROCESS Macro. The findings show that emotional intelligence is positively related to psychological well-being and creative performance. Furthermore, psychological well-being significantly mediates the relationship between emotional intelligence and creative performance. The results show that cultural intelligence strengthens this indirect effect, and the contribution of emotional intelligence to creative performance is more pronounced at higher levels of cultural intelligence. The findings indicate that emotional intelligence is associated with creative performance both directly and indirectly through psychological well-being. However, the strength of this indirect association appears to vary across employees' levels of cultural intelligence, which is considered an individual capability rather than a characteristic of the work environment. In this respect, the study contributes to the literature by examining psychological well-being as an explanatory pathway and cultural intelligence as an individual-level boundary condition in the association between emotional intelligence and creative performance.