Guest editorial

Citation

Claxton, J. (2014), "Guest editorial", Journal of Workplace Learning, Vol. 26 No. 3/4. https://doi.org/10.1108/JWL-02-2014-0017

Guest editorial

Article Type: Guest editorial From: Journal of Workplace Learning, Volume 26, Issue 3/4

Welcome to this special issue on employee engagement. The work in this Special Issue was born in the Employee Engagement stream at the 2013 UFHRD Conference. Employee engagement is a growing area for academics and practitioners interested in organisational learning, organisational development, employer relations, leadership, management, human resource management and human resource development. Its roots are in the social sciences. There are already many definitions of employee engagement with still more coming forward as this is a relatively new construct. Academics and practitioners provide different approaches to it and often define it differently (Robinson et al., 2004). "Engage for Success", the movement supported by the UK Government and led by David MacLeod and Nita Clarke, deliberately does not pursue a definition of employee engagement as their aim is to support organisations to have their own definition which fits their organisational purposes. However, for academics it is important to develop a critical approach to the construct so definition is important if we are to review, research and find new knowledge. Kahn, from whom the work of employee engagement derives, talked about "personal" engagement which he defined as "the harnessing of organisation members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances" (Kahn, 1990, p. 694). Schaufeli et al. (2002), p. 74) define engagement "as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterised by vigor, dedication, and absorption" and Truss et al. (2006) as "being positively present during the performance of work by – willingly contributing intellectual effort, experiencing positive emotions and meaningful connections to others." It is the aim of this special issue to contribute to the studies which unpack particular aspects of the construct using different research methods. We have an article by Carolyn ("Casey") Findley Musgrove, Alexander E. Ellinger, and Andrea D. Ellinger which gives interesting insights into how employee engagement impacts a service climate. An article by Professor Sally Anne Sambrook, Natalie Jones and Clair Doloriert exploring the use of autoethnography as a new approach to understanding employee engagement. The article I have written uses grounded theory to explore a key driver for employee engagement; being valued. Daria Sarti examines the relationship between employee engagement and different leadership styles. Diane Keeble-Ramsay and Andrew Armitage use template analysis for their research looking at post 2008 and how this has affected engagement. An article by Pedro Ferreira and Elizabeth Real de Oliveira tests out the relationship between employee engagement and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Theory building around the antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement is the article by Sowath Rana, Alexandre Ardichvili and Oleksandr Tkachenko using the Dubin Method. A focussed piece of an agent of employee engagement, mentoring, is provided by Janet McCray, Hazel Turner, Barbara Hall, Marie Price and Gill Constable.

I hope you enjoy the range of articles here, with their different methods, and different topics and that they inspire more ideas for research in this important area. Thanks to all the authors and in particular Editor Sara Cervai for her immense help and patience in getting this issue off the ground.

Julia Claxton
Guest Editor

References

Kahn, W.A. (1990), "Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work", Academy of Management Journal, Vol. 33 No. 4, pp. 692–724

Robinson, D., Perryman, S. and Hayday, S. (2004), The Drivers of Employee Engagement, Institute for Employment Studies, Brighton

Schaufeli, W.B., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V. and Bakker, A.B. (2002), "The measurement of engagement and burnout: a two sample confirmatory factor analytic approach", Journal of Happiness Studies, Vol. 3, pp. 71–92

Truss, C., Soane, E., Edwards, C., Wisdom, K., Croll, A. and Burnett, J. (2006), Working Life: Employee Attitudes and Engagement, CIPD, London