Mutual Gains? Is There a Role for Employee Engagement in the Modern Workplace?

Alex Bryson

No 11112, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: I examine the history of employee engagement and how it has been characterised by thinkers in sociology, psychology, management and economics. I suggest that, while employers may choose to invest in employee engagement, there are alternative management strategies that may be profit-maximising. I identify four elements of employee engagement – job 'flow', autonomous working, involvement in decision-making at workplace or firm level, and financial participation – and present empirical evidence on their incidence and employee perceptions of engagement, drawing primarily from evidence in Britain. I consider the evidence regarding the existence of mutual gains and present new evidence on the issue. I find a non-linear relationship between human resource management (HRM) intensity and various employee job attitudes. I also find the intensity of HRM use and employee engagement are independently associated with improvements in workplace performance. I consider the implications of the findings for policy and employment practice in the future.

Keywords: employee engagement; productivity; performance; human resource management; worker wellbeing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J28 L22 L23 M12 M54 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 34 pages
Date: 2017-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hrm and nep-lma
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Bosio, G., Minola, T., Origio, F., and Tomelleri, S. (eds), Rethinking Entrepreneurial Human Capital, Springer, 2018

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Working Paper: Mutual Gains? Is There a Role for Employee Engagement in the Modern Workplace? (2017)
Working Paper: Mutual Gains? Is There a Role for Employee Engagement in the Modern Workplace? (2017)
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