Abstract: In recent decades, more and more attention has been paid to Emotional intelligence (EI) in Project management (PM). The increasing necessity to work together with many people representing different organizations and nationalities requires the ability to create and manage relationships. A considerable number of studies prove the huge relevance of soft skills like teamwork, leadership, relationship management and stakeholders’ engagement for projects success and its value. Although concepts of EI and Project value co-creation are dynamic research areas widely analyzed by scientific community in the recent years, there is a gap in research works between relationship management as a dimension of EI and project value co-creation. The paper aims to explore how EI competencies, with a particular focus on relationship management—recognized as the strongest personnel related competence - foster project value co-creation. The paper introduces a research model that demonstrates how stakeholder relationship management mediates the co-creation of project value with stakeholders and the overall creation of project value. The stakeholders’ relationship management is part of a complex project management ecology. In response to the literature review and quantitative research data collected as a case study among project managers at Kaunas University of Technology, Lithuania, the paper debates how project stakeholders’ relationship management as part of emotional intelligence concept should be treated as a strategic element for the project value co-creation. This approach broadens the conventional understanding of project stakeholders’ relationship management. Consequently, managing project stakeholders’ relationship management through the dimensions of emotional intelligence offers new insights into the way how project managers could enhance their skills through engagement with stakeholders in order to create project value in a more efficient way.

Keyword: Emotional intelligence, project management, relationship management, value co-creation.