Employee engagement: an examination of antecedent and outcome variables

Abstract

This correlational study (n = 283) examined the links between job fit, affective commitment, psychological climate, and employee engagement, and the dependent variables, discretionary effort, and intention to turnover. An Internet-based survey battery of six scales was administered to a heterogeneous sampling of organizations from service, technology, healthcare, retail, banking, nonprofit, and hospitality fields. Hypotheses were tested through correlational and hierarchical regression analytic procedures. Job fit, affective commitment, and psychological climate were all significantly related to employee engagement, while employee engagement was significantly related to both discretionary effort and intention to turnover. For the discretionary effort model, the hierarchical regression analysis results suggested that the employees who reported experiencing a positive psychological climate were more likely to report higher levels of discretionary effort. As for the intention to turnover model, the hierarchical regression analysis results revealed that affective commitment and employee engagement predicted lower levels of employees' intention to turnover. The combination of predictors demonstrated strong effects in that the independent variables in each model predicted at least 38.0% of the variance in the dependent variable. Implications for human resource development research and practice are highlighted as possible strategic leverage points for creating conditions that facilitate the development of employee engagement as a means for improving organizational performance.