Antecedents of work engagement among high potential employees

Abstract

Purpose The implicit assumption since the beginning of the science and practice of human resource management (HRM) has been that if we do HRM well, this will somehow make organizations perform more effectively. The purpose of this paper is to address this “somehow” by investigating the antecedents of work engagement among high potential employees. Design/methodology/approach The data were collected through a web-based survey from 439 high potential employees of 11 Finnish multinational enterprises. Structural equation modeling was utilized to analyze the data. Findings In line with the social exchange perspective, the findings demonstrate that it is through the fulfillment of psychological contract and through increased organizational identification that high potential employees become more engaged with their organizations in response to participation in leadership development activities. Research limitations/implications Given its cross-sectional nature, the authors cannot completely exclude the possibility of common method bias having impact on the study results. The authors thus call for longitudinal research to examine the nature of causality within the associations analyzed in this study. Originality/value This is one of the first empirical studies, which examines the previously underexplored association between leadership development activities and employee attitudes. In addition, this study addresses the lack of research investigating such a specific group of employees as high potential employees, those employees who rank at the top in terms of performance and competencies, and who are considered to be of highest concern for organizations.

Know Your Stars Before They Fall Apart: A Social Network Analysis of Telecom Industry to Foster Employee Retention Using Data Mining Technique

“…Chamorro-Premuzic, Adler, & Kaiser [37] stated that investing in the high potential employees will maximize organizational profits. [33], [34], [36] and [37] consider HiPos as strategic asset for the organizations, supporting the notion why it is necessary to retain high potential talent based on their relative proficiencies. However these studies did not account for HiPo identification and neither they predicted their turnover intention, which limits their application for star identification through social networks.…”

“…The dynamic modelling of employee's workplace social interactions for HiPo and Influencer identification differs from the previous work done by [62] and [36]. They followed a subjective approach for identifying the star employees such as manager's intuitive judgement, employees past performance, gauging social skills and personality assessment.…”

“…Dries & Gieter [35] investigated the effect of information asymmetry of high potential programs on HiPos and found that an imbalance in financial reward or pay dissatisfaction can be detrimental in retaining high potential individuals. Khoreva & Zalk [36] studied the work engagement of high potential employees in Finnish Multinational enterprises (MNE's). They found that when HiPos are provided with leadership development activities, they reciprocated this investment by their increased work engagement towards their organization.…”

“…Further, this research identifies the central nodes or key players of the telecom industry whose retention is critical for business success using statistical analysis. Most of the existing HiPo and Influencer identification methods are based on employee's past performance and primarily rely on manager's instinct about who are the star performers, but these approaches are subjective [62]; [36]; [7].The benefit of using SNA and advanced data mining technique is that it can quantitatively identify HiPos and Influencers of your organization using analytical algorithm, provide visual mapping of employee interactions and can predict their turnover, which if taken care of can mitigate recruiting and training costs and reduce future productivity loss.…”

The Importance of Supportive Leadership in the Sewerage Operation Industry in Malaysia: A Case of Indah Water Konsortiumprivate Limited (Iwk)

“…Khoreva and Zaik, 2016). Scholars like Backhaus &Tikoo, (2004)Chi &Gursoy, (2009), Kosteas, (2011), and Curtis & Glacken, (2014) have found that employees will not leave their organization if they are satisfied and are as well as less absent, and show increased in their productivity at work.…”