International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

search-icon

The Antecedents of Work Engagement in Public Sector: Applying the Job demands-Resources Model

Open access
Work engagement has become a major concern for many organisations in recent years, as they have had to adapt to a constantly shifting work environment. Recognition of work engagement in the public sector is growing, mostly attributed to the presence of many challenges in government organisational systems. Disengaged staff in government organisations can hurt finances and service delivery. Due to growing interest in the job demands–resources model in the field of public administration, this research is conducted to investigate the relationship between proactive personality, growth mindset and transformational leadership towards work engagement among public sector employees who worked in a City Council office located in Malaysia. The present study employed a quantitative research design, utilizing a self-administered questionnaire as the primary data collection instrument. A collective sum of 252 participants provided responses to a series of electronic surveys. The acquired data was subsequently analysed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 23. The Regression analysis revealed that there were positive significant relationships between proactive personality and transformational leadership with work engagement. While growth mindset revealed no significant relationship toward work engagement.

Albrecht, S., Breidahl, E., & Marty, A. (2018). Organizational resources, organizational engagement climate, and employee engagement. Career Development International,
23(1), 67–85. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-04-2017-0064
Andrews, R., & Mostafa, A. M. S. (2019). Organizational goal ambiguity and senior public managers’ engagement: does organizational social capital make a difference? International Review of Administrative Sciences, 85(2), 377–395. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020852317701824
Arora, N., & Dhole, V. (2019). Generation Y: Perspective, engagement, expectations, preferences and satisfactions from workplace; a study conducted in Indian context. Benchmarking, 26(5), 1378–1404. https://doi.org/10.1108/BIJ-05-2018-0132
Audenaert, M., George, B., & Decramer, A. (2019). How a demanding employment relationship relates to affective commitment in public organizations: A multilevel analysis. Public Administration, 97(1), 11–27. https://doi.org/10.1111/padm.12378
Bailey, C., Madden, A., Alfes, K., & Fletcher, L. (2017). The Meaning, Antecedents and
Outcomes of Employee Engagement: A Narrative Synthesis. International Journal of Management Reviews, 19(1), 31–53. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijmr.12077
Bakker, A. B. (2011). An Evidence-Based Model of Work Engagement. 20(4), 265–269. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721411414534
Bakker, A. B. (2015). A Job Demands-Resources Approach to Public Service Motivation. Public Administration Review, 75(5), 723–732. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12388
Bakker, A. B., Albrecht, S. L., & Leiter, M. P. (2011). Work engagement: Further reflections on the state of play. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 20(1), 74–
88. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359432X.2010.546711
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands-Resources model: State of the art. In Journal of Managerial Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1108/02683940710733115
Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2008). Towards a model of work engagement. Career
Development International, 13(3), 209–223. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430810870476
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., de Boer, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2003). Job demand and job resources as predictors of absence duration and frequency. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 62(2), 341–356. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0001-8791(02)00030-1
Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Sanz-Vergel, A. I. (2014). Burnout and Work Engagement: The JD–R Approach. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1), 389–411. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091235
Bakker, A. B., Tims, M., & Derks, D. (2012). Proactive personality and job performance: The role of job crafting and work engagement. Human Relations, 65(10), 1359–1378. https://doi.org/10.1177/0018726712453471
Bakker, A. B., Van Emmerik, H., & Euwema, M. C. (2006). Crossover of burnout and engagement in work teams. Work and Occupations, 33(4), 464–489. https://doi.org/10.1177/0730888406291310
Bass, B. M., & Avolio, B. J. (1993). Transformational leadership and organizational culture. Public Administration Quarterly, 112–121.
Bass, B. M., & Bass Bernard, M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations.
Bateman, T. S., & Crant, J. M. (1993). The proactive component of organizational behavior: A measure and correlates. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 14(2), 103–118. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.4030140202
Benham, M. D. (2017). Strategies to Improve Engagement Among Public Sector Information
Technology Employees.
http://ezproxy.umuc.edu/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/198360840
9?accountid=14580%0Ahttp://sfx.umd.edu/uc?url_ver=Z39.88-
2004&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&genre=dissertations+%26+theses &sid=ProQ:ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+T
Blackwell, L. S., Trzesniewski, K. H., & Dweck, C. S. (2007). Implicit theories of intelligence predict achievement across an adolescent transition: A longitudinal study and an intervention. Child Development, 78(1), 246–263.
Blizzard, D. B. A. (2002). Nurses may be satisfied, but are they engaged. Retrieved October, 10, 2009.
Borst, R. T., Kruyen, P. M., & Lako, C. J. (2019). Exploring the Job Demands–Resources Model of Work Engagement in Government: Bringing in a Psychological Perspective. Review of
Public Personnel Administration, 39(3), 372–397. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X17729870
Brad Shuck, M., Rocco, T. S., & Albornoz, C. A. (2011). Exploring employee engagement from the employee perspective: Implications for HRD. Journal of European Industrial Training. https://doi.org/10.1108/03090591111128306
Buss, D. M. (1987). Selection, evocation, and manipulation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1214.
Byrne, O., & MacDonagh, J. (2018). What’s love got to do with it? Employee engagement amongst higher education workers. The Irish Journal of Management, 36(3), 189–205. https://doi.org/10.1515/ijm-2017-0019
Caniëls, M. C. J., Semeijn, J. H., & Renders, I. H. M. (2018). Mind the mindset! The interaction of proactive personality, transformational leadership and growth mindset for engagement at work. Career Development International, 23(1), 48–66. https://doi.org/10.1108/CDI-11-2016-0194
Christian, M. S., Garza, A. S., & Slaughter, J. E. (2011). Work engagement: A quantitative review and test of its relations with task and contextual performance. Personnel
Psychology, 64. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2010.01203.x
Crawford, E. R., LePine, J. A., & Rich, B. L. (2010). Linking job demands and resources to employee engagement and burnout: A theoretical extension and meta-analytic test. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(5), 834–848. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0019364
Demerouti, E., & Cropanzano, R. (2010). From thought to action: Employee work engagement and job performance. Work Engagement: A Handbook of Essential Theory and Research, 147–163.
Demerouti, E., Nachreiner, F., Bakker, A. B., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2001). The job demandsresources model of burnout. Journal of Applied Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.499
Dikkers, J. S. E., Jansen, P. G. W., de Lange, A. H., Vinkenburg, C. J., & Kooij, D. (2010). Proactivity, job characteristics, and engagement: A longitudinal study. Career
Development International, 15(1), 59–77. https://doi.org/10.1108/13620431011020899 Dweck, C. (2009). Who will the 21st-century learners be? Knowledge Quest, 38(2), 8–10.
Dweck, C. S., Chiu, C., & Hong, Y. (1995). Implicit theories: Elaboration and extension of the model. Psychological Inquiry, 6(4), 322–333.
Dweck, C. S., & Leggett, E. L. (1988). A social-cognitive approach to motivation and personality. Psychological Review, 95(2), 256.
Frondozo, C. E., King, R. B., Nalipay, M. J. N., & Mordeno, I. G. (2022). Mindsets matter for teachers, too: Growth mindset about teaching ability predicts teachers’ enjoyment and engagement. Current Psychology, 41(8), 5030–5033. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144020-01008-4
Gallup. (2021). State of the Global Workplace: 2021 Report. In Workplace Insights. https://www.gallup.com/workplace/insights.aspx
Grant, A. M., & Ashford, S. J. (2008). The dynamics of proactivity at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 28, 3–34. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2008.04.002
Hair, J. F., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2011). PLS-SEM: Indeed a Silver Bullet. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice. https://doi.org/10.2753/mtp1069-6679190202
Hayati, D., Charkhabi, M., & Naami, A. Z. (2014). The relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement in governmental hospitals nurses: A survey study.
SpringerPlus, 3(1), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1186/2193-1801-3-25
Haynie, J. J., Flynn, C. B., & Mauldin, S. (2017). Proactive personality, core self-evaluations, and engagement: the role of negative emotions. Management Decision, 55(2), 450–463. https://doi.org/10.1108/MD-07-2016-0464
Janssens, H., De Zutter, P., Geens, T., Vogt, G., & Braeckman, L. (2019). Do Personality Traits Determine Work Engagement? Results From a Belgian Study. Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 61(1), 29–34.
https://doi.org/10.1097/JOM.0000000000001458
Jayarathna, S. M. D. Y. (2018). A conceptual model of job burnout and work social support.
Kelaniya Journal of Human Resource Management, 12(1), 1. https://doi.org/10.4038/kjhrm.v12i1.39
Jian, O. Z., Yin, K. Y., & Awang, M. (2020). The Extent of Blue Ocean Leadership, Employee
Engagement and Team Performance During Covid-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 10(11), 926–937. https://doi.org/10.6007/ijarbss/v10-i11/8150
Jiang, D., Ning, L., Liu, T., Zhang, Y., & Liu, Q. (2022). Job demands-resources, job crafting and work engagement of tobacco retailers. Frontiers in Public Health, 10(1).
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.925668
Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work. Academy of Management Journal. https://doi.org/10.5465/256287
Kashyap, V., & Chaudhary, R. (2019). Linking Employer Brand Image and Work Engagement:
Modelling Organizational Identification and Trust in Organization as Mediators. South
Asian Journal of Human Resources Management. https://doi.org/10.1177/2322093719844644
Keating, L. A., & Heslin, P. A. (2015). The potential role of mindsets in unleashing employee engagement. Human Resource Management Review, 25(4), 329–341. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hrmr.2015.01.008
Kernaghan, K. (2011). Getting engaged: Public-service merit and motivation revisited. Canadian Public Administration, 54(1), 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17547121.2011.00158.x
Lee, J. (Jay), & Ok, C. (Michael). (2016). Hotel Employee Work Engagement and Its Consequences. Journal of Hospitality Marketing and Management, 25(2), 133–166.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19368623.2014.994154
Lee, W., Migliaccio, G. C., Lin, K. Y., & Seto, E. Y. W. (2020). Workforce development: understanding task-level job demands-resources, burnout, and performance in unskilled construction workers. Safety Science, 123(December 2019), 104577. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssci.2019.104577
Li, Y., Castaño, G., & Li, Y. (2018). Linking leadership styles to work engagement: The role of psychological capital among Chinese knowledge workers. Chinese Management Studies, 12(2), 433–452. https://doi.org/10.1108/CMS-04-2017-0108
Liu, M.-L., Liu, N.-T., Ding, C. G., & Lin, C.-P. (2015). Exploring team performance in high-tech industries: Future trends of building up teamwork. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 91, 295–310.
Macey, W. H., & Schneider, B. (2008). The Meaning of Employee Engagement. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1(1), 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.17549434.2007.0002.x
Mercer. (2022). Employee engagement and experience in Indonesia 2022.
Moreira-Fontán, E., García-Señorán, M., Conde-Rodríguez, Á., & González, A. (2019). Teachers’ ICT-related self-efficacy, job resources, and positive emotions: Their structural relations with autonomous motivation and work engagement. Computers and Education, 134(May 2018), 63–77. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2019.02.007
Mostafa, A. M. S., & Abed El-Motalib, E. A. (2020). Ethical Leadership, Work Meaningfulness, and Work Engagement in the Public Sector. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 40(1), 112–131. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X18790628
Naeem, R. M., Channa, K. A., Hameed, Z., Akram, M., & Sarki, I. H. (2019). How does perceived career support make employees bright-eyed and bushy-tailed? The mediating role of career self-efficacy. Australian Journal of Career Development, 28(2), 92–102.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1038416218822122
Nikhil, S., & Arthi, J. (2018). Perceived Organisational Support and Work Engagement:
Mediation of Psychological Capital - A Research Agenda. Journal of Strategic Human
Resource Management, 7(1), 33–40.
http://elib.tcd.ie/login?url=https://search.proquest.com/docview/2024163427?accoun tid=14404%0Ahttp://linksource.ebsco.com/linking.aspx?sid=ProQ%3Aabiglobal&fmt=j ournal&genre=article&issn=22772138&volume=7&issue=1&date=2018-0101&spage=33&title=Journal+of+
Othman, R., Mohd Rapi, R., Alias, N. E., Jahya, A., & Wei Loon, K. (2019). Factors Affecting Employee Engagement: A Study among Employees in the Malaysian Construction
Industry. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences,
9(7), 784–797. https://doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v9-i7/6178 Qualtrics. (2020). 2020 employee experience trends Malaysia.
Quratulain, S., & Khan, A. K. (2015). Red Tape, Resigned Satisfaction, Public Service Motivation, and Negative Employee Attitudes and Behaviors: Testing a Model of Moderated Mediation. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 35(4), 307–332. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X13511646
Rahmadani, V. G., Schaufeli, W. B., & Stouten, J. (2020). How engaging leaders foster employees’ work engagement. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 41(8), 1155–1169. https://doi.org/10.1108/LODJ-01-2020-0014
Salanova, M., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2008). A cross-national study of work engagement as a mediator between job resources and proactive behaviour. International Journal of
Human Resource Management, 19(1), 116–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/09585190701763982
Salanova, Marisa, Bakker, A. B., & Llorens, S. (2006). Flow at work: Evidence for an upward spiral of personal and organizational resources. Journal of Happiness Studies, 7(1), 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-005-8854-8
Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2003). UWES Utrecht Work Engagement Scale Preliminarty Manual. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.
Schaufeli, W. B., & Bakker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: A multi-sample study. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 25(3), 293–315. https://doi.org/10.1002/job.248
Schaufeli, W., Salanova, M., González-romá, V., & Bakker, A. (2002). The Measurement of Engagement and Burnout: A Two Sample Confirmatory Factor Analytic Approach. Journal of Happiness Studies, 71–92. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1015630930326
Star, T. (2019). World Bank: Efficiency of Malaysia’s civil service has stagnated. Star Publication. https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2019/07/01/decliningperformance
Thanh, N. H., & Quang, N. Van. (2022). Transformational, Transactional, Laissez-faire Leadership Styles and Employee Engagement: Evidence From Vietnam’s Public Sector. SAGE Open, 12(2). https://doi.org/10.1177/21582440221094606
Tims, M., Bakker, A. B., & Xanthopoulou, D. (2011). Do transformational leaders enhance their followers’ daily work engagement? Leadership Quarterly, 22(1), 121–131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2010.12.011
Vigoda-Gadot, E., Eldor, L., & Schohat, L. M. (2013). Engage Them to Public Service: Conceptualization and Empirical Examination of Employee Engagement in Public Administration. American Review of Public Administration, 43(5), 518–538. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074012450943
Worldbank. (2020). COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Policy Response to Enhancing Institutions for Effective and Transparent Management. https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/ russia/brief/covid-19-response-enhancing-institutions-russia
Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2007). The role of personal resources in the job demands-resources model. International Journal of Stress Management, 14(2), 121–141. https://doi.org/10.1037/1072-5245.14.2.121
Xanthopoulou, D., Bakker, A. B., Demerouti, E., & Schaufeli, W. B. (2009). Reciprocal relationships between job resources, personal resources, and work engagement. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 74(3), 235–244. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2008.11.003
Xu, J., & Thomas, H. C. (2011). How can leaders achieve high employee engagement. Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 32(4), 399–416. https://doi.org/10.1108/01437731111134661
Yeager, D. S., & Dweck, C. S. (2012). Mindsets That Promote Resilience: When Students Believe That Personal Characteristics Can Be Developed. Educational Psychologist, 47(4),
302–314. https://doi.org/10.1080/00461520.2012.722805
Zahari, N., & Kaliannan, M. (2022). Antecedents of Work Engagement in the Public Sector: A Systematic Literature Review. Review of Public Personnel Administration, 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X221106792
Zeng, G., Chen, X., Cheung, H. Y., & Peng, K. (2019). Teachers’ growth mindset and work engagement in the Chinese educational context: Well-being and perseverance of effort as mediators. Frontiers in Psychology, 10(MAR), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00839