Antecedents and outcome of employee engagement: Empirical study of Ethiopian public higher education institutions

Tilahun Kidane Diko () and Shabnam Saxena ()
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Tilahun Kidane Diko: Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology
Shabnam Saxena: Guru Jambheshwar University of Science and Technology

SN Business & Economics, 2023, vol. 3, issue 8, 1-30

Abstract: Abstract As the issue of employee disengagement is creating concern among practitioners, employee engagement has been a widely studied topic in the present scenario globally. Academic employee disengagement is a severe problem in federal universities and significantly affects the bottom-line performance of the universities. Lack of academic staff engagement is a serious problem that hampers adopting and implementing quality assurance mechanisms in Ethiopian higher education institutions. Thus, building up on social exchange theory, this study investigates the antecedents and outcome of employee engagement in Ethiopian public higher education institutions context. This study examined variables: perceived organizational support, job characteristics and employee voice as antecedents, and organizational citizenship behavior as outcome variables. Moreover, the mediating effect of employee engagement in the relationship between antecedent and outcome variables was examined. A survey was completed by 442 academic employees working in eight public higher education institutions in Ethiopia. Two stages of structural equations modeling (SEM) using AMOS 24.0 were performed to test the hypothesized model. The result showed that all antecedent variables significantly predicted employee engagement, and employee engagement has a significant positive effect on organizational citizenship behavior. Moreover, employee engagement partially mediates the impacts of antecedent variables on organizational citizenship behavior. Finally, the study's theoretical and practical implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Keywords: Employee engagement; Employee voice; Job characteristics; Organizational citizenship behavior; Perceived organizational support (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: M1 M10 M12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s43546-023-00535-z

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