The relative roles of engagement and embeddedness in predicting job performance and intention to leave

Abstract

Both work engagement and job embeddedness have seen dramatic growth in research interest over the past few years. Briefly, work engagement can be defined as a positive, fulfilling state of mind, most commonly characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption. Job embeddedness, in contrast, captures components of an individual's attachment to their job and can be said to consist of links, perceptions of personÁenvironment fit, and the sacrifices involved in quitting. Despite some strong similarity in the constructs in their theoretical bases, there has been no attempt to distinguish them empirically. Thus, the primary research question driving this study was whether work engagement and job embeddedness were empirically distinct constructs. Using a sample of US employees from a wide variety of industries and occupations (n 0587), their supervisors, and their closest co-worker, we found via confirmatory factor analysis that engagement and embeddedness were unique constructs. Moreover, using usefulness analysis, we found that engagement and embeddedness each shared unique variance with in-role performance and intention to leave. We discuss the implications of these findings relative to work on motivation and attachment and develop practical implications from our findings as well as directions for future research.

Adaptation and Validation of the Brazilian Version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale

“…There are studies that indicate possible correlations between engagement at work and topics such as absenteeism, customer satisfaction, high performance and financial return, among others (Hakanen, Perhoniemi, & Toppinen-Tanner, 2008;Halbesleben & Wheeler, 2008;Salanova, Agut, & Peiró, 2005). Finally, Ouweneel, Leblanc and Schaufeli (2013) demonstrated the positive effect of interventions for people with low engagement in the work that led to the increase of positive emotions and sense of self-efficacy at work.…”

Staff turnover in hotels: Exploring the quadratic and linear relationships

“…Work engagement is a positive, fulfilling state of mind commonly characterized by vigour, dedication and absorption. The findings of Halbesleben et al (2008) suggest that embeddedness shared unique variance with turnover intention and engagement did not. What could be concluded is that job security and earnings perhaps do not impact the employee intention to leave the job in luxury hotels as might be his/her work engagement, sacrifices one has to make to leave the job or links the employee might have at the work place.…”

“…Individuals that are more engaged are likely to be more loyal to the organization and high levels of loyalty lead to increased job satisfaction, higher performance, lower levels of absenteeism and, finally, turnover (Bhatnagar, 2012). Studies have only evidenced a linear relationship between turnover and loyalty, although aspects such as loyalty itself has weak power in avoiding turnover (Halbesleben and Wheeler, 2008;Bhatnagar, 2012). Other aspects such as payment and career management are more influential in the turnover intention than loyalty (Juhdi et al, 2013).…”

“…The H5 and H6 results in the current study suggest that as perception of job security and earnings increase, employees demonstrate an increase in intention to leave the job. This is somewhat surprising and could be related more to job embeddedness and work engagement as suggested by Halbesleben et al (2008). According to the author job embeddedness captures components of an individual's attachment to their job, it could consist of links, perceptions of person-environment fit and the sacrifices individual has to make to quit the job.…”

Salud laboral y bienestar: Incorporación de modelos positivos a la comprensión y prevención de los riesgos psicosociales del trabajo

“…Los trabajadores con engagement manifiestan energía y dedicación en su trabajo 22 . Las investigaciones han demostrado que engagement está relacionado con una buena realización laboral 23,24 , satisfacción de los clientes 25 , beneficios económicos para las empresas 26 y bienestar laboral 6 .…”