the meaning of employee engagement · on state and behavioral engagement and as moderators of the...

The Meaning of Employee Engagement

WILLIAM H. MACEYValtera Corporation

BENJAMIN SCHNEIDERValtera Corporation and University of Maryland

AbstractThe meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and among practitionerswho use it in conversations with clients. We show that the term is used at different times to refer to psychologicalstates, traits, and behaviors as well as their antecedents and outcomes. Drawing on diverse relevant literatures, weoffer a series of propositions about (a) psychological state engagement; (b) behavioral engagement; and (c) traitengagement. In addition, we offer propositions regarding the effects of job attributes and leadership as main effectson state and behavioral engagement and as moderators of the relationships among the 3 facets of engagement.We conclude with thoughts about the measurement of the 3 facets of engagement and potential antecedents,especially measurement via employee surveys.

The notion of employee engagement isa relatively new one, one that has beenheavily marketed by human resource (HR)consulting firms that offer advice on how itcan be created and leveraged. Academicresearchers are now slowly joining the fray,and both parties are saddled with compet-ing and inconsistent interpretations of themeaning of the construct.

Casual observation suggests that much ofthe appeal to organizational management isdriven by claims that employee engagementdrives bottom-line results. Indeed, at leastone HR consulting firm (Hewitt AssociatesLLC, 2005, p. 1) indicates that they ‘‘haveestablished a conclusive, compelling rela-

tionship between engagement and profit-ability through higher productivity, sales,customer satisfaction, and employee reten-tion.’’ Some practitioners view engagementas having evolved from prior research onwork attitudes, directly implying that thisnewer concept adds interpretive value thatextends beyond the boundaries of those tra-ditions.We agreewith this thought and hopeto show why we agree in what follows.

Although compelling on the surface, themeaning of the employee engagement con-cept is unclear. In large part, this can beattributed to the ‘‘bottom-up’’ manner inwhich the engagement notion has quicklyevolved within the practitioner community.This is not an unfamiliar stage in the incre-mental evolution of an applied psychologi-cal construct. Thus, similar to the manner inwhich burnout was at first a construct attrib-uted to pop psychology (Maslach, Schaufeli,& Leiter, 2001) engagement is a conceptwith a sparse and diverse theoretical andempirically demonstrated nomological net—the relationships among potential antece-dents and consequences of engagement aswell as the components of engagement have

Correspondence concerning this article should beaddressed to William H. Macey. E-mail: [email protected]

Address: Valtera Corporation, 1701Golf Road, Suite2-1100 Rolling Meadows, IL 60008

William H. Macey, Valtera Corporation; BenjaminSchneider, Valtera Corporation and University ofMaryland.

We appreciate the thoughtful comments of our col-leagues Karen Barbera and Scott Young as well as con-structive feedback from Paul Sackett and Allen Kraut.

Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1 (2008), 3–30.Copyright ª 2008 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 1754-9426/08

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not been rigorously conceptualized, muchless studied. Indeed, many HR consultantsavoid defining the term, instead referr-ing only to its presumed positive con-sequences. At a minimum, the questionremains as to whether engagement is aunique concept or merely a repackagingof other constructs—what Kelley (1927;quoted in Lubinski, 2004, p. 98) called the‘‘Jangle Fallacy.’’ This is a matter of particularsignificance to those who develop andconduct employee surveys in organizationsbecause the end users of these productsexpect interpretations of the results to becast in terms of actionable implications.Yet, if one does not know what one is mea-suring, the action implications will be, atbest, vague and, at worst, a leap of faith.

The academic community has been slowto jump on the practitioner engagementbandwagon, and empirical research thathas appeared on the topic in refereed outletsreveals little consideration for rigorouslytesting the theory underlying the construct(for exceptions, see May, Gilson, & Harter,2004; Salanova, Agut, & Peiro, 2005). Thus,although research exists demonstratingthat some employee attitudes called ‘‘en-gagement’’ are related to organizationaloutcomes like turnover and productivity(Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002) theseemployee attitudes do not conceptuallyreflect the notion of engagement. Thus,further development of the construct andits measurement requires attention (for anexample, see Schaufeli, Bakker, & Salanova,2006).

Our goal is to present a conceptual frame-work that will help both researchers andpractitioners recognize the variety of mean-ings the engagement construct subsumesand the research traditions that give rise toor support those meanings. We believe thatthis is important in itself as it creates aworking model for how the research litera-ture can influence practice and vice versa.Thus, as we organize the various literaturesrelevant to engagement, we establish aresearchagenda that identifies further oppor-tunities for science and improved science–practice linkages.

Employee Engagement:

Getting Oriented

Numerous definitions of engagement can bederived from the practice- and research-driven literatures. Additional definitionscan be attributed to folk theory: the commonintuitive sense that people, and particularlyleaders within organizations, have aboutwork motivation. Common to these defini-tions is the notion that employee engage-ment is a desirable condition, has anorganizational purpose, and connotesinvolvement, commitment, passion, enthu-siasm, focused effort, and energy, so it hasboth attitudinal and behavioral compo-nents.1 The antecedents of such attitudesand behaviors are located in conditionsunder which people work, and the conse-quences are thought to be of value to orga-nizational effectiveness (see Erickson, 2005).

As a folk theory, engagement is used ina manner that implies the opposite of dis-engagement. For example, a number ofpopular views of engagement suggest thatengaged employees not only contributemore but also are more loyal and thereforeless likely to voluntarily leave the organiza-tion. However, for present purposes, wechoose to focus on only those aspects ofengagement that have positive valence(obviously from low to high). We believethat this is crucial to developing conceptualprecision in that it maintains a clear inten-tional focus on benefits that inure to theorganization. For example, certain behav-iors that might be considered adaptive onthe part of the individual (e.g., takinga ‘‘mental health day’’ as a form of adaptivewithdrawal) would not be consideredwithin the present framework. At least tem-porarily, we are not taking a position on

1. Some readers may feel that there are clear hints of‘‘motivation’’ in what we have just written and won-der to themselves why we are not saying that this ismotivation. The answer is that the construct of moti-vation is itself a hypothetical constructwith consider-able ambiguity surrounding it.Were we to introduceit here, it might further confound the issues so weleave the chore of integrating engagement with‘‘motivation’’ to others.

4 W.H. Macey and B. Schneider

whether engagement and disengagementare opposites (i.e., perhaps the opposite ofengagement is ‘‘nonengagement’’ ratherthan disengagement or perhaps even burn-out; Gonzalez-Roma, Schaufeli, Bakker, &Lloret, 2006). Rather, we simply choose toarbitrarily exclude from considerationmodels of behavior that focus on with-drawal, maladaptive behavior, or other dis-engagement phenomena.

Sources of Confusion:

State, Trait, or Behavior?

As a folk term, engagement has been used torefer to a psychological state (e.g., involve-ment, commitment, attachment,mood), per-formance construct (e.g., either effort orobservable behavior, including prosocialand organizational citizenship behavior[OCB]), disposition (e.g., positive affect[PA]), or some combination of the above.For example, Wellins and Concelman(2005a, p. 1) suggested that engagement is‘‘an amalgamation of commitment, loyalty,productivity and ownership.’’ As we shallsee, the use of engagement as a psychologi-cal construct in the research literature is nomore precise; it is commonly used to refer toboth role performance and an affective state,even within the same research context (foran exception, see Kahn, 1990).

The reader may recognize that manyother important psychological constructshave suffered from a similar lack of precisionat early stages in their development. A par-ticularly noteworthy example of such impre-cision is job involvement (cf., Kanungo,1982). Thus, the lack of precision in theengagement concept does not imply thatthe concept lacks conceptual or practicalutility. However, the conceptwould bemoreuseful were it to be framed as a model thatsimultaneously embraces the psychologicalstate and the behavior it implies. In theabsence of suchamodel, including potentialantecedents and moderators, it does notseem possible to either develop relevantresearch hypotheses or apply the conceptin any meaningful way including thedesign of surveys and the development of

organizational interventions based on sur-vey results.

On a related point, confusion existsbecause engagement is used by some to referto a specific construct (e.g., involvement,initiative, sportsmanship, altruism) withunique attributes and by others as a perfor-mance construct defined as exceeding sometypical level of performance. For example,Wellins and Concelman (2005a, p. 1) sug-gested that engagement is ‘‘the illusive forcethat motivates employees to higher (orlower) levels of performance.’’ Colbert,Mount, Harter, Witt, and Barrick (2004,p. 603) defined engagement in terms of a‘‘high internal motivational state.’’ Similarly,Dvir, Eden, Avolio, and Shamir (2002, p. 737)defined active engagement in terms of ‘‘highlevels of activity, initiative, and responsibil-ity.’’ Again, we see engagement defined bothattitudinally and behaviorally—and we sub-scribe to both. However, both practitionersand researchers must be clear about the kindof engagement they are speaking about. Wewill show later the varieties of engagementconstructs that exist. As we will also show,the various conceptualizations of engage-ment as state, trait, or behavior, as impreciseas they may have been, are exceeded inimprecision only by the various ways thisvague concept has been operationalized.

Toward Untangling the Jangle:

A Framework for Understanding

the Conceptual Space of

Employee Engagement

To move the discussion of what engagementis to a more concrete level, consider theoverall framework for understanding thevarious components that the engagementconstruct might subsume (see Figure 1).Figure 1 shows that engagement as a dis-position (i.e., trait engagement) can beregarded as an inclination or orientation toexperience the world from a particular van-tage point (e.g., positive affectivity charac-terized by feelings of enthusiasm) and thatthis trait engagement gets reflected in psy-chological state engagement. We conceptu-alize psychological state engagement as an

Employee engagement 5

antecedent of behavioral engagement,which we define in terms of discretionaryeffort (e.g., Erickson, 2005; Towers-Perrin,2003) or a specific form of in-role or extra-role effort or behavior.

Figure 1 also shows that conditions of theworkplace have both direct and indirecteffects on state and behavioral engagement.The nature of work (e.g., challenge, variety)and the nature of leadership (especiallytransformational leadership) are the condi-tions that most interest us. Figure 1 shows,for example, that work has direct effectson state engagement (e.g., Hackman &Oldham, 1980) and indirect effects as aboundary condition (moderator) of the rela-tionship between trait and state engage-ment. With regard to leadership, Figure 1shows it having a direct effect on trust andan indirect effect through the creation of truston behavioral engagement (e.g., Kahn, 1990;McGregor, 1960); more on Figure 1 later.

In our remaining comments, we outlinehow various traditions and models withinthe research and applied literatures fit themodel shown in Figure 1 and detail theresulting implications. However, prior toproceeding, it is important to note that wedo not choose a specific conceptualizationof engagement as ‘‘right’’ or ‘‘true’’ because(a) this would not be useful at this early stagein the development of thinking about

engagement; (b) any or all of these concep-tualizations can be useful for specific pur-poses; and (c) identifying these differentconceptualizations will help researchersand practitioners have a firmer idea aboutthe locus of the issue when they work withit. Our goal is to illuminate the unique attrib-utes of prior research that most occupy theconceptual space we would call engage-ment so that future research and practicecan more precisely identify the nature ofthe engagement construct they are pursuing.

Engagement as Psychological State:

Old Wine in New Bottles?

We begin our exploration of Figure 1 withengagement as psychological state becauseit is the state of engagement that has receivedmore attention, either implicitly or explic-itly, than either of the other perspectives. Inaddition, as both dependent and indepen-dent variable in Figure 1, it is central to theengagement issue.

Engagement as a psychological state hasvariously embraced one or more of severalrelated ideas, each in turn representing someform of absorption, attachment, and/orenthusiasm. Operationally, the measures ofengagement have for the most part beencomposed of a potpourri of items represent-ing one or more of the four different

Trait Engagement State Engagement Behavioral Engagement

(Positive views of life and work) (Feelings of energy, absorption) (Extra-role behavior)

Proactive Personality Satisfaction (Affective) Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)

Autotelic Personality Involvement Proactive/Personal Initiative

Trait Positive Affect Commitment Role Expansion

Conscientiousness Empowerment Adaptive

Work AttributesVariety

ChallengeAutonomy

TransformationalLeadership

Trust

Figure 1. Framework for understanding the elements of employee engagement.


categories: job satisfaction, organizationalcommitment, psychological empowerment,and job involvement.We summarize the rel-evance of each of these to the concept ofengagement. We then review some morerecent thinking about the state of engage-ment, especially with regard to the affect ofthat state.More specifically, it becomes clearas our review unfolds that thinking andresearch about engagement have evolvedto be both more precise and conceptuallyappropriate. This clarity reflects an increas-ing emphasis on absorption, passion, andaffect and a lessening emphasis on satisfac-tion and perhaps also job involvement andorganizational commitment.

Engagement as satisfaction. To some,engagement and satisfaction are linkeddirectly if not regarded as completely iso-morphic. Thus, Harter et al. (2002) explicitlyreferred to their measure (The Gallup WorkPlace Audit) as ‘‘satisfaction-engagement’’(p. 269) and defined engagement as ‘‘theindividual’s involvement and satisfactionwith aswell as enthusiasm for work’’ (p. 269,italics added). The Gallup survey itemstap evaluative constructs traditionally con-ceptualized as satisfaction facets, includingresource availability, opportunities fordevelopment, and clarity of expectations.Perhaps even more directly, some practi-tioners (e.g., Burke, 2005) measure engage-ment as direct assessments of satisfactionwith the company, manager, work group,job, and work environment characteristics.Others distinguish between an affective, oremotional, component of engagement andrational or cognitive elements, linking theemotional component to job satisfaction.Thus, Towers-Perrin (2003) suggested that‘‘the emotional factors tie to people’s per-sonal satisfaction and the sense of inspira-tion and affirmation they get from theirwork and being part of their organization’’(p. 4, italics added). The readermayalso notethat despite the emphasis on affect in manydefinitions of satisfaction (e.g., Locke,1976), contemporary job satisfaction mea-sures are largely considered descriptive(Brief & Weiss, 2002). Consider, for exam-

ple, the measurement of engagement withthe Gallup measure (Buckingham & Coff-man, 1999; Harter et al., 2002) where theitems used to define engagement are allitems descriptive of the conditions underwhich people work. The results from surveydata are used to infer that reports of theseconditions signify engagement, but the stateof engagement itself is not assessed—at leastinsofar as one accepts our proposed concep-tualization as one that connotes passion,commitment, involvement, and so forth.

Erickson (2005, p. 14) articulated a viewconsistent with our thoughts:

Engagement is above and beyondsimple satisfaction with the employmentarrangement or basic loyalty to theemployer—characteristics that mostcompanies have measured for manyyears. Engagement, in contrast, is aboutpassion and commitment—the willing-ness to invest oneself and expend one’sdiscretionary effort to help the employersucceed.

Interestingly, many traditional measuresof satisfaction include items that wouldseemingly tap facets that fit our conceptualspace for engagement. For example, oneitem included in Brayfield and Rothe’s(1951) measure of job satisfaction reads,‘‘Most days I feel enthusiastic about mywork.’’ Enthusiasm is regarded as a markerof engagement by some (e.g., Harter,Schmitt, & Keyes, 2003), and the relevanceof satisfaction is clear in that people investmore time in roles they find enjoyable(Rothbard & Edwards, 2003). Nonetheless,the conceptual similarity of items used inengagement and satisfaction surveys indi-cates confusion between the concepts.Looking ahead to our later comments, thelack of conceptual clarity in distinguishingengagement from satisfaction parallels theconceptual confusion in understanding thedifferent uses of the term ‘‘positive affect,’’where the common use of the term broadlyencompasses the hedonic dimension ofpleasantness, happiness, or cheerfulnessyet is portrayed more accurately when


characterizing a high level of activation orenergy and a state of pleasantness.

In fact, the measures of engagement wehave seen in use in the world of practice arehighly similar to the measures used forassessments of job satisfaction (or climateor culture), albeit with a new label. Althoughtheremay be room for satisfactionwithin theengagement construct, engagement con-notes activation, whereas satisfaction con-notes satiation (Erickson, 2005). In addition,although ‘‘satisfaction’’ surveys that askemployees to describe their work conditionsmay be relevant for assessing the conditionsthat provide for engagement (state and/orbehavioral), they do not directly tap engage-ment. Such measures require an inferentialleap to engagement rather than assessingengagement itself. This has practical signifi-cance because the advice the practitioneroffers management on addressing engage-ment issues requires a similar inferential leapall too evident to the insightful executive.

Avery significant exception to this dismalportrait is work being done in Europe byresearchers from Holland and Spain (Schau-feli et al., 2006). They have designed andvalidated (against customer satisfaction; Sal-anova et al., 2005) a nine-item measure ofstate engagement that defines three factorsthat conceptually link to issues we will dis-cuss next: dedication (i.e., commitment),absorption (i.e., involvement), and energy(i.e., positive affective state).

Proposition 1 summarizes the pointsmade with regard to the relationship be-tween satisfaction and engagement:

Proposition 1: Satisfaction when assessedas satiation is not in the same conceptualspace as engagement. Satisfaction whenassessed as feelings of energy, enthusi-asm, and similarly positive affective statesbecomes a facet of engagement.

Engagement as commitment. Somepractitioners define engagement in terms oforganizational commitment. For example,Wellins and Concelman (2005b, p. 1) sug-gested that ‘‘to be engaged is to be activelycommitted, as to a cause.’’ The Corporate

Executive Board (2004, p. 1) suggested thatengagement is ‘‘the extent to which employ-ees commit to someoneor something in theirorganization, how hard they work, and howlong they stay as a result of that commit-ment.’’ In these and similar definitions, twopossible threads of reasoning are implied:organizational and task/goal commitment;wedeal firstwithorganizational commitment.

Commitment is regarded as a psychologi-cal state of attachment (O’Reilly &Chatman,1986) or binding force between an individ-ual and the organization (Meyer, Becker, &Vandenberghe,2004). In fact, the itemscom-prising Meyer and Allen’s (1997) affectivecommitment scale focus on the concept ofbelonging, personal meaning, and ‘‘beingpart of the family’’ (p. 118), and the itemsin Mowday, Porter, and Steers’ (1982) mea-sure of organizational commitment definenot only the concept of belonging but alsothe additional concepts of effort and pride(see Items 1 and 6, p. 221). In both cases,commitment as a psychological state isregarded as an antecedent of various organi-zationally relevant outcomes, including var-ious forms of prosocial behavior and/ororganizational/job withdrawal. Based sim-ply on the commonly specified antecedentsand consequences of commitment and stateengagement, affective commitment must beregarded as a facet of state engagement butnot the same as state engagement. Thus, aswe will show later, there are other facetsor psychological states (e.g., feeling psycho-logically safe; Kahn, 1990) that make com-mitment only one of a number of states thatlegitimately comprise the full state engage-ment construct.

It is important to note that themeasures ofcommitment cited (Meyer & Allen, 1997;Mowday et al., 1982) are measures of thepsychological state of commitment and arenot descriptions of the conditions that mightyield that commitment. In this sense, theyclearly fit with our approach to the opera-tionalization of engagement as psychologi-cal state. By way of summary:

Proposition 2: Organizational commit-ment is an important facet of the state of


engagement when it is conceptualizedas positive attachment to the larger orga-nizational entity and measured as a will-ingness to exert energy in support of theorganization, to feel pride as an organiza-tional member, and to have personalidentification with the organization.

Engagement as job involvement. At a cas-ual level, job involvement as a constructclearly occupies a portion of the conceptualspace labeled state engagement. Indeed, asindicated earlier, Harter et al. (2002) specifi-cally equated engagement with both satis-faction and involvement. Similarly, buildingon the work of Lodahl and Kejner (1965),Cooper-Hakim and Viswesvaran (2005)defined job involvement ‘‘as the degree towhich an employee psychologically relatesto his or her job and the work performedtherein’’ (p. 244) and specifically equatedjob involvement and job commitment. Simi-larly, in his review and meta-analysis of jobinvolvement, Brown (1996) indicated thata ‘‘state of involvement implies a positiveand relatively complete state of engagementof core aspects of the self in the job’’ (p. 235,italics added).

Switching now to task engagement andjob commitment, these have been discussedin the engagement literature albeit in a lim-ited form. Erickson (2005) is one exceptionwho places the work people do as central tothe state of engagement. In his review oftransformational leadership, Bass (1999)suggested that when the self-worth of theindividual is involved, higher levels of com-mitment to the activity (i.e., job or task com-mitment as opposed to organizationalcommitment) follow from increased levelsof task engagement because a lack of com-mitment to the leader’s goals would be dis-sonant with the feelings of self-worth thatfollow from goal attainment. Self-engage-ment in this context refers to the willingnessto invest effort toward task goal attainment.The difference between work as the referentof engagement and the organization as thereferent of engagement is critical here, andsuch a distinction is even more apparent

when discussing the relationship betweenjob involvement and engagement.

As noted earlier, Erickson (2005) de-scribed the job as the key antecedent of thestate of engagement, so for her, engagementor involvement in the task is critical to over-all psychological state engagement. The keyreferent of engagement here is the job, notthe organization. In addition, it follows thatthe logical consequences of involvementwould be with regard to task/job outcomesand not directly to organizational-leveloutcomes.

In this regard, based on a comparison ofhis meta-analytic results to those of Mathieuand Zajac’s (1990) earlier meta-analysis oforganizational commitment relationships,Brown (1996) concluded that job involve-ment is an antecedent of organizationalcommitment rather than a consequence.He based his conclusion on the fact that therelationship between involvement and vari-ouswork outcomes is typically weak, yet therelationship between involvement and com-mitment is quite strong. Brown furtherconcluded that organizational withdrawaldecisions are less related to job involvementthan to organizational commitment.

As was true for the concept of organiza-tional commitment, job involvement is seenin contemporary definitions of engagementas a facet of engagement, a part of engage-ment but not equivalent to it (Salanova et al.,2005), and we would agree with this per-spective. Within the broader research litera-ture, Maslach et al. (2001) have proposedthat engagement can be characterized byenergy, involvement, and efficacy. As othershave done (e.g., Brown, 1996), thesescholars positioned job engagement as con-ceptually distinct from organizational com-mitment because the focus is on workrather than the organization (much as jobcommitment can be regarded as differentfrom organizational commitment) and asdifferent from involvement in that engage-ment is a broader concept encompassingenergy and efficacy. On balance, it seemsappropriate to regard Maslach et al.’s andSalanova et al.’s views of job engagementas a broad multidimensional construct


encompassing a family of related and morespecific constructs focused on individuals’relationships with their work roles. By wayof summary:

Proposition 3: Job involvement (includingtask engagement and job commitment)as traditionally conceptualized and as-sessed is an important facet of the psy-chological state of engagement.

Engagement as psychological empower-ment. Psychological empowerment hasbeen treated within both two- and four-dimensional frameworks (Mathieu, Gilson,& Ruddy, 2006). Within the two-dimen-sional framework, Mathieu et al. (p. 98) sug-gested that empowerment is the ‘‘experienceof authority and responsibility.’’ Conceptu-ally, empowerment defined in this mannermight be considered an antecedent or a con-dition of engagement, and the reader can seethe conceptual slipperiness with which weare dealing.

Indeed, any distinction between the stateof engagement and psychological empower-ment becomes considerably less clear whenconsidering the four-dimensional modelsuggested by Spreitzer (1995). These dimen-sions include meaning (sense of purpose),competence (self-efficacy), feelings of self-determination (feelings of control), andimpact (belief that one’s efforts can makea difference). These connote a readinessand/or an inclination toward action that fitsour perspective of state engagement as ener-gic (see below). Indeed, Spreitzer articulatedthe idea that the four cognitions imply anactive way of ‘‘wishing to’’ shape one’s workrole and context, a meaning clearly alignedwith folk conceptualizations of engagement.

In this perspective, the state of feelingempowered, as represented in anorientationtoward action, would seem to occupy a por-tion of the conceptual space we wouldregard as a state of engagement. Supportingan interpretation of psychological empower-ment as engagement, Spreitzer (1995) sug-gested that outcomes of empowermentinclude effort, persistence, and initiative.We would include these as indicants of

behavioral engagement, a topicwe considerin detail later.

This discussion of state engagement asfeelings of empowerment leads us to thefollowing:

Proposition 4: Feelings of empowermentthat connote an inclination to actionvis-a-vis work (feelings of self-efficacy andcontrol and impact fromone’saction) com-prise another facet of state engagement.

Summary: State engagement as old wine ina new bottle. Job satisfaction, organiza-tional commitment, job involvement, andfeelings of empowerment all can have rele-vance for the state engagement construct.The state engagement construct we havepresented to this point in the review is thusa new blend of old wines with distinct char-acteristics and ‘‘feel.’’ More specifically,although aspects of these older constructsare relevant to state engagement (those con-noting affect and feelings of energy), thosefacets of the older constructs connoting sati-ation and contentment are not.

The measurement of these older con-structs in practice leaves something to bedesired with regard to the kinds of affectand sense of energy the state engagementconstruct we propose would require. Somemeasures of job satisfaction that have beenused to infer engagement are not affective innature at all and frequently donot connote oreven apply to a sense of energy but representconditions that might promote the state ofengagement (e.g.,Harter et al., 2002), a topicdiscussed in some detail later.

The next section of the review considersin greater detail the affective nature of stateengagement. It will become clear to readersthat the state engagement construct is onecomprising not only facets of old wine butthose of new wines, too, with a focus onaffect. As we move further into the world ofaffect that engagement connotes, ways inwhich the old constructs and measures areinadequate will become increasingly clear.What will also become clear is that the stateengagement construct suggests a different


emphasis than is evident in the independentdiscussion of these related constructs in thetraditional industrial–organizational (I–O)literature.

Engagement as Positive Affectivity (PA).Engagement has been regarded by some asa distinct affective state. Larsen and Diener(1992) positioned PA as halfway between(45 degrees to) the positive end of the acti-vation dimension and the pleasant end of thehedonic valence dimension, thus character-izing PA as ‘‘activated pleasant affect’’ (p. 31)characterized by adjectives that connoteboth activation and pleasantness. This dis-tinction between PA with its high activationcomponent and pleasantness, which is neu-tral with respect to activation level, is similarto the one we made earlier when discussingsatisfaction and its relationship to en-gagement. Although there is considerableongoing debate regarding the primarydimensionality of affect (e.g., Russell &Carroll, 1999; Watson & Tellegen, 1999),our concern here is with regard to thedescriptors (markers) used to characterizePA. PAmarkers for the Positive andNegativeAffect Schedule (PANAS) include amongothers attentive, alert, enthusiastic, inspired,proud, determined, strong, and active(Watson, Clark, & Tellegen, 1988, p. 1064),precisely the kinds of descriptors occasion-ally explicitly but more often implicitly usedin contemporary engagement definitions.In keeping with Staw (2004), Larsen andDiener (1992), Warr (1999), and others,these markers of PA connote high levels ofactivation. This is consistent with the practi-tioner literature. For example, within thepopular management press, this is referredto as passion and excitement (Wellins &Concelman, 2005b) or simply emotionalengagement (Fleming, Coffman, & Harter,2005).

PA is variously used to describe moodstates, more temporary and intense emo-tional states, and as a dispositional trait, orthe tendency to experience events, circum-stances, and situations more positively(Thoresen, Kaplan, Barsky, Warren, & deChermont, 2003), further adding to the

potential confusion. By implication, somepeople are dispositionally more prone tobe engaged, but for the present discussionof states (compared with the later discussionof traits) that is somewhat irrelevant; we dealwith antecedents of state engagement later.Most interesting for present purposes is thatin the folk, practitioner, and researchers’conceptual use of the term, engagement pre-sumes a relatively stable state unlike theimplied ebb and flow of a transient psycho-logical state. That is, engagement isexpected to be relatively constant, giventhe continued presence of specific and rec-ognizable job and organizational factors.In what follows, other models of engage-ment as an affective state are described,some more and some less relatively persis-tent and transient psychological states.

More immediately relevant to stateengagement at work, Schaufeli and his col-leagues define engagement as a ‘‘persistent,positive affective-motivational state of fulfill-ment in employees that is characterized byvigor, dedication, and absorption’’ (Maslachet al., 2001, p. 417). From a measurementperspective, questionnaire items (Schaufeli,Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, & Bakker, 2002;Schaufeli et al., 2006) tap constructs similarto involvement and satisfaction but with anadditional emotional, energic, or affectivetone, suggesting a high degree of overlapwith PA: ‘‘I’m enthusiastic about my job’’and ‘‘I feel happy when I am workingintensely.’’ The important considerations forpresent purposes are (a) the distinct charac-terization of persistence or stability, if notconsistency of experience of that state, and(b) the elevated emotional tone of the stateitself (Schaufeli et al., 2002).

In a related view, Shirom (2003) sug-gested the notion of vigor as an affective stateexperienced as a response to the character-istics of the job. Shirom defined vigor as anaffective state but not a mood state in thatindividuals can attribute their feelings ofvigor specifically to the job and the work-place. He positioned vigor as the feeling ofphysical strength, cognitive liveliness, andemotional energy. Shirom’smeasure of vigorincludes items such as ‘‘I feel energetic,’’


‘‘I feel I am able to contribute new ideas,’’and ‘‘I feel able to show warmth to others.’’Shirom argued, and we agree, that vigor isnot equivalent to engagement behavior,with the feeling of vigor being a psychologi-cal state that, in combinationwith other pos-itive affective states, can lead to engagementbehavior.

Shirom positioned vigor within the affectcircumplex in a manner similar to thoughnot perfectly aligned with PA: a mixture ofmoderate arousal and moderate pleasant-ness. Furthermore, his conceptualization ofvigor is entirely consistent with the notion ofengagement as a relatively enduring affec-tive state as presented here. Of particularimportance, he attributed the feeling of vigordirectly to workplace characteristics, espe-cially the job itself. But it is useful to notethat, like Warr (1999), Shirom is explicitlyspeaking about state engagement withregard to work rather than state engagementas a generic or general psychological state.

Proposition 5: PA associated with thejob and the work setting connoting orexplicitly indicating feelings of persis-tence, vigor, energy, dedication, absorp-tion, enthusiasm, alertness, and prideoccupies a central position in the con-ceptualization and measurement of stateengagement. Conversely, measures ofpsychological states that are devoid ofdirect and explicit indicants of affectiveand energic feeling are not measures ofstate engagement in whole or part.

One can see in Proposition 5 a summaryof the role of job satisfaction, job involve-ment, organizational commitment, andempowerment in understanding stateengagement. Additionally, however, thereare the required importance and centralityof the energic state and positive affectivitythat are central to the uniqueness of the stateengagement construct.

Engagement as involvement of the self.In Proposition 5 and the prior discussionand propositions, the affective feelings andenergic states referred to are with respect to

the job and the organization. Although com-prehensive with regard to state engagement,a significant omission involves feelings withregard to the involvement of the self: self-esteem, self-efficacy, and self-identity.

Kahn (1990), in an early and especiallyinsightful exploration of engagement, spe-cifically suggested that ‘‘People canuse vary-ing degrees of their selves, physically,cognitively, and emotionally, in the rolesthey perform . . . the more people drawon their selves to perform their roles . . .the more stirring are their performances’’(p. 692). This is highly similar to the defini-tion of involvement provided by Brown(1996) and cited earlier. Kahn defines per-sonal engagement as ‘‘harnessing’’ of theindividual self with the work role. As such,engagement is a binding force, similar tocommitment as defined by Meyer et al.(2004), although Kahn (1990) also refers tothe expression of that self in task behavior.Thus, the experience of personal engage-ment encompasses elements of bothinvolvement andcommitment as psycholog-ical states and also a sense of personal iden-tity in role behavior.

Kahn (1992) later elaborated on the con-cept of engagement by implicitly differenti-ating the notion of psychological presenceand engagement behavior. He suggestedthat a true psychological presence at andidentity with work go beyond questions ofsimple task motivation. Rather, true identitywith work reflects an ‘‘authenticity’’ thatresults in employees connecting with workand addressing difficult issues (i.e., theengagement behavior). It is from the experi-ence of being psychologically present inthe work—that the work is a part of one’sidentity—that employee development andproductivity follow. Such behavioralengagement follows because when psycho-logically present, employees are attentiveand focused, connected (including the con-notation of absorption), and integrated. The‘‘experience’’ of being integrated wouldentail simultaneously drawing upon all ofone’s skills, abilities, and other personalresources in order to respond to the demandsof a role. Kahn’s (1992) description of


psychological presence clarifies the distinc-tion between the experiential state (psycho-logical presence) and personally engagingbehaviors that may accompany that state.Thus, engagement as behavior, a topic wewill move to shortly, is regarded as the man-ifestation of presence, a psychological state.Building on Kahn’s view, Rothbard (2001,p. 684) operationalized engagement throughself-reported attention (e.g., ‘‘I focus a greatdeal of attention on my work.’’) and absorp-tion (e.g., ‘‘When I am working, I often losetrack of time.’’).

Proposition 6: State engagement addi-tionally refers to the investment of the selfin the person’s work and the perceivedimportance of work outcomes and orga-nization membership to that person’sidentity.

A note on the durability of state engage-ment. Bydefinition, psychological states,like engagement, have boundaries set intime (Weiss & Kurek, 2003). Different per-spectives of engagement as a psychologicalstate might vary in the limits placed on theseboundaries but (a) time frames are rarely ifever explicitly referred to in perspectivesrelated to engagement like those we havedescribed here, and (b) the previous litera-tures referred to seem to implicitly assumea relatively durable engagement state. Thus,we unfortunately do not yet have either ap-propriate conceptual boundaries or adequateoperationalization of those boundaries.

Within the notion of a ‘‘mind-set,’’engagement can be considered a relativelyenduring state and one that serves to explainpersistence as well as direction of job andorganizationally focused behavior. As such,individual measures of engagement shouldbe relatively stable, and intra-individual dif-ferences would be considered a reflection ofmeasurement error. However, engagementcan also be represented as a temporary tran-sient state. Here, engagement measureswould be expected to fluctuate, representingthe daily ebb and flow of experiences inresponse to the work environment or otheraspects of personal life. Given these distinc-

tions, it would seem important for measuresof engagement to bound survey items intime—perhaps explicitly asking respondentshow often they have specific engagementfeelings and experiences and how long theypersist to provide data on the possibletransient nature versus the durability of thefeelings.

In both conceptualizations, engagementcan be viewed as a causal antecedent oforganizationally relevant behavior and out-comes. Distinguishing the short- and long-term characterizations of state engagementserves to highlight the observation that eitherthe focus of engagementmust be regarded asvarying in salience over time (if engagementis a relatively enduring mind-set; see Meyeret al., 2004) or engagement itself varies.In either case, a comprehensive engagementmodel should provide a theoretical basis forunderstanding intra-individual variance inengagement and/or engagement-relatedoutcomes. For example, Sonnentag (2003)demonstrated that engagement (vigor,absorption, and dedication) varies aroundan average or ‘‘trait’’ level (trait here mightbe better interpreted as a state with longerterm boundaries) and that significant varia-tion in state engagement can be accountedfor by off-work recovery opportunities. Ina related vein, depletion theories of the ef-fects of multiple-role obligations (Rothbard,2001) suggest that there is a limited amountof energy people possess that they can share,suggesting in turn that engagement in someroles comes at the expense of engagement inother roles. Such a view strongly impliesconsiderable intra-individual variance. Wewill not further consider state engagementin its transient form and will write in whatfollows under the assumption that stateengagement is relatively durable over time,with work and organizational conditions aswell as personal traits (all to be consideredsoon) supporting this durability in time.

Summary: Engagement as state. Wehavenow reviewed the many ways in which thepsychological state of engagement has beenconceptualized and measured. Althoughthere is considerable variability in concepts


and measures, there appears to be consider-able agreement that engagement as a statehas a strong affective tone connoting, ataminimum, high levels of involvement (pas-sion and absorption) in the work and theorganization (pride and identity) as well asaffective energy (enthusiasm and alertness)and a sense of self-presence in the work.

Existing measures of the more traditionalconcepts of satisfaction, job involvement,and organizational commitment frequentlycontain items referring to affect, energy, andidentity. Therefore, we would expect thatmeasures designed to tap state engagementmore directly will correlate significantlywith them. To be more precise, we wouldexpect correlations in the range of .50 amongthese measures but further hypothesize thatif such measures are included with the onedesigned to specifically tap state engagementas represented in Propositions 1–6, an obli-que factor analysis of the resultant itemswould yield an engagement factor thatincluded themoreaffective andenergic itemsand be distinguished from the other items.

Importantly,wedonot conceive of amea-sure of state engagement to be necessarilyincomplete if any facet of engagement asdescribed in Propositions 1–6 is missing.Rather, these facets as we have positionedthem and as they have been characterizedin the I–O literature should be regarded asrepresentative of the affective and energicaspect of state engagement.

We have carefully argued that the state ofengagement that results in and/or accompa-nies engagement behavior differs from thatbehavior. The separate focus on behavior iscritical as it is key to the distinction betweenpsychological outcomes that are personallyrelevant and those that are organizationallyrelevant. These organizational consequencesobviously must emerge from the states beingreflected in engagement behaviors, the topicto which we turn next.

Engagement as Behavior:

An Introduction

Within our model, engagement can beregarded as a directly observable behavior

in the work context. Clearly, the scope ofengagement is something less than the entiredomain of behavioral work performanceand thus begs the question as to how it differsfrom any other form of performance-relatedbehavior. To this point, within the folkmean-ing of the term, engagement implies some-thing special, extra, or at least atypical.

Having said that, it is conceivable that anentire organization may have behaviorallyengaged employees with the frame of refer-ence being other organizations, and/orwithin an organization, some employeesmay be engaged more than others—withother employees within the organizationbeing the frame of reference.

Thus, it is common to define employeeengagement as putting forth ‘‘discretionaryeffort,’’ defined as extra time, brainpower,and energy (Towers-Perrin, 2003), with theframe of reference implied but perhaps nothaving been made explicit. Others refer to‘‘giving it their all’’ (Bernthal, 2004), andsome combine effort with commitment inthe definition (e.g., Corporate ExecutiveBoard, 2004; Wellins & Concelman,2005a) with similarly somewhat ambiguousframes of reference.A caution then is that theframe of reference for the measurement ofengagement behaviors be specified.

As to engagement behaviors reflecting‘‘effort,’’ unfortunately effort has been an elu-sive and ill-defined construct in the litera-ture. Traditionally, effort has been regardedas comprising (a) duration, (b) intensity, and(c) direction (Campbell & Pritchard, 1976;Kanfer, 1990). Campbell (1990) suggested‘‘demonstrating effort’’ as one of the dimen-sions of a taxonomy of performance anddefined the dimension as consistency of per-formance, maintaining work levels underadverse conditions, and in other ways,expending extra effort when required—allof which speak strongly to the issue of per-sistence. However, translating the notion ofextra effort intomeasurement termshasbeena challenge. Brown and Leigh (1996) foundlittle guidance in the literature regardinghow to measure effort and wrote items toreflect both time commitment (e.g., ‘‘Otherpeople know me by the long hours I keep,’’


p. 367) and work intensity (e.g., ‘‘When Iwork, I really exert myself to the fullest,’’p. 367). Van Scotter and Motowidlo (1996)measured job dedication, a higher orderdimension of OCB, by gathering supervisoryratings of employees putting in extra timeand effort as well as demonstrating persis-tence and initiative.

A construct related to effort is ‘‘role invest-ment’’ (Lobel, 1991; Rothbard & Edwards,2003), which is typically operationalized interms of time spent—again the issue of per-sistence—performing specific activities.Rothbard and Edwards demonstrated thatpeople are more likely to invest their timein roles that are important to them in termsof their self-identity, even when the utilitar-ian value of the investment is held constant.Thus, consistent with self-concordance the-ory (Sheldon & Elliot, 1999), people will-ingly contribute their time when their rolesare consistent with their personal goals andwhen they see themselves invested in theirrole performance.

From our perspective, it is limiting todefine engagement solely in terms of ‘‘extraeffort,’’ that is, just doing more of what isusual. Kahn (1990), for example, suggestedthat those who are psychologically presentbring more of themselves to their work, tran-scending typical boundaries in relating toothers and thereby doing something differ-ent and not just something more. Similarly,Brown (1996) suggested that involvementmight lead to both doing things ‘‘smarter’’and investing greater effort. Thus, highlyengaged employees might exemplify behav-ior both qualitatively and quantitatively dif-ferent from those less engaged.

Summary. The notion of extra effort isa compelling one in that it implies thatemployees possess a reservoir of energy fromwhich they can draw should they so choose;organizations that learn how to harness thispotential will likely enjoy distinct compe-titive advantage. Nonetheless, definingengagement as ‘‘extra’’ or ‘‘discretionary’’effort presents a challenge for at least fourreasons. First and most importantly, effort isnot easily defined, and there is little evi-

dence of construct validity of correspondingmeasures (Brown & Leigh, 1996). Second,extra effort is an overly limiting view ofengagement if it simply connotes doingmore of the same; what may be most impor-tant is doing something different. Third,‘‘extra’’ or ‘‘atypical’’ implies a reference orstandard that is generally left unspecified.Fourth, discretion in itself is a complex issue,leading to ambiguous boundary conditionson the meaning of engagement. However,there is more here than simple persistenceor responsiveness to the demands of themoment. More specifically:

Proposition 7: Engagement behaviorsinclude innovative behaviors, demon-strations of initiative, proactively seekingopportunities to contribute, and goingbeyond what is, within specific frames ofreference, typically expected or required.

Engagement as Extra-Role Behavior

When we think of engagement behaviorsthis way, that is, in terms of the behaviorsthat extend beyond typical or expected in-role performance, three major threads ofresearch are relevant to this notion. Theseinclude OCB and related variants (prosocialbehavior, contextual performance, andorganizational spontaneity; see Organ, Pod-sakoff, & MacKenzie, 2006), role expansionand the related constructs of proactivebehavior (Crant, 2000), and personal initia-tive (Frese & Fay, 2001).

The reader may note that unlike the liter-ature addressing engagement as a psycho-logical state, the relevant literatures we willnow discuss do not use the term engage-ment. However, it will become clear thatthese theoretical and research threads aredirectly applicable to our search for anengagement behavior definition, and webegin the discussion with OCB.

Engagement as OCB. Early theoreticalwork on OCB emphasized the discretionarynature of certain behaviors that wereregarded as essential to organizational suc-cess but not formally defined as part of the


job and therefore not explicitly rewarded.More recently, conceptual problems havebeen discussed in the literature regardinglimiting discretion to extra-role behaviors,and the working definition of OCB has beenmodified to include those behaviors thatsupport or in some way enhance the socialand psychological environment essential forindividual task performance (Organ, 1997), aterm more closely aligned with the meaningof contextual performance (LePine, Erez, &Johnson, 2002). Although the dimensionalityof OCB has recently been questioned, theoriginal behaviors comprising OCB can beconceptualized as falling into the largerthemes of support for others, organizationalsupport, and conscientiousness (Borman,2004; LePine et al., 2002). Note that thebehaviors falling within the latter categoryimply doing ‘‘something extra,’’ a notion con-sistent with a folk definition of employeeengagement (e.g., ‘‘going the extra mile’’)and distinct from the notion of simply raisedlevels of job facet performance, functionalparticipation (Van Dyne, Graham, & Dien-esch, 1994), self-discipline (Van Scotter &Motowidlo, 1996), or generalized compli-ance (LePine et al., 2002).

One conceptual challenge in consideringOCB as engagement (i.e., as doing some-thing extra) arises in addressing the issue ofwhether employee engagement refers ex-clusively to going ‘‘above and beyond.’’ Thesignificance of the issue resides in the obser-vation that the boundaries between in-roleand extra-role performance areweak at best.VeyandCampbell (2004), for example, dem-onstrated that certain forms of OCB (consci-entiousness and courtesy) were more likelyto be considered in-role by a panel of surveyrespondents with supervisory experience.

Fundamentally, the conceptual issue iswhether the behavior of interest must be dis-cretionary—the person made a choice to doit—to be considered an example of engagedbehavior. This would require all behaviors tobe evaluated for the degree to which theyinvolved making a choice to do more, todo something different, and so forth. Weconclude from an OCB perspective thatengaged behavior is a behavior that, given

specific frames of reference, goes beyondwhat is typically or normally displayed orexpected and that attributions aboutwhether the behavior was discretionary ornot are unnecessary. We acknowledge thatthis places a conditional value on suchbehaviors—they may be normal or typicalin some circumstances (some groups andsome companies), whereas the same behav-ior may be unusual in other circumstances.As we have noted earlier, ‘‘atypical’’ impliesa frame of reference. That frame of referencemay originate in a variety of ways; attemptshere at greater precision are not useful.

For example, Meyer et al. (2004) sug-gested that under circumstances where fail-ure to perform a task as usual might beexcused because of extraordinary condi-tions, otherwise in-role behaviors might beconsidered extra-role. This implies that cer-tain conditions allow for freedom of choiceas to whether to engage in certain taskbehaviors; engagement, as in ‘‘doing some-thing extra,’’ would be considered doingwhat is normal when normal conditions donot apply. However, defining engagementbehavior exclusively in such a mannerwould seem limiting in that it begs the ques-tion as to the frequency with which opportu-nities to demonstrate such behaviors arise.

By way of summary, the ‘‘going beyond’’label associated with the OCB construct isan attractive one, and we use it as a basis fordefining one facet of engaged behavior asgoing beyond the ordinary, yielding:

Proposition 8: Engagement behaviorincludes actions that, given a specificframeof reference, go beyondwhat is typ-ical, usual, ordinary, and/or ordinarilyexpected.

We say that engagement behavior isinclusive of behaviors normally character-ized as OCB, implying that there are otherbehaviors that reveal other facets of engage-ment, and we turn to one of these, roleexpansion, next.

Engagement as role expansion. Roleexpansion is not a part of the OCB


landscape, but it has recently beenaddressed as extra-role behavior, and wesee it as another indicant of behavioralengagement. The choice to perform extra-role tasks can be regarded as role expansion.Coyle-Shapiro, Kessler, and Purcell (2004),for example, suggested that an individualmight perform certain behaviors motivatedby the norm of reciprocity, paying back forhaving been treated well, whereas anothermight simply consider that behavior part oftheir job. In either case, of course, theobserver of the same behavior may alsomake different attributions about the causesof it, but it is still seen as a positive behavior.Once again, it is clear that the definition ofgoing beyond is a relative one dependingupon the vantage point from which thebehavior emerges, but observers can appar-ently agree on these behaviors without refer-ence to the attributions they might makeabout their causes (Organ et al., 2006).

Morgeson, Delaney-Klinger, and Hem-ingway (2005) demonstrated that withinhomogenous job families, some employeesperformagreater breadth of tasks than othersand found that role breadth was related tothe autonomy accorded to workers as wellas cognitive ability. Conte, Dean, Ringen-bach, Moran, and Landy (2005) found thatwithin a relatively homogenous occupa-tional group (travel agents), organizationalcommitment and job satisfaction were bothrelated to the frequency with which agentswere rated as working at a narrow versusa wide variety of tasks, the latter revealingrole expansion. Thus, role expansion by def-inition implies behavior that is atypical ina comparative sense (or else it would notbe expansion) and has been found to berelated to self-efficacy (Parker, 1998) as wellas autonomy and cognitive ability (Morgesonet al., 2005). We will have more to say aboutthe conditions that get reflected in engage-ment behaviors, both personal conditionsand contextual conditions, later. For now:

Proposition 9: Role expansion, behaviorthat reveals attention to a wider range oftasks than is typical or usual, is a facet ofengagement behavior.

Engagement as proactive behavior andpersonal initiative. As mentioned earlier,Dvir et al. (2002) defined active engagement(what we are calling behavioral engage-ment) in terms of initiative as well as activityand responsibility. Although not referencingthe term engagement, Frese and his col-leagues (Frese & Fay, 2001; Frese, Kring,Soose, & Zempel, 1996) have suggested thatpersonal initiative comprises three facets:self-starting, proactivity, and persistence.Essential to Frese’s viewpoint is that thesethree aspects refer to behaviors that gobeyond expectations. Frese and Fay ana-lyzed in considerable detail the logicalissues that surface when discussing expect-ations and conclude that personal initiativeimplies going beyond what is normal orobvious. As Frese and Fay suggested, thismay vary by level within the organizationand by the organizational context in whichthe behavior occurs, so there is again theissue of the conditional nature on whethera specific form of engagement behavior willalways be seen as being unexpected, goingbeyond, and so forth.

A similar emphasis onproactivityhas beenoffered by Crant (2000; Bateman & Crant,1993), Morrison and Phelps (1999; referredto as ‘‘taking charge’’), andParker (1998; ‘‘rolebreadth self-efficacy’’). Like Frese and Fay(2001), Crant (2000) emphasized the impor-tance of personal characteristics as well assituational characteristics as antecedents ofthe behavior. Morrison and Phelps (1999)and Parker (1998, 2003), in contrast, empha-sized the importance of situational cues. Wewill say more about the dispositional natureof engagement later as well as conditionsunder which they are more likely. For presentpurposes, the critical feature of these viewsis the common emphasis on proactivity andinitiative compared to role prescriptions asthe behavior of interest.

Morrison and Phelps (1999) specificallysuggested the notion of taking charge asa means of extending what they viewed tobe an overly narrow interpretation of OCB,namely, a focus on maintaining the statusquo. In contrast, Morrison and Phelps andKahn (1992) emphasized the value of


employee-driven change for the success ofthe organization. That change can be inresponse to something existing or antici-pated. What these behaviors share is a com-mon emphasis on adaptation. Importantly,unlike the notion of adaptive behavior thathas an employee-driven focus (e.g., Millerand Rosse, 2002), the focus here is on adap-tive behavior in response to job and organi-zational challenges and opportunities. Thisis similar in notion to that of LePine and VanDyne (2001), although their emphasis wason voice as a manifestation of ‘‘constructivechange-oriented communication’’ (p. 326).

Viewing engagement as organizationallyfocused adaptive behavior is consistent withthe recent increasing emphasis on thechanging nature of work, the dynamicnature of job roles, and the active nature ofresponding to problems and events in thebusiness environment (e.g., Ilgen & Pulakos,1999). Here, the emphasis is still on thechoice of behavior, but the behavior of inter-est has an adaptive and proactive focus.Thus, this view of employee engagementmight encompass certain dimensions ofadaptive performance as suggested byPulakos, Arad, Donovan, and Plamondon(2000). Also, reflecting the emphasis of Freseand Fay (2001) on the action orientation ofinitiative, it would also seem that an adap-tive definition of engagement would morereadily align with nonpassive behaviors,calling into questionwhether conscientious-ness and courtesy as defined within tradi-tional OCB research would appropriatelybe considered components of engagement.Interestingly, the common interpretation ofengagement suggests that those behaviorsthat are more likely regarded as passive(e.g., conscientiousness; Parks & Kidder,1994) may also be more likely to be consid-ered in-role than extra-role (Vey & Camp-bell, 2004).

Thus, engagement as adaptive behavior isa useful concept for describing a range ofbehaviors that support organizational effec-tiveness. What is common is the fundamen-tal notion that engagement behaviors arediscretionary (not prescribed) in that theygo beyond preserving the status quo and

instead focus on initiating or fosteringchange in the sense of doing somethingmoreand/or different, whether in response toa temporary condition or a more permanentsolution to a perceived existing organiza-tional challenge. Engagement behaviorviewed this way is clearly an aggregate mul-tidimensional construct, in the sense thatcontextual performance (Motowidlo, 2000)and OCB (Organ et al., 2006) are also mul-tidimensional in nature. However, theemphasis here is not on all behavior thatcontributes to the social, psychological, ororganizational functioning of the organiza-tion. Rather, the emphasis is on those behav-iors that represent responses (or anticipatoryresponses) to organizational challenges:doingmore of what needs to be done, chang-ingwhatneeds to bechanged, and/or activelyresisting change to the status quo when thatchange would result in diminished organiza-tional effectiveness. In other words, averagetask performance does not (typically) defineengagement; coming to work on time doesnot (typically) define engagement; and doingwhat one’s boss expects one to do does not(typically) define engagement.

The notion of engagement as adaptivebehavior is entirely consistent with Kahn’spositioning of psychological presence andits behavioral manifestation as engagementbehavior. Specifically, Kahn (1992) empha-sized the adaptive requirements of modernorganizations, suggesting that the competi-tive business environment requires individ-uals who direct their efforts to reflecting onwhat is necessary to create change so thattheir organizations can be increasingly com-petitive and effective.

A fundamental aspect of our positioningof behavioral engagement is that it is strate-gically focused and is bounded by purposeand organizational relevance.

Proposition 10: Behavioral engagementis adaptive behavior intended to servean organizational purpose, whether todefend and protect the status quo inresponse to actual or anticipated threatsor to change and/or promote change inresponse to actual or anticipated events.


Summary. Behavioral engagement, likestate engagement, has numerous facets toit. Behavioral engagement is simultaneouslycitizenship behavior (OCB), role expansion,proactive behavior, and demonstrating per-sonal initiative, all strategically focused inservice of organizational objectives. Manyof the facets reviewed and comprisingbehavioral engagement contain the notionof ‘‘going beyond the usual or typical’’ and,as such, imply a frame of reference for suchjudgments. Frames of reference can be otherindividuals, other groups/teams, and/orother organizations so that the membersof groups and organizations can be saidto demonstrate behavioral engagement.Behavioral engagement has to do with per-formances that are adaptive and innovativeand in that sense not usual or typical, and thebehavioral engagement construct as wehave defined it has not been captured wellby the individual constructs that compriseour definition. To more fully understandthese affective and behavioral dimensionsof engagement, it is useful to consider poten-tial antecedents of these, and it is to suchconsideration we turn next.

Antecedents of State and

Behavioral Engagement

We have shown to this point that there area variety of ways to conceptualize andmeasure both state and behavioral engage-ment. This explication of the various con-structs offers researchers frames fromwhichthey can pursue additional work, for exam-ple, the relationships existing among thevarious kinds of adaptive behaviors and/orthe various facets of state and behavioralengagement we have explicated. It alsooffers practitioners a conceptual founda-tion on which to base decisions when con-ducting engagement projects, especiallythe design of the so-called engagementsurveys.

But neither state nor behavior engage-ment springs forthwhole; both are obviouslydependent for their existence on still morevariety, this time variety in the personalattributes of those who are engaged and the

conditions under which they work. So,although it is easy to state that people whohavepassion for theirwork aremore likely toengage in adaptive behaviors, it is more dif-ficult to state why some people have passionfor their work and others do not and why insome organizations passion characterizesemployees, whereas in other organizationsit does not.

In what follows, we first consider theattributes of individuals that might yield stateand behavioral engagement, including howsuch individual attributes might interact withconditions encountered in the workplace toproduce engagement. Then, we detail themain issues that have been discussed as thework conditions necessary for engagementto exist.

Engagement as a

Dispositional Construct

Within our structure depicted in Figure 1,engagement can be regarded as a disposi-tion, either as a personality characteristicor more generally as a tendency to experi-ence state affect over time. Additionally,certain dispositional constructs have beensuggested as causal factors in proactivebehavior, personal initiative, and the experi-ence of ‘‘flow.’’ Four threads of research arerelevant to the notion of trait engagement,and we address each in turn.

PA as trait engagement. The conceptualsimilarity of PA markers to the meaning ofengagement was highlighted earlier in ourdiscussion of engagement as an affectivestate. In fact, trait PAwould be a precise def-inition of the engaged person (i.e., energetic,enthusiastic). PA as a trait, or enduring ten-dency to experience PA as state, has beenbroadly considered in the organizationalbehavior literature. Although PA has beenexplored as a dispositional component ofjob satisfaction, trait job satisfaction wouldseemingly be more appropriately defined interms of the hedonic dimension of the affectcircumplex (Larsen, Diener, & Lucas, 2002).Specifically, satisfaction or well-being judg-ments can be regarded as a function of


pleasant affect experiences at work (Brief &Weiss, 2002).

Our reading of this perspective suggeststhat PA would be considered more an indi-cator of trait engagement than trait satisfac-tion. Staw (2004) noted that items includedin PANASareweighted to include thosewithan activation component (e.g., enthusiasticand attentive) rather than evaluative in tone(i.e., happy, cheerful, pleased). A matter ofconsiderable confusion in the literature isthat PA is associated with feelings of ‘‘enthu-siasm and excitement and not with happi-ness’’ (Huelsman, Furr, & Nemanick, 2003,p. 658). Again, within that theoretical frame-work, satisfaction and engagement wouldbe correlated but not equivalent. Traitengagement (i.e., trait PA) would serve asa predisposition to frame organizationalexperiences and determine how the individ-ual behaves in response to those experiences(Larsen et al., 2002; Weiss, 2002).

It is worth noting that our logic that traitPA is more relevant to engagement than tosatisfaction also suggests that state engage-ment would be a stronger correlate of whatwe have called adaptive behaviors thanwould job satisfaction. Thus, one of the cen-tral accomplishments of researchers whostudyOCB and similar constructs was show-ing that satisfaction is in fact related tobehavior. Our logic suggests that an evenstronger correlate of suchadaptive behaviorswould be measures of state engagement.

Proactive personality as trait engagement.As indicated earlier, Crant (2000) suggestedthat proactive behavior is a product of bothdispositional and situational factors. Char-acterizing proactive personality as the gen-eral tendency to create or influence thework environment, Crant (1995) demon-strated that this kind of personality is corre-lated with sales success of real estateprofessionals; other studies have indicatedsignificant relationships between the proac-tive personality and career success (Seibert,Kramer, & Crant, 2001). Moreover, Crant(1995) found that proactive personalityaccounted for variance in performance evenafter considering the effects of both Consci-

entiousness and Extraversion (or trait PA inBig Five terms).

Conscientiousness as trait engagement.Roberts, Chernyshenko, Stark, and Gold-berg (2005) investigated the hierarchicalstructure of conscientiousness as repre-sented in major personality questionnairesand identified the proactive aspects ofconscientiousness to include both indus-triousness and order. The former wouldbe characterized by individuals who are‘‘hard working, ambitious, confident, andresourceful’’ (p. 119). Viewed through aproactive lens, it would be expected thatconscientiousness would correlate withmeasures of contextual performance, espe-cially generalized compliance as a facet ofOCB, aswas demonstrated in ameta-analysisby Organ and Ryan (1995).

Autotelic personality as trait engagement.The state of psychological engagement,encompassing the notion of ‘‘flow’’ or ‘‘beingpresent,’’ has also been investigated in rela-tion to the ‘‘autotelic’’ personality. The auto-telic personality refers to peoplewhoengagein activities for their own sake rather than forspecific gains or rewards. Csikszentmihalyiand his colleagues (see Nakamura &Csikszentmihalyi, 2002, for a review) haveoperationalized the autotelic personality interms of the Jackson Personality ResearchForm factors of Sentience, Understanding,Achievement, and Endurance, reasoningthat autotelic individuals should be opento new challenges, persist in challengingtasks, and be ready to engage, factors thatcontribute to arriving at and maintaininga state of flow.

Summary and partial integration. Thereare clear points of view suggesting that stateengagement and engagement behaviors areat least partially the result of dispositionalinfluences. More directly, research on PA,the proactive personality, conscientious-ness, and the autotelic personality suggeststhat trait engagement can be construed asa broad dispositional construct and thatthe markers of that construct are entirely


consistent with conventional definitions ofengagement (i.e., passion and activation).Moreover, this view suggests that thosemorelikely to experience feelings of engagementand who demonstrate engagement behav-iors are also more likely to choose the envi-ronments that provide the opportunity to doso (e.g., Holland, 1997; Schneider, 1987;Schneider, Goldstein, & Smith, 1995). Thatis, consistent with the interpretation ofengagement as adaptive behavior, engagedemployees both select and proactively workto create the environment in which thesebehaviors will be encouraged and sup-ported. Our proposition with regard to traitengagement is therefore offered as:

Proposition 11: Trait engagement com-prises a number of interrelated facets,including trait positive affectivity, consci-entiousness, the proactive personality,and the autotelic personality. These allsuggest the tendency to experience workin positive, active, and energic ways andto behave adaptively (i.e., displayingeffort by going beyond what is necessaryand initiating change to facilitate organi-zationally relevant outcomes).

Importantly, as shown in Figure 1, weconceptualize trait engagement as morelikely distal than proximal causes of engage-ment behavior (Kanfer, 1990). George(1991), for example, demonstrated thatmood PA but not trait PA predicted prosocialbehavior. Frese and Fay (2001) similarlyhighlighted the distal impact of such person-ality variablesonpersonal initiativebehaviorsand further suggested that such personalitycharacteristics influence orientations andfeelings (e.g., self-efficacy) and only then, inturn, behavior. Thus, it is likely that disposi-tional engagement interacts with situationalfactors to determine engagement state and/orbehavior, and we turn to a consideration ofthose situational characteristics now.

The Situation and Engagement

Much of the early work on engagementplaced the task as central to engagement

(Kahn, 1990, 1992). For some (e.g., Erickson,2005), the attributes of tasks are still the keyissue for promoting engagement. Not sur-prisingly, reference is made to the job char-acteristics research program (Hackman &Oldham, 1980) and work on the intrinsicnature of rewards (i.e., the intrinsic natureof tasks; Gagne & Deci, 2005) for specifica-tion of some of the issues that drive passion,commitment, involvement, and so forth.Interestingly, although the task is central, itis the degree to which the person can imple-ment his or her preferred self in thework thatis key—but certain characteristics of taskslike autonomy, challenge, and variety seemto have main effects for most people.

In addition to the task itself, the condi-tions surroundingworkinghavebeena targetof practice and research. For example, in theGallup research program (emerging frommany consulting projects; see Harter et al.,2003), a series of 12 key work conditionswas identified, which, when present, werecorrelatedwith unit performance—the infer-ence being that when these work conditionsexisted, employees demonstrated engage-ment behaviors that resulted in the improvedunit performance. These conditions are verydiverse, referring among other conditions toattributes of thework, the boss, the availabil-ity of resources, coworkers, and career prog-ress issues. Gallup researchers deduced,however, that there was an overriding issue,management and the degree to which man-agers made these things happen was key tohaving a productive work unit. Having thisinsight resulted in an additional set ofresearch efforts to understand what differen-tiated effective and ineffective managers,especially with regard to scores those man-agers received on the 12 items when theiremployees were surveyed. A central answerwas the following: Effective managers arethosewhoget thework donewith the peoplethey have, do not try to change them, andattempt to capitalize on the competenciestheir people have, not what they, the man-agers, wished they had (Buckingham &Coffman, 1999).

What is clear from the Gallup research isthat units that score more highly on the 12


items have superior performance in terms ofproductivity, customer satisfaction, reve-nues, and turnover. However, the state and/or behavioral engagement that these 12items result in is not clear. But research ontransformational leadership helps under-stand these relationships.

The relevant literature on transforma-tional leadership provides examples ofengagement state and behavior that closelyalign with conventional conceptualizationsof engagement, including an investment ofidentity in the organization and work suchthat there is a sense of passion for work aswell as the capacity to think independently,develop new ideas, and challenge conven-tion when no longer relevant (e.g., Bass &Avolio, 1990;Dvir et al., 2002). Indeed,Dviret al. demonstrated that under transforma-tional leadership conditions, soldiers willengage in behaviors not in their personalbest interest, which the authors describedas self-sacrifice.

Proposition 12: State and behavioralengagement are more likely under someconditions than others with the nature ofthe work people do and the leadershipunder which they work central to theirchoosing to be attitudinally and behavior-ally engaged.

Some of the reasons why these condi-tions seem to create state and behavioralengagement have now been made clear.Psychologically, it appears to follow thatwhen people have certain kinds of work todo (e.g., the work has challenge, variety,and autonomy) and when they work undercertain kinds of managers (e.g., the manag-ers make expectations clear, are fair, andrecognize superior behavior), they feelengaged and behave in adaptive and con-structive ways that produce results thatwere perhaps unexpected. Note that the lit-erature on perceived organizational sup-port would also be relevant here (Rhoades& Eisenberger, 2002).

Central to the network of antecedent con-ditions is trust. Engaged employees investtheir energy, time, or personal resources,

trusting that the investment will be rewarded(intrinsically or extrinsically) in some mean-ingful way. The fundamental motivation forthis may be instrumental based upon thenorm of reciprocity (Coyle-Shapiro & Con-way, 2005) or social identity (Moorman &Byrne, 2005). For example, Hui, Lee, andRousseau (2004) found in a Chinese sampleof employed MBA students that instrumen-tality mediated the relationship betweenrelational contract obligations and five formsof OCB. As the authors suggested, this sup-ports the view that employees reciprocate onthe basis of an anticipated reward, whetherconcrete or abstract. This suggests that theimportant distinction may be between thosedemonstrated behaviors that are performedfor more explicit and clearly defined contin-gencies and those that are based on moreopen-ended expectations, where somedegreeof trust is implied and strict regulationof behavior is unnecessary.

It logically follows from this line of rea-soning that trust (in the organization, theleader, the manager, or the team) is essentialto increasing the likelihood that engagementbehavior will be displayed. Trust becomesimportant even for intrinsically motivatedbehavior, as the conditions that contributeto the investment of self require what Kahn(1990) identified as psychological safety.This is the belief people have that they will‘‘not suffer for their personal engagement’’(p. 708). One example of punishment forextending oneself is ‘‘job creep,’’ where ‘‘dis-cretionary contributions (such as OCB)become viewed as in-role obligations bysupervisors and peers’’ (Van Dyne & Ellis,2004, p. 184). Job creep does not yield trust,so it does not yield engagement behaviors.A second example would be performingabove the norms of a group and then beingsocially punished as a rate buster.

Proposition 13: Feelings of trust mediatethe relationship between leadershipbehavior and behavioral engagementsuch that feelings of trust is the psycholog-ical state between leader behavior andbehavioral engagement. Thus, leaderscreate trust in followers, and it is the trust


followers experience that enables behav-ioral engagement.

Person–Environment Fit Issues and

Engagement

Implicitly, the discussion of trait engagementand the conditions under which state andbehavioral engagement are more likelyleads to the thought that perhaps the traitsand the conditions interact, andwe considerthat issue now. For example, building onself-concordance theory (Sheldon & Elliot,1999), self-determination theory (Ryan &Deci, 2000), and self-concept–based theory(Shamir, House, & Arthur, 1993), Bono andJudge (2003) equated self-engagement with‘‘engagement with their work,’’ suggestingthat employees who see their work as con-sistent with their personal values will bemore engaged. This clearly infers the notionof fit as the determinant rather than either theindividual attribute or the environmentalone as causal.

In the frameworks of self-concordanceand self-determination theories, motivation(and, by extension, workmotivation) reflectsa continuum ranging fromcomplete externalmotivation to complete internal or intrinsicmotivation. When the goals of the organiza-tion (or leader) and the goals of the individ-ual are entirely consistent, it follows that thelevel of employee state engagement will behigher and that a variety of adaptive behav-iors are likely to be displayed.

Kahn (1990, 1992) in particular saw theinteraction of the individual and the organi-zation as central to issues of both state andbehavioral engagement. He noted that it iswhenpeople canuse their preferred selves intheir work that they experience beingengaged by that work (state engagement)and also perform to their fullest capacities(behavioral engagement). Kahndid not iden-tify the dimensions of self that might be pre-ferred, but he did indicate that these includeinterests, values, and competencies. ForKahn, the work itself is the focus of engage-ment, for it is the attributes of the work withwhich the preferred self is seen as interact-ing; Kahn (1992) called this psychological

presence as we noted earlier, clearly sug-gesting that suchpresenceemergesas a func-tion of the interaction of the person’sattributes and the work he or she does.

There is strong evidence to indicate thatthe organization itself, especially its goalsand values, can also be a source of attach-ment and commitment that lead people toidentify with the organization as a wholeand, in turn, to display adaptive behaviorsconsistent with its long-term interests. Earliercalled ‘‘organizational identification’’ (cf.Hall& Schneider, 1973) and later identification-based commitment (O’Reilly & Chatman,1986) and affective commitment (Meyer &Allen, 1997), the key issue here is the fit ofpersonal values to organizational values.Organizational identification, then, is a spe-cific form of organizational commitment inthat it implies identity fit or identitymatching,a key issue in definitions of what the engagedperson might experience.

We pursue this issue of fit in some detailbecause it has not characterized the researchon engagement. In brief, engagement prac-tice and research might best be called‘‘main effects’’ research—implying that ifcertain specific conditions are appropriatelyaltered, employee engagementwill follow. Itmaybemore complex in thatwhena specificcombination of people and conditionsexists, what results is more a product of thetwo than a simple addition. That said, weoffer the following by way of summary:

Proposition 14: Trait engagement inter-acts with work and organizational condi-tions to produce state and behavioralengagement. Alternatively, work condi-tions not only have a main effect on stateand behavioral engagement, but theyalsomay moderate the relationships betweentrait engagement and state engagement aswell as relationships between state andbehavioral engagement (see Figure 1).

Summary Thoughts on the

Engagement Construct

The picture we have painted of engagementcomprises a complex nomological network


encompassing trait, state, and behavioralconstructs, as well as the work and organi-zational conditions that might facilitate stateand behavioral engagement. Althoughengagementmay at best fit what Law,Wong,and Mobley (1998) described as a profilemodel of a multidimensional construct, wesee engagement as not only a set of con-structs but also a tightly integrated set, inter-related in known ways, comprising clearlyidentifiable constructs with relationships toa common outcome. In what follows, firstwe review our position as to why we believethat psychological engagement differs con-ceptually from other relevant constructs.Wefollowwith specific conclusions and recom-mendations for research and practice.

We proposed that state engagement con-cerns PA associated with the job and thework setting connoting or explicitly indicat-ing feelings of persistence, vigor, energy,dedication, absorption, enthusiasm, alert-ness, and pride. As such, state engagementhas components of organizational commit-ment, job involvement, and the positiveaffectivity components of job satisfaction.Thus, we would predict that measures ofstate engagement and these older constructswould be significantly related. In addition tothepositive feelings noted, state engagementalso includes the sense of self-identity peo-ple havewith thework they do;work is a partof how they define themselves and that inwhich they are personally invested.

We focused extensively on which con-ceptualizations of job satisfaction occupycommon conceptual space with stateengagement. In our view, state engagementis characterized by feelings of passion,energy, enthusiasm, and activation. Thisreflects both the common folk wisdomof the concept and the markers used toreflect feelings of PA/high activation whendescribing either trait or mood states (seeWarr, 1999). Although correlated with en-gagement, satisfaction is sufficiently charac-terized by a sense of well-being andpleasantness connoting at best moderatelevels of activation or energy. It is the senseof energy and enthusiasm in engagementthat makes the construct different, and this

is what executives wish to capture. Thisimplies that survey questions directed at sat-isfaction,whetherglobalor facet, haveamis-placed emphasis. Questions such as ‘‘Howsatisfied are youwith the company youworkfor?’’ do not measure engagement.

We proposed that behavioral engage-ment follows from state engagement and fur-ther that it is most broadly defined asadaptive behavior. Adaptive behavior isa useful concept for describing a range ofbehaviors that support organizational effec-tiveness. What is common is the fundamen-tal notion that engagement behaviors aretypically not prescribed and that they gobeyond preserving the status quo andinstead focus on initiating or fosteringchange in the sense of doing more and/orsomething different. There are obvious refer-ences in our conceptualization of engage-ment behaviors to existing constructs suchas OCB and role expansion, but we hada specific emphasis on proactive and per-sonal initiative kinds of behaviors, leadingto our use of the label ‘‘adaptive’’ to summa-rize our position.

We acknowledged that what is normaltask behavior under some circumstances,for example, everyday working conditions,may be seen as engaged behavior underother circumstances, for example, duringKatrina or other disasters and challenges.So we finessed the specific behaviors thatcharacterize engaged behavior and assumethat under specific conditions there will beagreement on what it is.

We proposed that trait engagementcomprises a number of interrelated per-sonality attributes, including trait positiveaffectivity, conscientiousness, the proac-tive personality, and the autotelic person-ality. These all suggest the inclination toexperience work in positive, active, andenergic ways and to behave adaptively indisplaying effort at going beyond what isnecessary and initiating change to facili-tate organizationally relevant outcomes.In these senses, trait engagement wouldbe a significant cause of and be directlyrelated to state engagement and indirectlyto behavioral engagement.


Our conceptualization extended to workand organizational conditions that mightenhance (moderate) these proposed rela-tionships and to ways those same conditionsmight directly facilitate and encourage stateand behavioral engagement. Doing workthat has positive motivational attributes(Hackman & Oldham, 1980) and the pres-ence of a transformational leader whobehaves fairly and engenders trust (Kahn,1990, 1992) were the two conditions onwhich we mostly focused. Thus, we wouldhypothesize as shown in Figure 1 that (a) jobdesign attributes would directly affect stateengagement, (b) the presence of a transfor-mational leader would directly affect stateengagement, and (c) the presence of a trans-formational leaderwould directly affect trustlevels and, thus, indirectly affect behavioralengagement.

Thus, we think of engagement as havingsome cost in the form of risk to theemployee. Our view is that organizationsmust promote a sense of trust that employ-ees will benefit from the psychological andbehavioral relational contracts in whichthey enter with the organization. Promotinga sense of psychological safety (Kahn,1990; May et al., 2004) and emphasizingfairness and other antecedents of trust maybe critical to the development of an en-gaged workforce.

What we have not previously discussed isthe idea that, to at least some degree, thereare limits on the pool of energy and resour-ces available to employees for state engage-ment on the one hand and behavioralengagement on the other hand; sustainedlevels of engagement will be difficult toachieve. As Kahn (1992) suggested, psycho-logical presence can be draining in terms ofthe personal level of effort required, which,depending on other demands on the individ-ual, may not always be possible to sustain.This is not to say that job satisfaction or otherforms of work attitudes we have consideredare invariant but rather that psychologicalpresence, activation, extra behavioralenergy, and the like represent an investmenton the part of the employee; satisfactionpresumes nothing of that kind. This is yet

a further characteristic that distinguishessatisfaction and engagement.

Organizations, then, can have some, butnot complete, control over the competitionfor people’s resources. Thus, Sonnentag(2003) demonstrated the positive impact ofoff-work recovery on engagement, butMaslach et al. (2001) implied that very highlevels of engagement can cause burnout. Atthe same time, there is some evidence thatbehavioral engagement in one rolemay con-tribute to higher levels of engagement inother roles (Rothbard, 2001), perhaps impli-cating the importance of dispositional fac-tors in determining (a) cross-situationalconsistency and (b) the degree towhich highlevels of engagement yield positive versusnegative outcomes for people and theirbehavior.

Consideration of trait engagement hereimplies a critical link between interventionsfocused on the early stages of the employ-ment period (i.e., ‘‘on-boarding’’) and othermanagement-driven activities that relate tothe development of state and behavioralengagement at work. Thus,wewould furtherhypothesize that dispositional (trait) engage-ment is a more significant determinant ofbehavioral and psychological engagementearlier than later in the employment lifecycle.

Relatedly, engagement may be a conse-quence of both environmental conditionsand dispositional characteristics and theirinteraction.Not all investments in job designand/or the training and performance man-agement of leaders in organizations withthe goal of improvingengagement levelswillbe productive for all employees. We brieflydiscussed this notion of the contingenciesunder the heading of person–environmentfit and suggested that values fit in particularmight contribute to both state and behav-ioral engagement.

Summary Thoughts on

Engagement Measurement

From both research and practice perspec-tives, it is one thing to get the conceptualiza-tion correct and another thing to get the


operationalization correct. Most of theengagement measures we have seen failedto get the conceptualization correct, so themeasures do not, if youwill, measure up (forexceptions, see Salanova et al., 2005;Schaufeli et al., 2002). Especially in theworld of practice, we have seen measuresof what we have called conditions forengagement labeled as measures of engage-ment (Buckingham & Coffman, 1999), andmany measures used for years as indicatorsof employee opinions have been relabeledas indicants of employee engagement. Thelatter has been true especially with mea-sures of job satisfaction where there is littleindication of affect, energy, passion, andso forth. As we noted earlier, any measurethat asks how satisfied an employee is withconditions at or of work or asks about thepresence of particular conditions of or atwork is not a measure of any of the threefacets of the engagement construct we haveelucidated.

In a recent edited volume, Kraut (2006)presented a number of chapters that areinstructive with regard to the measurementof engagement. For example, Macey andSchneider (2006) proposed that careful con-ceptualization of constructs precedes anyoperationalization, and they distinguishamong other things generic employee atti-tudes (job satisfaction) and behavior (OCB)from strategically focused attitudes (cus-tomer orientation) and behavior (customer-focused engagement behaviors). Schiemannand Morgan (2006) carefully delineated intheir article the issue of assessing strategi-cally focused employee attitudes if the goalis to provide information for use as a basis formaking change to achieve those goals. Theconclusion from these articles is to focusthe measurement on the construct of inter-est; if engagement is the target, ensure thatthe measure maps the content of theconstruct.

In another chapter, Harter and Schmidt(2006) used evidence they previously pre-sented as indicating engagement correlateswith unit performance and treated the dataas if they indicated job satisfaction correlateswith unit performance—which is the same

measure with which they had assessed workconditions but inferred engagement as notedearlier in discussion of the article of Harteret al. (2002). This highlights the point that tosome, the concepts are indeed interchange-able. We agree with them that the unit ofanalysis in employee survey and behaviorresearch and practice has been at the indi-vidual level of analysis and that it is time toadd additional levels of analysis to theresearch repertoire. The Gallup researchthey reported is all at the unit level of analy-sis; they and others (e.g., Schneider, White,& Paul, 1998) continued to show that sucha change in the level of analysis reveals theusefulness of employee survey data to man-agers in terms with which they empathized.

Conclusions

In a world that is changing both in terms ofthe global nature ofwork and the aging of theworkforce (Erickson, 2005), having engagedemployees may be a key to competitiveadvantage. This will be especially true if wecan show how the engagement constructproduces effects at levels of analysis of con-cern to management. As with all goodthings, the challenge of establishing the con-ditions for state and behavioral employeeengagement will be great. Once again, thereseems to be no silver bullet. The beauty ofthis conclusion is that companies that getthese conditions right will have accom-plished something that competitors will findvery difficult to imitate. It is easy to changeprice and product; it is another thing tocreate a state and behaviorally engagedworkforce.

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