There have been many contributions to engagement based on Kahn’s (1992) idea of being personally engaged or disengaged at work and on the degree of self brought to the work (May et al. 2004; Harter et al. 2004). In this section we focus on the idea of psychological presence at work. This notion was proposed by Kahn (1992) in addition to personal engagement and disengagement. Psychological presence is the state of being personally engaged and demonstrating engaged behaviours such as doing more than required for the job; being completely at ease; and enjoying the tasks. Psychological presence is influenced by models of self in role which include one’s sense of security; or how safe a person feels to express him or herself; display courage; and through all this bring a degree of self into one’s work roles (Kahn 1992). Schaufeli et al. (2002) considered psychological presence as possibly representing the exact anti-pole of burnout: engagement. However, the authors argued that while the idea of psychological presence is important, they criticised Kahn’s (1992) work for the lack of operationalisation of the construct.
Kahn (1992) predicted that psychological presence will differ between people, even when they display the same levels of psychological meaningfulness, safety and availability (Kahn 1992). This is due to individual influences acting on psychological presence; particularly the individual cognitions and emotions associated with perceptions of the job, task or organisation. Langelaan et al. (2006, p. 528) in their work on engagement and burnout, found that individual differences do impact on those who have high or low level engagement and those who have high or low scores on burnout. Despite the findings, this idea of the individuality of engagement has not received much research attention.
Building on and developing the ethnographic work of Kahn (1990), May et al. (2004) operationalised Kahn’s conceptual model of engagement. Their results indicated that all three psychological conditions: meaningfulness, safety and availability, related to an overall measure of engagement. The measures used for that study have only been repeated in one other study since using the same or similar types of measure for engagement (Olivier & Rothmann 2007). This later study tested engagement in a South African sample and again Kahn’s (1990) conceptualisation with the measures developed by May et al. (2004) was reinforced.
In other research on the composition of engagement Rothbard (2001) focused on role engagement and investigated it through depletion and enrichment frameworks. The depletion framework proposes that multiple engagements can lead to individuals having a ‘negative emotional response to that role’ (Rothbard 2001, p.658). In other words, multiple roles can place demand or greater obligations and pressure on an individual which can lead to strain and stress, culminating in negative responses. The enrichment framework (role accumulation), on the other hand, suggests that engaging in multiple roles can have a sustaining and enriching effect on the individual, bringing pleasurable experiences. The role enrichment (accumulation) model has some similarities with the well-being approach (Schaufeli et al. 2002; Harter et al. 2003). There is a focus on a greater sense of self in the positive and individually one feels fulfilled and valued.
Engagement according to Rothbard (2001) is measured via the degree of absorption and attention employees put into their role (Figure 2-2). From this perspective, attention is defined as the time spent thinking about and concentrating on the role. Absorption, according to Rothbard (2001) indicates the intensity of one’s focus, as an essentially emotional idea. The notion of absorption is also linked to ideas first proposed by Goffman (1961) and Kahn (1990) regarding the state of immersing oneself in a role. Schaufeli and Bakker (2001; 2004) also conceptualised engagement as having a proponent called absorption, which to them represented the state of being fully concentrated and engrossed in a role. Mauno, Kinnunen and Ruokolainen (2007) suggested that engagement as proposed by Schaufeli and Bakker, (2001, 2004) is consistent with that provided by Rothbard (2001). Whilst none of these researchers make the link between their terms, their ideas suggests that the propositions about absorption are all very similar, and likely refer to the same cognitive state.
Figure 2-2 Rothbard’s (2001) Conceptualisation of Role Engagement
In other research Britt, Alder and Bartone (2001) focused on meaningfulness at work and found that it had a strong relationship with perceived benefits from the job. Lack of meaning at work has been previously associated with apathy and detachment (Thomas & Velthouse 1990). Csikszentmihalyi (2002) identified apathy as being associated with low levels of challenges in the job and little by way of required skills to undertake the job. Apathy does not create situations inductive to ‘flow’ states or subsequent engaged states. The ideas of Csikszentmihalyi (2002) will be expanded further in the next section (2.3.2.2) in a discussion of positive psychology. Apathy is also similar to a robotic state, ‘go into robot’ as articulated by Hochschild (1983), which has been linked to disengagement (Kahn 1990; Luthans & Peterson 2002; May et al. 2004). Britt (1999) defined engagement in terms of the assessment of self responsibility and assessment of commitment for solider employed in overseas missions. Both of these items were measured and combined into a single measure of soldier job engagement. Bringing in ideas of responsibility adds another dimension to the engagement field.
What is evident from this section is the diversity of engagement research even within the psychology discipline. The contributions are varying but all have some connectedness to the others, and in most instances, to the work of Kahn (1990). The next section will explore the newer psychological discipline of positive psychology.