Declaration of Academic Integrity

Please sign this form below to indicate that you have read and accepted the following statements. Then attach the form to the top of your literature review/project report.Your assignment will not be accepted without this declaration.

We confirm that:

1. We have read and understood the University’s Shared Values & Honour Code, including the information on practices concerning the academic integrity (given in http://academicintegrity.ntu.edu.sg/a-guide-to-academic-integrity/) and that in the attached coursework submission We have worked within its expectations (http://academicintegrity.ntu.edu.sg/shared-values-honour-code/).

2. We are aware that failure to act in accordance with the University’s Shared Values & Honour Code may lead to the imposition of penalties which may include the requirement to revise and resubmit an assignment, receiving a lower grade, or receiving an F grade for the assignment; suspension from the University or termination of my candidature.

3. We consent to the University copying and distributing any or all of our work in any form and using third parties to verify whether our work contains plagiarised material, and for quality assurance purposes.

We have read and accept the above.

NAME TUE/WED DATE SIGNATURE[for hard copy submission]

Chua Wei Xing Wed

K. Sudesh Durai Wed

NO OF WORDS -____3584____

We have read and accept the above.

If you require any further guidance about academic integrity, please talk to your professor or use the resources at http://academicintegrity.ntu.edu.sg/.

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SUMMARY FINDINGS OF INTERVIEWEES

In relating the summary findings with the questions, we had investigated the personality traits of each interviewee as this forms the core of environmental influences and towards emotional intelligence.

Interviewee 1

Personal InformationThe interviewee is a male, Malaysian-born, 39, Chinese and belongs to Hokkien ethnic group. He has no present physical or mental issues. His highest education level is equivalent to Cambridge GCE ‘O’ Level.

Work situation in general

Figure 1: Time frame of the jobs for Interviewee 1

For the traits of Interviewee 1, he is quite practical, conceited and consistently angered by minor negative events in work. This can be inferred from his growing environment and the education level he received. He came to Singapore to work straight after studies and his working life is portrayed in Figure 1. He is much more satisfied in his 2 nd job and hence, worked longer.

Summary of interviewee’s workDuring the interview, his passion in work died down through the years. His major job hop made at 25 was to secure a higher salary due to his increasing responsibility to support his family. Due to this declining passion, he regards his work as only a job. Rather, he felt satisfied in his position as he needs not be constantly stressed as before. In his 2 nd job, he was given a chance to further his studies for diploma in logistics with 90% subsidisation from the company. Eventually, he declined due to the fear to take on more work after completing his studies.

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Assistant Chef in Delifrance (transferred to 2 other outlets

in total)Quality Control (QC) in DHL Logistics

Warehouse

22 25 39 (present)Age:

Interviewee 2

Personal Information

The interviewee is a male, Singapore-born, 54, Indian and belongs to Tamil ethnic group. He has no present physical or mental issues. His highest education level is equivalent to a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering from Singapore Polytechnic.

Work situation in general

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Figure 2: Time frame of the jobs for Interviewee 2

Interviewee 2 is livelier, outspoken and self-motivated. Upon graduation, he stayed in his tertiary school as a technician to work hard towards his goal as an engineer in the future. He had worked 2 jobs in total and was forced to make a job hop as his company was bought over when he was in SIA. Through the interview, he felt much happier in his 2nd job and hence, worked over a much longer period because it enabled him to fulfil his childhood dream of becoming an engineer.

Summary of interviewee’s workInterviewee 2 has passion in his work and also regards money as equally important. He felt that both passion and money can work together in his career. He applied his technical skills from his studies to work. Also, he is enthusiastic about learning new technologies every now and then in aircraft engines. Besides that, he is very recognised in his work. He felt happy to enjoy his work and can support his family at the same time. It was evident in one instance where he rejected a work transfer to a place he liked it better. This was because that would mean a lower pay and might cause an increase in the financial burden to the family.

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Technician in Singapore

Polytechnic after graduation

Technician in SIA

24 54 (present)Age:

Engineer in SIA Assistant Foreman in Pratt & Whitney

Interviewee 3

Personal Information

The interviewee is a male, Singapore-born, 52, Indian and belongs to Tamil ethnic group. He has no present mental issues. However, he had been having some back problems lately. His highest education level is equivalent to a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering. His youngest child has approximately another 10 years to complete the education.

Work situation in general

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Figure 3: Time frame of the jobs for Interviewee 3

For Interviewee 3, he is not satisfied of his current status and will constantly improve himself to make himself a better person. Starting out as a technician, he decided to pick up other practical skills such as welding of electrical parts. This made him to have a successful job hop to ensure he had had a job then. He did not give up his initial dream and finally made it when he had attained financial stability. However, due to some unforeseen circumstances, he had to become a part time real estate agent for his future as he might not be able to continue his present work due to his back problems.

Summary of interviewee’s workInterviewee 3 is very impressive as he is highly self-motivated. Apart from work, he also constantly improves himself in his studies. During his 1st job as a technician, he did part time diploma studies. He yearned for a wider job scope with higher qualifications. He is very similar to Interviewee 2 as both keeps their passion and responsibilities in check. In his work, he also did his very best to inspect aircraft engines and certify them for safety for flight. He understands the responsibility of his job and takes pride in delivering results.

Summary of all intervieweesAll 3 interviewees were and are salaried workers and their jobs are neither a protean nor a boundaryless career. All made changes in their career paths due to sudden forces of change, such as universality of education for Interviewee 3 or even coping with the need to adapt to an increasing workload in their various jobscopes. Still, each personally portrayed a different attitude in work and made use of continuous integrative life planning.

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Technician Skilled-Welder

20 52 (present)Age:

Supervisor in GE Aviation and Part time Real Estate Agent

QUESTION 1: Analyse and discuss the applicability, influence and relevance of the environment and self-awareness in developing their respective career’s using relevant theories to support your observations and conclusions.

Definitions of ‘environment’ and ‘self-awareness’

The environment includes everything around the person that is capable to create an impact on oneself, both physically and psychologically. Self-awareness is being conscious and able to constantly understanding oneself the required responsibilities needed in work.

Both factors significantly contribute to career development as they can make major changes in the working life of the individual. This will result in moulding a certain way of career management.

Environmental factors and self-awareness on career development

Interviewee 1

With reference to the summary findings, he made two critical changes in his career development. He had a career change and rejected an opportunity in his 2nd job to study part time diploma.

This matched Krumboltz (1984, 1990, 1996) social learning theory of genetic endowment, learning experiences, task approach skills and environmental conditions. Being self-aware encourages positive career development and this utilises the first three theories of Krumboltz. Firstly, Interviewee 1 lacked of self-awareness. Due to his growing environment as a Chinese Hokkien, he is less conscious in his conduct and not intelligent enough attributing from his education level as well. Being more associative in learning, he did not plan ahead of setting career goals. In his 1st job, he faced gradual increase in workload but his pay remained the same. When his environment changed, this caused him to search for job alternatives abruptly. This is because the rate of return in his 1st job decreases, leading him to take actions to seek for higher marginal benefits to costs (as in Economics). By using his task approach skills in career management, this is considered as generating constructive approach to bypass his barrier of frustration to achieve a higher work satisfaction. As his main motivation is money, a material satisfaction will make him happier. Moreover, the career switch pays higher with less workload. This eventually led him to decide his career choice for a switch. Other theories could explain this phenomenon of career change as well. Holland’s theory of occupational classification categorised him as conventional and realistic, mismatching his environment in his 1st job. A mismatch of personality and environment meant a job dissatisfaction. Also, Robert’s Theory concluded environment as one of the determinants of career choices. He decided the switch as quoted from Martin Seligman, he fulfilled 2 of the 3 parts of authentic happiness. He felt good in himself and lived a better life with his companions when he deals with less work. Regarding his rejection of academic opportunities, Krumboltz’s theory can be used again. Krumboltz’s theory suggested his practical skills approach made him felt easier than learning in a theoretical way. With studies, he will have less time for his family. With integrative life planning, he connects his family and work together and have a high importance in carrying the financial burden which made him being satisfied with his current status.

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Figure 4: Super’s Archway Model[1] (Kamal Kant, page 48) describing an archway consisting of personal characteristics of the individual and the society in relation to the environment. The

pillar columns interact and dependent on each other. The self constitutes the top pillar that supports the career foundation which is the archway builder, who is also the decision maker.

Super’s Archway model creates self and environmental awareness in oneself. The societal column affected his career change. This interacted with his psychological and personal traits. As the increase in workload is unforeseen, his expectancy for a decreasing workload would drop sharply. Therefore, these two columns will make a significant impact to himself on the top pillar. This shapes a change in his career foundation, which implies a decision is to be made to achieve greater work satisfaction. Since the benefits of the 2nd job remained higher then, he made this career switch. However, the need for consistent academic improvement in the societal column was unable to influence his psychological thinking. This is because of the sudden change of having a family. This would suggest additional responsibilities.

Parson (1908) theory did match the theory of him landing in his first job, a matching of his talent to the specific job. Initially, the interviewee had a strong passion in cooking. Events turned on a downside when his working environment changed. Rather, theories categorising developmental stages of the career would be more expected for career changes along the way.

Interviewee 2

For Interviewee 2, he had a much more positive mindset and ensured he enjoyed what he do. His intrinsic character could also be influenced by his growing environment as an Indian Tamil. In this case, the theory crafted by Ginzberg and his colleagues (1951) suited better as his career was reached through gradual development. The developmental phases influence his career choices in reality, education, emotional and individual values. He landed in his 1st job successfully as a technician first as his education received is insufficient to achieve his goal straight. Instead, he thought of gaining work experiences and thereafter, work hard towards his aspirations for an engineer. This also fitted into the career stages for the range of 20s, where individuals focus mainly on the job itself only. Additional influences such as support from his companions made him go a far way in his career.

During his time as a technician, he was once offered for a career switch to work towards his aspirations. The condition was to have a dip in his current pay. Despite his passion for the switch, he was very self-aware of his situation to support his family. Integrative life planning is evident that he is conscious of the needs to connect family and work together. Also, he did not pursue a degree for the same reason. Regardless of the pity to fulfil his dream, he was

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constantly recognised and credited in his work. These motivations generated positive psychology where a subjective well-being arised from a combination of life satisfaction and having more positive than negative emotions.[2]

Eventually, he took a long time to reach the decision of the career switch to be an assistant foreman. By then, he was financially stable and his spouse also started to work. This ease his worries regarding money. Regards to Super’s Archway model, the societal improvements (right column of Figure 4) secured his psychological and personal thinkings to pursue for his passion. With continuous encouragement and support from his family and friends, he carried out his desires though with a small sacrifice of a pay cut. This is also described by Roe’s theory of vocational development in the relationship between occupational behaviour and personality. This is also substantiated by the Maslow’s Hierarchy of Basic Needs, where he is capable to attain self-actualisation in achieving the four categories of needs below: Esteem, love, safety and physiological needs.

Interviewee 2 has a slightly better career management than Interviewee 1. Even though both had the same education level, Interviewee 2 is capable to achieve a higher satisfaction in his work and maintaining his basic needs in his life. Interviewee 1 has only obtained his material needs for money.

Interviewee 3

Interviewee 3 had a great sense of self-awareness in his career development. In self-determination theory, he had an intrinsic motivation based on his interest and enjoyment obtained. Based on Krumboltz theory, he preferred instrumental learning experiences. This paced himself clearly in his career plan for the needs and possible attainments along the way. Similar to Interviewee 2, he wished to attain both passion and money from his work. Thus, he started out as a technician and progressively learnt more skills. In his 1st job, he started out as a technician in the polytechnic while pursuing his diploma on a part time basis. By relating to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Basic Needs, he learnt welding and made the career switch to fulfil the physiological needs due to a higher remuneration. He took a greater effort than Interviewee 2 for working longer to achieve his goal in GE Aviation. He came a long way which provided both the remuneration as well as recognition that he wanted.

Figure 5: Super’s Life Career Rainbow[1]

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Apart from the other two interviewees, Interviewee 3 had more job changes. In his last career switch as a part-time agent, this is seen as a force of change due to a decline in the Super’s life-career rainbow. In Figure 5, Super’s life-career rainbow depicts how environment, situation and personal factors determine the career choices from young to old. Despite having a deterioration in his health, he yearned for career and life satisfaction. This largely displayed his ability to adapt to changes in his career and manage well.

Comparing all the interviewees, it is apparent that Interviewee 1 did not achieve both satisfaction from his work. Although it is generally perceived that the Chinese are more hardworking, it still varied among people and the development path of the individual careers. Most importantly, it is vital to acquire the desires of the individual and shapes the career path along the way from unexpected changes in environment or even personality.

Question 2: Based on what you learnt from your three interviewees, and research that you may carry out, discuss the importance of emotional intelligence in achieving your career goals and attaining career success during the first five years after graduation of the two authors of the essays. You should support assertions and claims with appropriate research (e.g. theories, concepts, etc.) you may have carried out.

Career paths

For the course of study, one is in chemical engineering (Wei Xing) while the other is in mechanical engineering (K Sudesh Durai). However, there is a different career approach both are taking on. Wei Xing would most likely pursue a career in the petroleum industry while Sudesh will be planning on starting up or running a company within 5 years of graduation. Wei Xing would be joining the petroleum company and Sudesh would be in the product development industry. The main reason for Wei Xing is to attain a stable income to make goals while Sudesh has been passionate about entrepreneurship and has started a venture on his own. Wei Xing felt that a stable income foundation could do more in the future while Sudesh felt that achieving his personal goals at earlier stages with less responsibilities can take on more opportunity risks such as start-ups.

Importance of emotional intelligence in career goals and success

In any career success, it is very important to have a high emotional intelligence. At the start, it is very common and easier to commit mistakes due to the lack of experiences. High emotional intelligence is very helpful along the way for career success. However, it is also required to be coupled with high intelligence quotient. This means to be successful, an individual must possess both EQ and IQ. In Singapore today, the universality of education made the younger generations possess higher IQ than EQ in general. It is equally important to have EQ too. There has been evidence of positive relationship between emotional intelligence and job satisfaction[1]. Hence we are able to deduce the level of importance EQ has when it comes to influencing our careers.

Emotional intelligence is the capability to manage one’s emotions in any form of environment. The measurement of emotional quotient (EQ) level is the measure of emotional intelligence. In short, it is the ability to take good control over one’s personal feelings and totally separate them in work.

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For the case of both of us, one of us aspires to be an engineer whiles the other an entrepreneur. Despite different job scopes, a large amount of workload will be undertaken by us and we would require a cohesive relationship with the team of engineering assistant all the way to accountants and workers for proper work delegation. With regards to teamwork, employers need a virtuoso team, a strong team of workers with effective teamwork. This would mean that the team members must have applicable set of skills which is relevant to the project or job. This would ensure efficiency and effectiveness of the team and not have idle workers. Leadership is also important for a successful team and there must not be too many people giving instructions and leading else this would make the team inefficient once again. Leaders should be tasked to giving clear instructions, completing tasks on time and being empathetic towards his workers. It would be expected of a leader to have a high level of emotional intelligence since he would need to liaise with different groups of people to get the job done more than the workers who would be focusing on a specific goal which would require more of their technical ability. Besides being able to empathise, it is also necessary to motivate peers or colleagues. This can help to improve productivity as well as foster relationships which ultimately improve the working environment for all.

Having a high emotional intelligence in work would mean to take proper control of oneself, and also the people working with. Quoting from Peter Salovey and John D. Mayer (1990), emotional intelligence forms part of social intelligence in being able to control one’s emotions well and letting the right emotions guide the way. For example, being emotionally intelligent would employ a right method to resolve probable conflicts, instead of using violence as this might snowball to more conflicts. A study[3] had been done on the emotional intelligence, based on Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence, of thirty violent and thirty non-violent groups on EQ test. The hypothesis proposed that the violent group achieved a lower average EQ score than the non-violent. This meant that resolution of matters would tend to be physical for people with lower emotional intelligence. Any violence would result in unexpected injuries or even deaths. This would also strain working relationships and drift further away from career success. Furthermore, for Wei Xing, safety is of great importance in engineering. For Sudesh, it would be very detrimental in the long run as cohesive teamwork is of great importance in starting up or running a company. Conflicts are bound to arise and various methods to resolve conflicts other than using physical means would be a better choice in short and long term. Having a high emotional intelligence could reduce conflicts and solve them amicably if the need arises. The clichéd statement of prevention is better than cure would aptly apply here.

Daniel Goleman (1995) added to having emotional intelligence is more than just have IQ. It is to have five domains of emotional intelligence. It involved managing and motivating oneself and the people around. This supported the need to understand the people working with, providing the correct mode of help when needed. However, this needs a balance between work and empathy. Therefore, a certain level of trust is to be instilled in both of us engineers and the workers. For example, if one of the colleagues had to take urgent leave due to family, we need to provide enough help by ensuring his leave is approved fast, delegating his work and empathise with his/her situation. On the other hand, punishments should be meted out to deter possible abusement of the system as well.

Self-motivation raises EQ as well. Self-motivation can result in a positive psychological influence and motivates the people around. In general, this will allow the whole team to be motivated and strive to do the work well. This would greatly reduce mistakes and increase

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work efficiency. Also, this could create a happy environment and disagreements could be resolved much easily.

In short, emotional intelligence is a very useful tool in associating oneself with the environment and people around. However, it is necessary to have high IQ to complete tasks efficiently and resolve probable difficulties along the way. This would then bring out a good demonstration of leadership and cooperation from the people around, leading to reaching career goals and success.

References

1. Kamal Kant (2011). Work and Careers in the 21st Century. McGraw-Hill. 2. Ed Diener: Happiness. Unlocking the Mysteries of Psychological Wealth.3. Knight, Jennifer Anne, Psy.D (2005). Exploring emotional intelligence and IQ:

Comparing violent and non-violent criminal offenders. Miami: Carlos Albizu University.

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