Employee engagement: finding a generally accepted measurement scale

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a method to find a generally accepted employee engagement scale, particularly in the presence of various alternatives and objectives. Design/methodology/approach To find the measurement scales, seminal works encapsulating organizational engagement, job engagement and work engagement in Cinhal, PsycINFO and ABI/INFORM database have been reviewed. For finding the optimal choice from available scales, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method was used. Findings An agreed-upon measurement scale is achievable through the knowledge of alternatives and consequences, as well as consistent preference ordering and a decision rule. However, choice of the most effective scale varies according to the preference of decision makers. Practical implications This study proposes MCDM method as an intervention for practitioners who aim to assess the level of employee engagement in their organizations. It also provides a decision-making method to scholars to surmount conflicting objectives in their measurement. Originality/value While previous studies have developed manifold measurement scales, there is no study to indicate which scale best measures employee engagement. This paper attempts to define how to choose one scale among the various existing gauges of engagement.

Employee engagement in small and medium-sized enterprises in Thailand: the construction and validation of a scale to measure employees

“…However, work engagement, involvement and organisational commitment are different concepts, despite them being similar in terms of them contributing to positive attitudes related to personal tasks and organisational involvement (Albrecht et al , 2015; Ugaddan and Park, 2017). This perspective is consistent with the comparative and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the surveys of Albdour and Altarawneh (2014); Byrne et al (2016); Choochom (2014); Jeve et al (2015); Khodakarami et al (2018); Saks (2019); Shuck et al (2017). However, there is no definite definition of engagement despite numerous EE studies.…”

“…Rana et al (2014) noted that EE refers to employees' cognitive, emotional and physical state that is influenced by certain antecedents. From these definitions, Schaufeli et al ’s (2002) concept is popularly used by academics, industry researchers and practitioners (Ardichvili et al , 2014; Khodakarami et al , 2018; Nazir and Islam, 2017). Furthermore, those aforementioned studies only made use of the EE concept of Schaufeli et al (2002); Schaufeli et al (2006); and Schaufeli and Bakker (2010).…”

Drivers of employee engagement: differences by work area and gender

“…In obtaining such aspects of engagement, practitioners and scholars have examined elements that encourage employee engagement (Saks, 2006). Thus, they have focused on the constructs, strategies and conditions that overall impacted employee engagement (Khodakarami et al , 2018; Rothbard, 2001; Saks, 2006) while they overlooked the changes of impacts across different settings (Robinson et al , 2004). Because of such narrow approaches, significant barriers are posed to improving engagement (Mann and Harter, 2016).…”

Treatment of Patients with Low Back Pain: A Comparison of Physical Therapy and Chiropractic Manipulation

“…To assess the outcome in the short-term, this article focuses on the effects of the assigned treatment on the sick-leave [18]. A high duration of sick-leave may halt employee engagement and impose economic costs on the organization [19,20]. Correspondingly, this study uses the duration of sick leave before treatment for chiropractic and physiotherapy groups.…”