Employee Engagement Final Research Report

Academic Research

One of the most influential studies of engagement was carried out by Kahn (1990). Conceptually, Kahn began with the work of Goffman (1961) who proposed that, “people’s attachment and detachment to their role varies” (Kahn 1990:694). However, Kahn argued that Goffman’s work focused on fleeting face-to-face encounters, while a different concept was needed to fit organizational life, which is “ongoing, emotionally charged, and psychologically complex” (Diamond and Allcorn 1985). To gain further understanding of the varying levels of attachment individuals expressed towards their roles, Kahn (1990) examined several disciplines. It was found that psychologists (Freud 1922), sociologists (Goffman 1961, Merton 1957) and group theorists (Slater 1966, Smith and Berg 1987) had all recognised the idea that individuals are naturally hesitant about being members of ongoing groups and systems. As a result they “seek to protect themselves from both isolation and engulfment by alternately pulling away from and moving towards their memberships” (Kahn 1990). The terms Kahn (1990) uses to describe these calibrations are ‘personal engagement’ and ‘personal disengagement’, which refer to the “behaviors by which people bring in or leave out their personal selves during work role performances” (Kahn 1990:694). These terms developed by Kahn (1990) integrate previous ideas taken from motivation theories that people need self-expression and self-employment in their work lives as a matter of course (Alderfer 1972, Maslow 1954).

Article: http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/4192/1/19wempen.pdf

Introduction & Overview

The employee engagement is the most favorite topic in most of the organizations that are working towards achieving the goals of the co so that the wealth of the shareholders can be maximized and the co may be able to operate successfully in the sector of industry in which most of the products of the co are being used, there are many factors to consider in the...