The Problem. Leaders who develop high levels of employee engagement within their organizations enjoy increased levels of competitive advantage. Consequently, organizations understandably desire higher levels of engagement. However, present research and perspectives on employee engagement have focused primarily on leveraging outcomes toward performance rather than the conditions that nurture performance. Such a unidimensional focus presents a gap in understanding how engagement emerges in practice and what strategies human resource development (HRD) practitioners can utilize to cultivate positive conditions for employee engagement. The Solution. Reframing engagement within the context of meaning and purpose provides a unique lens from which to view the conditions that cultivate the development of engagement. In this article, we present an alternative, yet complementary view of employee engagement that focuses on how performance can be sustained within the context of meaning and purpose. Emerging implications for the field of HRD are explored. The Stakeholders. The intended audience for this article includes HRD scholars, scholar-practitioners, practitioners, and students interested in the development and use of employee engagement, meaningful work, and the operationalization of meaning and purpose within an HRD context.

Over the past three decades, scholarship on organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) has grown tremendously and now enjoys a place of relative importance in the managerial, behavioral, and psychological literature. Researchers have traditionally focused their attention on understanding the nomological network of OCB, including its antecedents, predictors, correlates, and outcomes. Such work has also expanded to include cross-disciplinary investigations in areas such as health care, education, public organizations, and service industries, to name a few. Despite the relative prominence of OCB in other literature bases, OCB receives only minimal attention in the field of human resource development (HRD). The purpose of this integrative literature review was to examine and synthesize the available literature on OCB with specific consideration to the aims of the HRD field, namely, performance and learning and development. I present a synthesis of the relevant literature and conclude with a proposed research agenda and implications for HRD theory and practice.

Doctoral students typically represent a highly educated group of students that have demonstrated the academic aptitude to successfully complete multiple degrees. Yet, research has continually shown that 40%–60% of doctoral students do not persist to graduate (Allum & Okahana, 2015; Bowen & Rudenstine, 1992). The purpose of this study was to explore the possible influence of individual doctoral student characteristics as well as doctoral program characteristics on doctoral degree completion. Tinto’s (1993) theory of doctoral attrition was applied to explore specific variables that may assist or detract a doctoral student with their degree completion. Results suggested age, full‐time employment, employment change after comprehensive exams, enrollment status, satisfaction with dissertation chair, and satisfaction with academic involvement all impacted doctoral completion. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

Dysfunctional leaders are described in the research literature as those leaders who consistently place burdensome structures in the path of progress, intentionally or unintentionally violate psychological contracts, and generally treat their employees with a disrespectful approach. Research suggests that upward of 13% to 36% of employees in the United States work with a leader whose approach could be described as dysfunctional. Yet, research regarding this negative organizational phenomenon is surprisingly limited. Moreover, scholarship in the field of human resource development (HRD) is nearly void of research on this topic. The purpose of this integrative literature review was to examine the literature on dysfunctional leadership and to highlight conceptual links present across various streams of scholarship. Specifically, we systematically categorized the dysfunctional behaviors that leaders exhibit, highlighted the short-and long-term effects of working under a dysfunctional leader as well as documented the known strategies for working through the effects of dysfunction.

Chronic toxic working conditions can be hazardous to employee health. Approximately 5%–8% of annual health care costs are attributable to adverse experiences at work. In contrast to the health impacts of the toxic workplace, we hypothesize that engaged employees would report elevated levels of health, including more positive levels of physical and mental health, sleep, exercise, and eating behaviors. A sample of 114 working adults responded to a survey battery regarding their levels of employee engagement, current health status, and mental health in addition to localized demographic questions. Gender was shown to moderate the engagement–health relationship (i.e., women reported sleeping better and eating less; men reported lower levels of drinking behavior). Employees who reported higher levels of employee engagement also reported more positive overall individual‐level health outcomes and more positive levels of mental health, a promising finding in light of the growing reports of toxic work environments.