Strategic leadership of architectural firms in Ireland: The role of emotion management and innovation
This study explores the strategic leadership of architectural firms in Ireland. It examines the role of emotion management (a component of emotional intelligence) and innovation in architecture firms. This thesis uses both qualitative and quantitative methods. The qualitative approach uses a series of nine interviews with architects to provide a research context for the study and offers insight into the business landscape and unique challenges facing the profession. The study identifies a profession that has unique emotion management requirements arising from the need to manage a multitude of stakeholders. The lack of a strategy within most firms suggests a profession that is not fully utilising emotion management to harness this innovation potential. A lack of commercialisation aptitude is evident and is linked to the regulation on marketing and promotion of the profession. The implications of this are evident in the reduction of over 60% in sales revenue recorded during the study. To further inform the study, a quantitative survey-based approach gathered data from 210 architectural firms in Ireland. The quantitative study proposes that emotion management abilities will have a positive effect on firm innovation, which will allow these abilities to be harnessed and generate good performance outcomes. Hierarchical multiple regression is used to analyse and test the proposed relationships. The results support the direct effect relationship between emotion management and innovation. The findings suggest that the firm’s emotion management abilities positively relate to commercialising innovation. Overall, the study provides a comprehensive analysis of the direct effect of emotion management on innovation as a performance outcome, and how these emotion management abilities can become a unique resource for architectural firms. The study provides theoretical support and adds to the current literature on the links of emotional intelligence to performance outcomes in the business context (Cote and Miners, 2006; Rode et al., 2007; Sirkwoo Myeng-Gu and Shapiro, 2008; Van Rooy and Viswesvaran, 2004), how to capture hidden innovation in professional service firms (Cainelli, Evangelista and Savona, 2006; Coombs and Miles, 2000; Evangelista, 2000; Mansury and Love, 2008; Tether, 2005). The study also provides useful guidelines for management practice in the profession.
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