EE work study 2016

RUNNING HEAD: Employee Engagement and Organizational Commitment Review 1

A Literature Review of Employee Engagement’s Relationship to Organizational

Commitment

Trevor Bonnell

Capella University

PSY8740 I/O Psychology

Dr. Bruce Gillies

Employee Engagement and Organizational Commitment Review 2

Abstract

The paper will reflect on multiple sources to support the idea that Employee engagement

will increase organizational commitment. The papers have been documented from many

cultures and locations. The supporting papers will be evaluated for scientific merit and

related to the thesis in a qualitative manner. No casual relationship can be made because

it study is not purely experimental, but there is an inference to an association.


Introduction

The purpose of this paper will be to examine the preexisting literature on the

constructs of employee engagement and organizational commitment. The in depth

analysis of these constructs has given the author of this paper a plethora of choice

information. To start, employee engagement (EE) will be defined. This construct can be

described as "an individual employee's cognitive, emotional, and behavioral state directed

toward desired organizational outcomes" (Shuck & Wollard, 2010). From an industrial

organizational psychologist perspective, this can be viewed as the employees focus

directed towards organizational goals. If the employee is not focused towards the

company’s goals, then the company will suffer. The next construct is organizational

commitment (OC). A quick definition of OC is the intent of an employee to continue

their employment with a company. The depth of this construct has been furthered by

Allen and Meyer (1990). According to Allen and Meyer (1990) there are multiple levels

of commitment an employee can have. Affective, continuance, and normative are their

three commitment styles. These commitment styles can be reviewed into a paper of it’s

own, but the objective is to see the relationship they have with EE. In a paper by Kataria,

Rastogi, and Garg (2013) EE is shown to be a key component in the organizational

effectiveness. The reason this is relevant to the study is the statistical significance this

study shows makes the link to the importance of retaining employees.

Following the trail of terms, an employee that feels important and connected at

work would be engaged. This same employee would also have a high affective

commitment. Putting ideas together we can see a trend start to emerge. Employees that

are engaged are less likely to leave. When putting this idea into a scientific hypothesis


we could say that the constructs of EE and OC should have a positive significant

relationship if put through a correlational study. That is to say the more engaged an

employee feels, the more likely they are to stay with an organization.

Literature Review

Before the constructs are compared in further articles, they will be clearly defined.

In a paper by Little and Little (2006) EE is described in great detail. The writers of this

commentary discern the theory of employee engagement. The study investigates how the

construct employee engagement is labeled. Depending on whose model is observed there

is little deviance in the overall definition. Lucey, Bateman and Hines (2005) described

the employee engagement by "how each individual employee connects with your

company and how each individual employee connects with your customers" (p. 12). A

critical term in the model is “connect.” If an employee is connected to an organization,

then they are less likely to leave. This is an example of how the current study will

consider qualitative evidence to support its theories. Another model for EE clarification

is by Wellins and Concelman (2004) "the illusive force that motivates employees to

higher levels of performance" (p.l). This illusive force is what the paper intends to show

as real and impressionable to other variants. The resource of employees is a commodity

taken for granted in organizations. Turnover rates for companies drive down profits and

cause damage to profitability. The term turnover can be described by its antonym. In the

same article by Little and Little (2006) “OC is defined by the degree to which an

individual identifies with an organization and is committed to its goals.” Now there is a

clear definition to both the constructs, the article offered one more critical item. Studies

have been concluded to scrutinize the association between the two constructs. Spelled


out by previous research the reader can see that “Employee engagement has been shown

to have a statistical relationship with productivity, profitability, employee retention…”

(Buckingham & Coffman, 1999; Coffman & Gonzalez-Molina, 2002). Using this as the

springboard into the current paper, the next section will review other papers for scientific

merit. This will be done in effort to support the theories, and further bolster future

studies.

The next article we will review is by Hussain and Rehman (2013). This reading

studies the association among the HRM exercises executed by the company and

personnels’ intent to continue working for the company in a positive manner. Human

resource management (HRM) exercises used to study are “training and Development,

development of teams, performance appraisal, internal communication system,

employment security, employee empowerment and reward and compensation (2013).”

Training and development is important to the employee because of knowledge they need

to successfully complete a task and feel as part of the organization. Along the same lines,

teams will help create bonding relationships that can help produce more. Performance

appraisal is in the same category as communication because it is a form of feedback loops

the employee can count on. Employee empowerment may be the most critical aspect of

this paper because it has been found in many studies the allowing employees to have a

sense of involvement and sovereignty over their jobs increases their OC (Seibert et al.,

2004)

If the construct of EE were to be broken down into more developed elements,

then they could be described like the terminology above. The article in review has strong

scientific merit. The construct they wish to study are strongly defined and backed up


with many evidence-based researchers. In this article four hundred surveys were

dispersed between middle management of textile industry. Mentioned in the article above

there are four human resource management exercises: “person-organization fit,

employment security, communication and training and development are contributing

strongly in creating the employees’ intents to stay with the company (Hussai & Rehman,

2013).” Considering the populations these construct are attempting to cover, this sample

size is moderate to large. The data was analyzed using an ANOVA. The data was

appropriately sorted using this method considering they had multiple hypothesis and

many different correlations. The results were a strong positive inter-relationship was

discovered between HRM practices and employees’ retaining. The p-value of the

regression was less than .05, and fell well beneath the industry standard for significance.

It is determined the embracing of human resource management practices boosts

employees’ Organizational Commitment. This study was limited to the textile industry.

This gives the study somewhat limited generalizability. The constructs studied though

are able to relate to any organization that has the need for employees. This article is

strong in scientific merit and shows a significant relationship between the suggested

constructs for the thesis.

The next article investigated for scientific merit is by Kataria, A., Rastogi, R., &

Garg, P. (2013). Researcher’s curios about organizational performance were fascinated

in discovering the personal opinions of employees’ and their leaders. The question the

wondered was did it affect their work-related views and actions. The construct of EE is

further defined in this research article by looking back into the historical presence it’s had

since the 1990’s. The researcher Khan described EE as “people employ and express


themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during work role performance (Khan,

1990)." A reason of this importance is Kahn is described as one of the first researchers

for this construct. The article then describes the construct of organizational effectiveness.

This can relate to OC by translating the organizational effectives of a company to also

include low turnover rate of employees. It is easy to comprehend how companies could

not be doing as well as they could due to attrition. This analysis tried a meditation model

connecting leader charisma to organizational citizenship behaviors (OCB) through work

engagement. The descriptive statistics showed a 304 participant sample size. This is a

strong sample size. The demographics showed confound to the generalizability because

or how such a large response was from males (81%). All the rest of the descriptive

statistics showed relatively normal means for the sample. The way the researchers

gathered the information was with evidence based research methods. They used the

UWES-9 to gather engagement and the 8-item scale developed by Mott for organizational

effectiveness. The overall scores showed a significant positive relationship p-value of .01.

This is further qualitative evidence that there will be a strong positive significant

relationship between the constructs of EE and OC.

Dr. Mark Huselid is a tenured professor of the Human Resources Strategy at

Rutgers University. His article is about HRM practices and productivity. Human

resource management practices are the actions that management takes to keep their

employees engaged. This is why the article in review is related to the topic of EE and

OC. The theory Huselid (1995) offers is that high performing companies often have their

employees running off of good HRM system and this crates low turnover. This translates

into their employees are engaged and have high OC. Huselid (1995) states “An internal


promotion system provides a strong incentive for employees to remain with a firm and,

when combined with the appropriate incentive compensation and performance appraisal

systems, can magnify the returns from investments in employee development activities.”

The way this can be viewed for this paper is magnifying returns are employees that stay

with the company and give back. This study broadly assessed the links between

techniques of job practices and organization performance. Scores specify these exercises

have a fiscal and significant influence on personnel outcomes (staff renewal rate and

efficiency) and procedures of company fiscal functioning. This means a company will

produce more capital with lower turnover rate, and a way to do that is engaged

employees.

Dr. Mushtaq is the Vice Chancellor at Transworld Muslim University. The paper

means to explore the relationship between EE and OC. The article calls OC turnover

intention, but when looking at the definition of the two constructs it is obvious they are

similar. According to Mushtaq (2013) employees that are engaged tend to be content,

excited and active. This energy drives up organizational performance. This is one of the

main reasons for this type of studies. This model becomes cyclical when one begins to

explore it. Company drives up EE, OC increases, organizational performance rises, and

everyone benefits. From CEO to customer the environment is changed for the better.

Understanding this better there must more focused discovery on how this interaction

happens between EE and OC. There is a low amount of research fixated on

understanding the connection among employee engagement and organizational

commitment. The analysis-exposed engagement applies its direct positive impact on

facility employees' and negative impact on turnover intents. The researchers showed


operational variable in the causal associations. Some of the strengths of this article are its

realistic applicability. A fault for the study relating in the USA is likely cultural

variances.

“Employee Satisfaction: Mediator of Organizational Service Orientation and

Employee Retention” discovers if there is an association between organizational service

orientation, employee satisfaction, and employee retention. The authors do this by using

cluster and simple random sampling. The researchers did this by evaluating the schools

within Uganda (Kasekende, Byarugaba, & Nakate, 2013). The public school system is

much like the one in the US where is a part of the tax system set in place so everyone has

an equal opportunity to attend. This can be generalized to multiple public servant

positions like police, fire rescue, or public works. One of the problems that might be

pulled from the study is the cultural difference one country may have from another. In

some culture the attention from management might be seen as bothersome, or

intimidating. A way to practice this material for the benefit of a company would be to

use it in appropriate context. Engagement happens at an organizational level. If the

company is multicultural then this must be taken into account, and certain levels of adjust

must be made. This article was a cross-sectional study that had complications of shared

method biases. The paper stresses the necessity for schools to acclimate guidelines that

promote service orientation in order to advance employee satisfaction and retention. The

results of the paper were that of their sample size of 368 that the second hypothesis

confirmed a strong association “when employees are satisfied on the job, they exhibit

high levels of retention, and the rate of turnover decreases (Kasekende, Byarugaba, &

Nakate, 2013).” This is an article that confirms the hypothesis of this paper and does it


with scientific merit. The research uses strong validity and reliability within their

methods. They back up their research with evidence based theories and practices. For

the qualitative measure it is a strong case study for the correlation of EE and OC.

Building relationships for retention (2009). A third party writer did this study.

He added his own unbiased notes and a place the articles in context prepares this brief. It

has been stated innumerable times that any organization's best advantage is its staff. Yet

that idea continues to go ignored by several corporation managers who place employee

wellbeing down their list of urgencies. These companies do not always do this

intentionally, and unavoidable circumstances tend to arise. Employees naturally feel

unappreciated and plunging optimism and incentive is nearly unavoidable. This can

happen upon the best companies. The market may crash causing a downward trend in

spending, and it causes an economic slump. This causes the companies to adjust and the

employees happen to feel the strain the hardest. When these types of despair, or

disconnect, happens the employees with further withdrawal themselves from the

organization. A UK company has now upturned convention by initiating a training

enterprise with employee welfare at the center of development plans. This giving keeps

employees the sense of engagement to keep them around for the benefit of the company.

From the previous studies one can assume that these engage employees have a greater

chance at finding success and foster OC. It has been a clever move to integrate business

and employee necessities, and assisted systematize training across business to business

and customer divisions. One of the creative ways they did this was by using a “Six

Sigma approach to define, measure, analyze, improve and control the problem (2009).”

The ending result was the change in the culture of the company to more aggressively seek


out the OC of their employees. The paper offers deliberate insights. Practical thinking

has persuaded the largest companies in the world to adjust their HRM practices. Here the

paper shows the effectiveness in a real world situation on having engaged employees will

create higher organizational commitment.

Method

Hypothesis: There is a statistically significant positive correlation between Employee

Engagement and Organizational Commitment through

Null-Hypothesis: The research will not show a relationship between Employee

Engagement and Organizational Commitment through qualitative analysis.

Participants chosen for this study had a very limited diversity. This fact will be

discussed later in the paper. The people who did choose to participate were mostly

European American, males, ages ranging from 35-55, that completed college, and were

entry level or management. There were a multitude of ethnicities and religions that were

not included into the study and this will also be discussed further later in the paper.

The study was conducted through an online survey service.

Conclusion

Through the multitudes of previous research, the reader can assume that there is a

relationship between EE and OC. Some of the biggest confounds regarding this research

is the lack of investigation done in the western civilization. It is difficult to say these

constructs have generalizability without further studies done. The reason for this is to

show the diversity of the constructs definition. In the first part of the paper the reader can

see the constructs described by their definition in model theory. Further in the paper the

constructs are put into functional studies to see how they relate. There were no papers


found that, done with scientific merit, did not find significance between EE and OC. This

is good because the evidence is mounting to provide strong arguments to companies

seeking consultation for egregious attrition. The only issue with this is there are not any

papers done with scientific merit concluding no significance. It’s always good to get a

full picture of insight when trying to discuss theoretical topics. Further studies that can

be done using samples that have high generalizability would be a benefit to the

theoretical development of employee engagement and organizational commitment.


References:

Allen N. J. & Meyer J. P. (1990), ‘The measurement and antecedents of affective,

continuance and normative commitment on the organization’, Journal of

Occupational Psychology, vol. 63(1), pp.1-18.

Buckingham, M. & C. Coffman (1999). First, break all the rules: what the world's

greatest managers do differently. New York, NY: Simon & Shuster.

Building relationships for retention. (2009). Strategic Direction, 25(7), 6-10.

doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/02580540910961253

Coffman, C. & G. Gonzalez-Molina (2002). Follow this path: How the world 's greatest

organizations drive growth by unleashing human potential. New York, NY:

Warner Books, Inc

Huselid M. A., (1995), ‘The impact of human resource management practices on

turnover, productivity and corporate financial performance’, Academy of

Management Journal, vol. 38(3), pp.635-672.

Hussain T. Rehman S. S., (2013) Do Human Resource Management Practices Inspire

Employees’ Retention? From: Research Journal of Applied Sciences. Vol. 6 (pp.

3625 – 3633).

Kahn W A (1990), "Psycholo gi cal Conditi on s of Personal Engagement and

Disengagement at Work", Academy of Management Journal , Vol. 33, No. 4, pp.

692-724.

Kasekende F., Byarugaba K.J., Nakate M., (2013). Employee Satisfaction: Mediator of

Organizational Service Orientation and Employee Retention. From: Journal of

Business and Management. Vol. 19 Iss. 3. (pp. 41).


Kataria, A., Rastogi, R., & Garg, P. (2013). Organizational effectiveness as a function of

employee engagement. South Asian Journal of Management, 20(4), 56-73.

Retrieved from

http://search.proquest.com.library.capella.edu/docview/1519059074?

accountid=27965

Little, B., & Little, P. (2006). EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: CONCEPTUAL ISSUES.

Journal of Organizational Culture, Communication and Conflict, 10(1), 111-120.

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http://search.proquest.com.library.capella.edu/docview/216594236?

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Lucey, J. N. Bateman & P. Hines. (2005). Why major lean transitions have not been

sustained. Management Services, 49(2), 9-14.

Mushtaq A.S. (2013) Examining Work Engagement as a Precursor to Turnover Intentions

of Service Employees. International Journal of Information, Business and

Management. Date 11/2013 Vol. 5 iss. 4 (pp.118-235)

Seibert, S.E., S.R. Silver and W.A. Randolph, 2004. Taking empowerment to the next

level: A multiple- level model of empowerment, performance and satisfaction.

Acad. Manag. J., 47(3): 332-349.

Shuck B and Wollard K (2010), "Employee Engagement and HRD: A Seminal Review of

the Foundations", Human Resource development Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 89-

110.

Wellins, R. & J. Concelman. (2005). Creating a culture for engagement. Workforce

Performance Solutions. Retrieved August 1, 2005 from www.WPSmag.com.

EE work study 2016

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