An Empirical Clarification on the Assessment of Engagement at Work

The attachment of a person’s “self” to “role” has been studied from a variety of perspectives by numerous social scientists since 1990. However, scholars are divided on the issues of definition and measurement of engagement. Also, the incremental validity of one engagement measure over the other in predicting performance has not been examined. Therefore, this study attempts to review, test, and examine the incremental validity of different operational definitions of engagement in light of the self and role theory. ANOVA conducted using 317 knowledge workers from different companies in India indicates that personal engagement, work engagement, and job engagement differ significantly from each other. Next, the results of step-wise regression indicate incremental validity of work engagement over other types of engagements in predicting task performance. However, personal engagement remains the strongest predictor of task performance. The results of this study are expected to help human resource development (HRD) scholars make more informed decision while choosing a particular engagement measure. The results also encourage practitioners to use work engagement scale to explain their employees’ performance, at least in the Indian context