Social Capital and SME Performance: The Moderating Role of Emotional Intelligence

Lack of extant studies on the moderating role of emotional intelligence on the relationship between social capital and firm performance necessitated this study. The main purpose of this research was to examine the extent to which Emotional Intelligence moderates the relationship between social capital and SMEs performance .

A total of 1532 SMEs were selected through simple random sampling technique from a population of 5009 SMEs. Structural Eqaution Modelling using AMOS was used to analyse the relationship between the variables.

The results revealed that social capital has a positive and significant relationship with emotional intelligence. Moreover, the study also showed that emotional intelligence has a positive and significant relationship with SME performance. Lastly, the study found that emotional intelligence enhances the relationship between social capital and SME performance.

SME owner/managers are advised to enact polices that encourage the establishment of meaningful social networks and also help employees understand their emotions while creating social capital as both would help improve the performance of their firms.

This paper breaks new ground by identifying emotional intelligence as an enabler of SMEs performance where there is adequate social capital.