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Employee Work Engagement in Malaysia: Insights from Job Demands–Resources, Kahn’s Engagement, and Social Exchange Theories

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Based on the integration of the Job Demands–Resources theory, Kahn’s theory of the psychological conditions of engagement, and Social Exchange Theory, the researchers develop a new research framework to investigate the effects of meaningful work and transformational leadership, along with demands and resources, on work engagement. The study adopted a quantitative research paradigm in which data were collected from 213 full-time Malaysian operational bank employees by online self-administered closed-ended questionnaire. Data was analysed by SPSS 26 and Smart-PLS 4. The findings reveal that job resources and personal resources significantly positively affect work engagement, and job demands significantly negatively affect work engagement, while no significant effect of personal demands (p=0.32) exists on work engagement. Meaningful work mediates the relationships between demands (job and personal) and work engagement; and job resources and work engagement, except for personal resources (p=0.949) and work engagement. Transformational leadership style moderates the relationship between resources (job and personal) and work engagement, job demands, and work engagement, except for the relationship between personal demands and work engagement (p=0.126). Meanwhile, job resources do not moderate the relationship between demand (job and personal) and work engagement (p>0.05). However, the job demands moderate the relationship between personal resources and work engagement, while do not moderate the relationship between job resources and work engagement (p=0.826). Personal demands do not moderate the relationship between resources (job and personal) and work engagement (p>0.05). Personal resources moderate the relationship between job demands and work engagement while no moderating effect exists between personal demands and work engagement (p=0.115).
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