Territorio y destino

The concept of employees’ engagement and the concept of job resources have been linked in the model of work-engagement. However, employees’ engagement is a broader concept than work-engagement and different researchers have suggested different definition. As a result, their work has identified a larger variety of aspects of employees’ work that support their engagement in their work. In particular, in the model of work-engagement job resources is defined as the antecedents of work-engagement and refers to employees’ perceptions of various aspects of their work.

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Generally, research in employees’ engagement has focused on employees’ work-perceptions without always adopting the definition of job resources. Indeed, examining work-engagement, based on the extended JD-R model, can add a lot to our knowledge on the factors that affect both work-related well-being and motivation.

However, there have been noted significant short-comings with regards to its inability to capture the effect of employees’ personality characteristics (Semmer et al. 1996). Specifically, Wefald (2008) compared three different measures of engagement with regards to personality characteristics, transformational leadership and related psychological constructs. His findings showed that Shirom’s (2003) conception of engagement as a trait was the strongest engagement construct, while Schaufeli’s construct of work-engagement was found to be a better predictor for turnover intentions.

Finally, Bakker & Schaufeli (2008) note that a reason that personality has not been taken largely into consideration on work-engagement studies is because often researchers follow Luthans’ advice that positive organisational behaviour constructs must be state-like rather than trait-like.

B.1) Employee Engagement

As a topic, employees’ engagement has received increasing attention by researchers in the last decade due to its seemingly important impact on positive outcomes both for the individual and the organisation. Generally, there is a consensus that employee engagement involves the elements of energy and identification with one’s work. However, a review of the literature showed significant differences in the ways that researchers define engagement, its components and its antecedents, as well as what is considered to be its opposite: disengagement or burnout.Researchers have focused on various kinds of employees’ perceptions at work in order to approach the antecedents of employees’ engagement. However, only the line of research that followed Bakker & Demerouti (2008) work-engagement model identifies employees’ job resources as being one of its drivers. For

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the purposes of the present research, this specific approach on work engagement was initially adopted because it also allows an examination of employees’ job resources.

B.2) Engagement as the opposite of disengagement

The first scholar that talked about engagement- and its opposite disengagement-was Kahn (1990), viewing it as the psychological bond of workers with their work-roles during the performance of their duties. He described engagement as a two-dimensional construct that consists of attention (“…the cognitive availability and the amount of time that one spends thinking about a role”; 656) and absorption (“…the intensity of one’s focus on the role”; p.656). What he noted as antecedents of employee engagement and disengagement are three psychological conditions of the individual: meaningfulness (e.g through tasks, roles, and work interactions), safety (e.g. through interpersonal relationships, groups and intergroup dynamics, management styles and organizational norms) and availability (e.g. through physical energies, emotional energies, insecurity, and outside life). May’s et al. (2004) field study examined engagement and its determinants, based on Kahn’s work, demonstrating a positive relationship between engagement and all three psychological conditions- with meaningfulness being the most influential one.

Harter et al. (2002), also, views employee engagement as the opposite of employee disengagement but suggested a slightly different definition. They defined engagement as the “individual’s involvement and satisfaction as well as enthusiasm for work” and they recognise four workplace determinants of employee engagement:

1) clarity of expectations and provision of basic materials and equipment,

2) feelings of contribution to the organization,

3) feeling a sense of belonging to something beyond oneself, and 4) feeling as though there are opportunities to discuss progress and grow.

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Furthermore, Hurter et al. (2002) presented the Gallup Workplace Audit that assesses the antecedents of employee engagement by measuring employee perceptions on work characteristics. Indeed, Harter et al.’s meta-analysis, that included Gallup data from 42 studies in 36 independent companies, signifies a positive relationship at the business unit level between employee engagement and various organisational outcomes with employee turnover, customer satisfaction-loyalty and safety to be the most important ones.

More recently, Macey & Schneider (2008) describe the components of what comprises employee engagement, acknowledging that their model does not include the motivational components of engagement. They, also, explain that their model doesn’t include those aspects of employee engagement because they can often coincide with other constructs often found in the literature (e.g. professional 'involvement, professional commitment, productive behaviour, conscientiousness, etc.). Indeed, Macey & Schneider (2008) suggest three levels of engagement:

1) a predisposition (trait engagement),

2) a mental state (state engagement) (as job satisfaction, organizational commitment to, involvement in professional, psychological help as part of the image of himself),

3) observable behaviour (behavioural engagement)

Meyer & Gagné (2008) go a step further by demonstrating that internal motivation and elements of external motivation, as defined in self-determination theory, can give a valuable insight into state engagement. In particular, they note that engagement depicts autonomous regulation, which includes internal motivation, the attainment of a valued personal goal (identification) or the expression of one’s self (integration). What is more, the underlying psychological mechanisms of autonomous regulation (satisfaction of the basic psychological need for competence, autonomy and relatedness) can provide a better understanding of how engagement is developed.

A characteristic of this line of research is that it approaches employee engagement as a desirable state for both the individual and the organisation without focusing explicitly on its links

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with employee well-being. The present study did not use any of those definitions as the main focus was on teachers’ perceptions of their sources of support rather than defining teachers’ engagement. On the other hand, Schaufeli’s approach on work-engagement was included in the present study because it is closely linked to the definition of job resources and, thus, relationships between the construct of work-engagement and supportive aspects of teachers’ work may, also, further describe teachers’ perceptions of their job resources.

B.3) Engagement as the opposite of burnout

The line of research on employee engagement that has evolved treating it as the opposite pole of burnout by utilising the term work-engagement is the most relevant for the present study in teachers’ perceptions of job resources. What differentiates it, though, for most researchers following this line of research, is the way they measure work-engagement. Specifically, Maslach & Leiter’s (1997) conceptualization of burnout was extended to include work-engagement, characterised by high energy, high involvement, and high efficacy. Studies based on Maslach & Leiter’s work, using the Maslach Burnout Inventory (Maslach et al., 1996) have repeatedly shown the significance of work-environment factors in the occurrence of either burnout or engagement and their mediating role in organisational outcomes (e.g. Cho et al., 2006).

Arguably, Schaufeli et al. (2002), acknowledging that burnout and work-engagement are experienced as opposite psychological states, suggested that they should also be assessed differently. They defined work-engagement as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption. Moreover, they suggested that vigour and dedication should be considered as the opposite two poles of the burnout dimensions (emotional exhaustion and cynicism, respectively). Absorption was identified by Schaufeli & Bakker (2001) as the third component of work engagement.

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Additionally, Schaufeli et al. (2002) highlight that work-engagement, as opposed to emotional experiences, refers to a more persistent state of mind that is not focused on any particular object, event, individual, or behaviour but instead shows relatively stability over time. Moreover, they analyze its components explaining that a) vigour is characterized by high levels of energy and mental resilience while working, the willingness to invest effort in one’s work, and persistence even in the face of difficulties, b) dedication refers to being strongly involved in one’s work and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge, and finally c) absorption is characterized by being fully concentrated and happily engrossed in one’s work, whereby time passes quickly and one has difficulties with detaching oneself from work (p. 74). Studies based on Schaufeli et al.’s (2002) conceptualization of work-engagement examine the determinants of work engagement using the Job-Demands and Resources model. For this reason, they examine work-engagement as the opposite of professional burnout in the context of the job demands and resources model. They focus on identifying factors that as job resources can predict employees’ work-engagement and therefore signal an assumed motivational process. This approach also shows that work engagement can be distinguished from other similar concepts, allowing for a different insight with regards to job performance and turnover intentions (see Bakker et al.; de Lange et al.; Hakanen et al., Work & Stress, 22, 3, July_September, 2008).

B.4) Work-Engagement as a separate construct

The need, though, for work-engagement to be treated as a construct separately to burnout was also raised by evidence showing that the work efficiency dimension of burnout fitted better with the work-engagement construct than that of burnout. In particular, Duran et al. (2004) showed a negative relationship between the dimensions of professional burnout (emotional exhaustion and cynicism) and work engagement (vigour, dedication, absorption), but positive relationship between work efficiency and the three dimensions of work-engagement. Furthermore, Bresó et al (2007)

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concluded that it is preferable when measuring professional burnout to involve a measure of inefficiency rather than reversing the score of efficiency beliefs, as they seem to reflect employees’ work-engagement. Schaufeli & Salanova (2007), also, comparing the two structures in samples of Spanish students and Dutch and Spanish workers, concluded that beliefs of inefficiencies are more suited to the other two dimensions of professional burnout than efficiency beliefs. Indeed, their data were more suited to a model in which inefficiency "loaded" to burnout, and effectiveness in work- engagement.

The study of work engagement as an independent, separate construct has been mostly achieved by the use of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES), a self-report questionnaire first developed by Schaufeli & Bakker (2003) and further tested by Schaufeli et al. (2006). Overall, confirmatory factor analyses of both scales support the theoretical assumption that work- engagement consists of three interrelated dimensions and the 17-item version of UWES scale has been used in studies in several countries (e.g. Greece-Xanthopoulou, 2007; China-Yi-Wen & Yi-Qun, 2005: Japan-Shimazu et al., 2008; Finland-Hakanen, 2002; South Africa-Storm & Rothmann, 2003; Spain-Schaufeli et al., 2002b; Netherlands- Schaufeli et al., 2002a).

This scale was originally developed for the evaluation of professional burnout, but contains both positive and negative expressed questions and can therefore be used to assess work- engagement. Schaufeli & Bakker (2003) indicate that the total score of work-engagement may be more valuable to empirical research than the scores of work-engagement dimensions due to the high correlations among them. Similarly, Salanova et al. (2003) suggest that the measurement of work-engagement should include only the two dimensions of vigour and dedication, while the dimension of the absorption may play a different role and should not be regarded as a component of work-engagement. In fact, Seppälä et al. (2009) examining the construct validity of the two versions of UWES scales note that if the research purpose is in general to examine work-engagement a one- factor solution may be more suitable than the three factor one.

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This section presented a review of the literature of employee engagement and presented key differences in which researchers have attempted to approach the concept of engagement in work. In particular, it presented the different lines of research based on the way researchers define employee engagement and its opposite (disengagement or burnout). These differences led to significant differences in the way researchers assess engagement and its antecedents. However, they all share in common that they focus on employees’ perceptions to assess them.

The present study adopts Demerouti et al.’s (2001) definition of job resources. Although all the conceptualisations of employee engagement focus on employees’ work-perceptions only the line of research that approaches engagement as the opposite of burnout and especially the model of work-engagement defines its antecedents as employees’ job resources. Furthermore, compared to other professional groups there is less systematic research in teachers’ engagement beyond psychological research in their work-engagement. For this reason, the present study allows participants to describe their sources of engagement support and using the generic definition of job