Exploring Different Operationalizations of Employee Engagement and Their Relationships With Workplace Stress and Burnout

• Author: Jonathon R. B. Halbesleben,Paula E. Anthony‐McMann,Marina Astakhova,Andrea D. Ellinger
• Published date: 01 June 2017
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/hrdq.21276
• Date: 01 June 2017

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY, vol. 28, no. 2, Summer 2017 © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq.21276 163

QUANTITATIVE STUDY

Exploring Different

Operationalizations of Employee

Engagement and Their

Relationships With Workplace

Stress and Burnout

Paula E. Anthony-McMann , Andrea D. Ellinger , Marina Astakhova ,

Jonathon R. B. Halbesleben

Many empirical studies of employee engagement show positive

relationships with desirable work-related outcomes, yet a consistent

understanding of the construct remains elusive (Saks & Gruman, 2014 ).

We propose that this lack of clarity is leading to an increased risk that

employee engagement is becoming overly generalized and that, as a

consequence, its utility in both theory and practice is compromised. Indeed,

our study of 472 information technology ( IT ) professionals working

in community hospitals reveals that, even though the two measures of

employee engagement examined in this study are conceptually based

on Kahn ’ s ( 1990 ) needs-satisfaction framework, they are nomologically

different, evidence different predictive properties (with regard to workplace

stress and burnout), and suggest different workplace interventions. As

hypothesized, both measures of employee engagement reveal negative

relationships with workplace stress, and burnout has a mediating effect

on those relationships. Further, the relationships are significantly different,

but these differences are understood only when examining the dimensional

levels of each engagement measure. Our findings also clarify the highly

debated relationship between employee engagement and burnout and

challenge those engagement measures that are conceptually grounded

in a burnout-antithesis framework. Implications and avenues for future

research are presented.

Key Words: burnout , employee engagement , Kahn , measurement ,

nomological framework , workplace stress

164 Anthony-McMann, Ellinger, Astakhova, Halbesleben

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

Engagement research has proliferated in the past decade and suggests that

employee engagement is related to many positive work-related outcomes such

as job satisfaction (Shuck, Reio, & Rocco, 2011 ), job performance (Rich, Lep-

ine, & Crawford, 2010 ), profitability (Harter, Schmidt, Agrawal, & Plowman,

2013 ), customer satisfaction, and employee retention (Halbesleben, 2010 ).

However, it remains difficult to draw precise conclusions from these studies

due to the nomologically different ways in which employee engagement is

measured (Saks & Gruman, 2014 ). There is little doubt that employee engage-

ment remains a compelling topic for many scholars, but if it is to become a

relevant barometer against which certain organizational decisions are evalu-

ated, then clarity about what is actually being measured is critical.

Employee engagement emerged in the management literature from

Kahn ’ s ( 1990 ) seminal study on personal engagement and disengagement,

but a review of the literature suggests that engagement is now conceptual-

ized by at least four major frameworks and operationalized by at least 10

measurement instruments (Keenoy, 2014 ; Shuck, 2011 ). In some cases, dif-

ferent measurement scales reflect subtle differences in the conceptualizations

of engagement, and in other cases, significant differences in their underlying

nomological frameworks—all of which suggest that different measurements

of engagement may actually measure different aspects of engagement. Indeed,

“although it finds its origin in the positive psychology of Kahn ( 1990 ), …

[engagement] has, in effect, taken on a life of its own (or, more precisely, a

series of parallel lives)” (Keenoy, 2014 , pp. 197–198).

We contend that these ‘parallel lives’ are leading to an increased risk that

the meaning of engagement is becoming elusive, which compromises its util-

ity both in theory and as an actionable phenomenon. This confounds our

understanding of the construct, particularly in relation to other variables, and

makes its operationalization all the more difficult (Shuck, Ghosh, Zigarmi,

& Nimon, 2012 ). It also promotes continued debate as to the uniqueness of

engagement in comparison to other, more clearly defined, work-related phe-

nomena such as job satisfaction and organizational commitment (Shuck et al.,

2012 ). Finally, it results in measurements of engagement that are no longer

consistent with Kahn ’ s ( 1990 ) holistic perspective.

Our study suggests that the relationships between employee engage-

ment and certain workplace outcomes depend, in fact, on how the con-

struct of employee engagement is actually measured. We also suggest that

even when different measures of engagement are similarly conceptualized,

we will see different relationships with both predictor and outcome vari-

ables. To explore this, we focused our study on two predictors of employee

engagement that are among the most complex in the management literature:

workplace stress and burnout. If engagement ’ s relationship to key predictors

differs depending on the measurement instrument, then it is reasonable to

assume that these different instruments will have different predictive proper-

ties as well. This means that the utility of the instruments used to measure

Exploring Different Operationalizations of Employee Engagement 165

HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT QUARTERLY • DOI: 10.1002/hrdq

employee engagement is only as good as our understanding of what is actu-

ally being measured.

This study makes significant contributions to the engagement litera-

ture in that it offers a nuanced explanation of some of the differences in how

employee engagement is measured. We evaluate the relationships between

workplace stress, burnout, and engagement through the lens of Kahn ’ s ( 1990 )

needs-satisfaction–based framework in response to a resurgence in scholarly

interest in this engagement conceptualization (Fletcher & Robinson, 2013 ).

We also explore some of the tensions in the literature arising from the agree-

ment (or disagreement) of various scholars as to the nature of the relation-

ship between burnout and engagement. Finally, practical implications related

to engagement measurement are provided, which may improve the efficacy

of workforce interventions intended to support the sustained engagement of

employees—one of today ’ s key human resource–related imperatives.

Theory and Hypothesis Development

This section reviews the literature and theory in support of the development

of the hypotheses and conceptual model tested in this study.

Employee Engagement and Its Measurement

The concept of engagement emerged from the positive psychology move-

ment in which researchers began to focus on understanding the factors that

can lead to and sustain positive human behaviors and the related positive

consequences of those behaviors. Kahn ’ s ( 1990 ) grounded theory study con-

ceptualized personal engagement as “the simultaneous employment and

expression of a person ’ s ‘preferred self’ in task behaviors that promote con-

nections to work and to others, personal presence (physical, cognitive, and

emotional), and active full role performances” (p. 700). More specifically,

Kahn ( 1990 ) posited that individuals are motivated to engage (or disengage)

in response to how they see themselves in specific roles and with respect to

three psychological conditions: meaningfulness, safety, and availability. His

later work emphasized the primacy of psychological safety, predicated on the

presence of positive and trusting interpersonal relationships at work, as key

to understanding how engagement is sustained (Kahn, 2007 ). Despite the

broad acceptance of Kahn ’ s conceptualization in the scholarly community and

the thousands of citations his groundbreaking research has generated, four

distinct frameworks of engagement have since emerged: the needs-satisfac-

tion, burnout-antithesis, job satisfaction, and multidimensional frameworks

(Fletcher & Robinson, 2013 ; Shuck, 2011 ). Indeed, these frameworks share

some commonalities, most notably that engagement is a motivational state

that depends on an employee ’ s perception of certain valued resources (Saks &

Gruman, 2014 ). However a brief review of each framework reveals important

differences among them.