Better leadership, higher work engagement? Comparative study on Finnish and Russian private sector employees

Abstract

Purpose: This article focuses on the relationship between leadership and work engagement in Finnish and Russian private sector organizations. The research aims of the study were to analyze how Finland and Russia differ 1) in the level of work engagement; 2) in the level of satisfaction with leadership and 3) in specific components of leadership as most important antecedents for work engagement. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical analysis of this study is based on survey data collected in Finland and Russia. The analysis focuses on 1570 Finnish and 490 Russian private sector, full-time employees with permanent contracts, who have no managerial responsibilities. The data are analyzed using descriptive methods and binary logistic regression analysis. Findings: The results show, first, that both satisfaction of leadership and work engagement are higher in Finland than in Russia. Second, work engagement in Finland is facilitated by nearly all components of leadership-both materialistic-and relationship-based-while in Russia work engagement is predicted by rewarding good performers and such relationship-based practices as feedback, delegating responsibility, discussing work matters, and building trust. Contrary to our hypothesis, such materialistic-based components as providing equal treatment turned out to be insignificant for work engagement in Russia. Practical implications: Organizations should invest in leadership quality to enhance work engagement and thus, to get a competitive advantage.

The Effect of Employee Desire and Employee Engagement on Organizational Performance: Evidence from ICT Sector in Kerala, India

“…The exogenous variables—warmth and caring for their employees (Cooper-Thomas et al, 2018); pay raise satisfaction (Williams et al, 2007); remuneration, job environment and job performance (Pang & Lu, 2018); challenging assignments (Rai, 2018); trust (Ohemeng et al, 2020), effective corporate communication (Makovsky, 1992; Cornelissen & Lock, 2001); human resources methods, comprising hiring, skill management and participative decision-making (Huselid et al, 1997)—make the people capable to perform, offering them the opportunity to perform, recognizing and respecting them with incentives and awards (Armstrong, 2009; Saari et al, 2018) are demonstrative of the factors of the construct ED, specifically, ‘recognition’, ‘exciting work’, ‘security’, ‘pay’, ‘education’ and ‘truth’. The confirmed positive correlations of these exogenous variables with the factors of EE and OP endorse the established effect of ED on EE and OP.…”

“…Obvious expectations about employee work roles, fair evaluation of performance and recognition of good performances are the elements of good leadership. These elements are positively related to employee work engagement (Saari et al, 2018). The level of EE of organizations depends on workplace resources that illustrate warmth and caring for their employees (Cooper-Thomas et al, 2018).…”

Menguji Pengaruh Digital Leadership dan Perceived Organizational Support terhadap Job Satisfaction dan Work Engagement

“…Garg et al (2018) membuktikan bahwa kepuasan bekerja berpengaruh kuat terhadap keterlekatan kerja menjadi dasar dikembangkan hipotesis pertama (H1). Sementara itu, dua penelitian terdahulu (Rabiul & Yean, 2021;Saari et al, 2018) juga membuktikan bahwa kepemimpinan berpengaruh kuat terhadap keterlekatan kerja (H2). Ada pun hipotesis ketiga (H3) dibangun berdasarkan hasil tiga studi terdahulu (Boamah et al, 2018;Chan, 2019;Eliyana & Ma'arif, 2019) yang membuktikan bahwa kepemimpinan berpengaruh terhadap kepuasan bekerja.…”

Employee Perceived Supervisor Support, Narcissistic Leadership and Employee Turnover Intention: A Literature Review

“…Good leaders make efforts to ensure that all followers get equal treatment so no employees feel isolated (Saari & Melin, 2018). Ellis, Bauer, Erdogan, and Truxillo (2018) determined that employees who reported a higher sense of belongingness to the work group also perceived a higher-quality LMX relationship with their leader.…”