Causes, Contingencies, and Consequences of Disengagement at Work: An Integrative Literature Review

Abstract

Disengagement at work is proving to be a source of continued trouble for business organizations. Various estimates suggest that in excess of 70% of the workforce is either passively or actively disengaged, which in turn subjects the organizations to enormous financial burden. Regretfully, this problem has not found sufficient intellectual resonance in the academia. Therefore, employing conservation of resources (COR; Hobfoll, 1989) as the guiding theory, in this research, we conduct an integrative literature review to consolidate the extant approaches to disengagement at work. Apart from explaining the construct, we also identified its antecedents, moderating influences, and outcomes. Implications for human resource development (HRD) research and practice have been discussed. We believe that such an attempt is likely to encourage an informed debate on the subject in the academic domain, while helping practitioners identify actionable interventions.

Achieving employee support during the COVID-19 pandemic – the role of relational and informational crisis communication in Austrian organizations

“…Importantly, organizations make every effort to minimize the risk of low job engagement or even job disengagement, i.e. the active removal from the job role (Kahn, 1990), which is assumed to yield dissatisfaction, disinterestedness, poor work performance, counterproductive work behavior and uncertainty (Rastogi et al, 2018). Therefore, the present study focuses on job engagement rather than organizational engagement.…”

Financial Insecurity During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Spillover Effects on Burnout–Disengagement Relationships and Performance of Employees Who Moonlight

“…Work disengagement relates to work engagement; numerous studies have examined the interaction between the two, where disengagement is discussed as a negative influence on the organization ( Rastogi et al, 2018 ). Kahn (1990) considered the following concept of personal disengagement that describes the issue of disengagement, which leads to the decoupling of the self from job role.…”

Citizenship pressure and job performance: roles of citizenship fatigue and continuance commitment

“…To substantiate the theoretical arguments, this study draws from conservation of resources (COR) theory, which asserts that employees' exposure to adverse work conditions can prompt negative performance outcomes, because they suffer resource depletion and seek to conserve any remaining resources through work-related efforts (Hobfoll 1989(Hobfoll , 2001Rastogi et al 2018). The experience of citizenship pressure similarly may escalate into reduced job performance through citizenship fatigue, because of employees' tendencies to conserve resources that they otherwise would devote to performance-enhancing activities (Bergeron 2007;Bolino, Turnley and Niehoff 2004;McCarthy, Trougakos and Cheng 2016).…”