Asian Social Science; Vol. 16, No. 10; 2020 ISSN 1911-2017 E-ISSN 1911-2025 Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education 69 Mediating Effect of Idealized Influence Between Relationship Emotional Intelligence and Intention to Perform: Conceptual Study Gopalan Raman 1 , Ng Lee Peng 1 , & I-Chi Chen 3 1 Department of Business and Administration, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Perak, Malaysia 2 Department of Marketing, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman, Perak, Malaysia Correspondence: Gopalan Raman. E-mail: gopalanr@utar.edu.my Received: June 11, 2020 Accepted: August 25, 2020 Online Published: September 24, 2020 doi:10.5539/ass.v16n10p69 URL: https://doi.org/10.5539/ass.v16n10p69 Abstract Academics have an enormous endeavor to advance in higher education institutions, and responsiveness regarding to their performance, leaders‟ emotional intelligence and leaders‟ idealized influence are fundamental. Research on emotional intelligence and job performance is expanding at considerable pace, but emotional intelligence and intention to perform has received less attention. In addition, study on transformational leadership towards intention to perform has been established but study on a single component, idealized influence has been eluded. To address this gap in the literature, this study is intended to examine the leader‟s emotional intelligence abilities and idealized influence towards academic‟s intention to perform. Drawing from attribution theory and transformational leadership, the study hypothesized that emotional intelligence and intention to perform will be mediated by idealized influence. Keywords: emotional intelligence, idealized influence, intention to perform 1. Introduction Intention to perform set the hook in this research leading to a stronger and well-conceived set of understanding of the intention itself. Interestingly, intention is an expression of an individual towards a behavior either as a voluntary intention or involuntary intention (Klass, 2009). Furthermore, intention is a “personal decision about whether or not to pursue a specific job to an extent of dedication to an endeavor, and persistence” (Pritchard, 1976). Therefore, there seems to be an obvious reason why an individual developed this feelings or expression of intention but perhaps the influence may arise from an individual or between individuals. Intention is described as a behavioral intention that captures an individual's motivation to perform a behavior and serves as an indicator of the efforts of individuals who plan on doing the behavior (Ajzen, 1991; Ajzen & Fishbein, 1975). Furthermore, intention is the prime determinant of subsequent behavior changes and it has the elements of interventions that strengthen the intention itself (Carver, 1998; Sheeran, 2002; Webb & Sheeran, 2006). It is also being pointed out that intention as “self-instructions to perform particular behaviors or to obtain certain outcomes” and is usually measured by endorsement of items such as “I intend to do X” (Triandis, 1980). Gomes, Gonçalvesb, Madduxc and Carneiroa (2017) described that intentions are determined by a person‟s attitude towards a “behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control”. Gomes et al. (2017) further added that the likelihood of performing certain behaviour increases if a person has a positive attitude towards the behaviour (attitudes), feels social pressure to perform the behaviour (subjective norms), and believes that he or she will be successful in performing the behaviour (perceived behavioural control). Unfortunately, the fifth intent which is the, intent to perform is the least explored intention among the five work intentions (Raman, Lee Peng, & I-Chi, (2020). Zigarmi and Roberts (2012) further added that employees intend to perform as predetermine self-instructional motivational factors towards accomplishment such as performance. As such, this research concluded that intention is a valid proxy of actual performance behaviour. Similarly, Frings, Melichar, and Albery (2016) added that intention can be assumed as discernment that precedes the conduct of the action such as performance-related actions. Finally, intention to perform is the least explored intention in the literature of organization and leadership and is not able to explain the cognitive perspective and strength of intention itself (Raman et al., 2020; Zigarmi & Roberts, 2012). Recognizing that performance is dynamic, as it were, it varies inside a person after some time and would encourage impressive advances in our comprehension of job performance and its forerunners (Hofmann &