The Effect of Female Entrepreneurs' Empowerment Training on Emotional Intelligence

Abstract

Entrepreneurial empowerment training (EET) for individuals and organizations is very important for the development of entrepreneurs. To produce quality human capital, training should be able to foster an attitude of concern, self-efficacy and awareness in making decisions when facing changes in the world economy and the country in this post-global era. Based on the highlights of the study, emotional intelligence among small entrepreneurs is low. In addition, emotional intelligence (EQ) is somewhat under-applied in today's society, while it is very important in producing business people who excel in business. Therefore, the objective of this study is to evaluate the effect of entrepreneur empowerment training on emotional intelligence among entrepreneurs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia. This study uses a pre-test and post-test experimental research design with an experimental group and a control group consisting of thirty subjects in each group.  The research instrument used is the Bar-On Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire with five dimensions, namely intrapersonal, interpersonal, stress management, self-adaptability, and state of mind.  Both groups were given the same questionnaire during the pre-test and post-test but only the subjects in the experimental group were given training for two hours every week for eight consecutive weeks.  Dependent and independent t-tests using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 28 software were used to analyze the data.  The findings of this study showed that there was a significant increase in the effect of entrepreneur empowerment training on emotional intelligence in the mean values between the pre-test and post-test for the experimental group and between the experimental group and the control group. However, there was no improvement in emotional intelligence for the control group. The findings of the study on the effect of entrepreneur empowerment training on emotional intelligence showed that the experimental group had a higher score for self-adaptability.  The most significant improvement was noted for stress management and liver conditions, while the interpersonal and intrapersonal dimensions did not show any significant improvement.  The implication of this study was that entrepreneur empowerment training can increase the level of emotional intelligence and thus, should be incorporated in entrepreneurship training.