Employee Engagement Among Public Employees: Exploring the Role of the (Perceived) External Environment

Abstract

While previous public management research has focused on how leadership, managerial behavior, job characteristics, and human resource management policies influence employee attitudes and behavior, we know little about the role of the external environment (both perceived and actual). By comparison, research on the external environment of public organizations has mostly focused on performance, organizational structure, and goal ambiguity. This article connects these two streams of research, develops a theoretical model to examine whether perceived environmental support (PES) influences employee engagement and considers the moderating roles of public opinion, media, and political salience. The findings suggest that PES does matter for the level of employee engagement and that this influence is moderated by political salience. This in turn has implications for how public organizations motivate their employees, manage their external reputations, and navigate their external environments. The paper ends with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of the findings and limitations of the study.

Organizational Image and Employee Engagement: Exploring the Inter-Relationships Between Construed External Image and Perceived Organizational Identity

“…Employee engagement, the main outcome variable, is measured using responses to four items (Cronbach's α = .83) that reflect aspects of emotional, physical, and cognitive engagement dimensions. These items are congruent with those developed and identified by previous studies (Hameduddin, 2021; Rich et al, 2010; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2010), and included the following: “My work gets me energized and excited,” “I put my full physical energy into doing my work tasks,” “It is easy for me to become happily immersed in my work,” and “I feel engaged in my job.”…”

“…On the other hand, Rich et al (2010) appeal to role theory and Kahn's (1990) original work to characterize engagement as individuals bringing their preferred selves to the work role and task performance. Given its proximal link to task performance and past public management work using this conceptualization (Hameduddin, 2021; Hameduddin & Lee, 2021), we use this definition of engagement in our study.…”

“…Much of the literature on organizational image has been developed based on private-sector observations, but the importance of CEI has recently been recognized in the public sector as well. Firstly, public sector organizations require support from its external environment to successfully operate and implement public programs and functions, where the external environment can act as a source of legitimacy and power (Hameduddin, 2021; Hameduddin & Lee, 2021; Meier & Bohte, 2007). Given that CEI is the reflection of public opinion of an organization and its functions (Dutton et al, 1994), it may hold a critical influence on public sector employees’ work motivation/attitudes, through delivering information on how the public evaluates “the social value of their affiliation” with their agency (Dutton et al, 1994, p. 250).…”

Innovative work behaviors and networking across government

“…As a final note, since there are many unknowns about variables affecting and affected by IWBs (Bos-Nehles et al., 2017; Suseno et al., 2020), future studies may analyze other factors, such as organizational climate, the external environment, and employee engagement (Hameduddin, 2021) that may influence it. Future work may also analyze the effects of IWBs, such as whether or how IWBs affect individual and organizational performance, both in the Australian context and in other contexts.…”

Factors Influencing Employee Engagement in Public Administration

“…Th e fi rst reason is the already mentioned growing importance of work engagement in the context of achieving the goals of organizations. Th e dynamics of changes in the external and internal environment is associated with the dynamics of changes in the work environment and the need to focus on WE (Chandrasekar, 2011;Hameduddin, 2021). Based on their meta-analysis of factors infl uencing work exposure, Bailey, Madden, Alfes and Fletcher (2015) generally state that there is no systematic evidence base related to exposure.…”