Revista Argentina de Clínica Psicológica 2020, Vol. XXIX, N°2, 530-535
DOI: 10.24205/03276716.2020.273 530
I
NFLUENCE OF
P
SYCHOLOGICAL
C
APITAL
C
ONSTRUCTION ON
H
UMAN
R
ESOURCE
M
ANAGEMENT FROM THE
P
ERSPECTIVE OF
E
MPLOYEE
E
NGAGEMENT
Yaning Qi
Abstract
Employee engagement is an important aspect of human resource management in enterprises. It has received extensive attention from enterprise managers. From the perspective of employee engagement, this paper attempts to disclose how psychological capital construction affects human resource management. The research data were collected through a questionnaire survey on five enterprises in Fengtai Science and Technology Park in Beijing, China, and subjected to correlation analysis and regression analysis. The results show that the enterprises generally have a high level of employee engagement; employee engagement is positively correlated with education level, but insignificantly with age and working years; overall, employee engagement has a significant positive correlation with human resource management and each of its dimensions, particularly salary incentive. Finally, several countermeasures were presented to improve the level of employee engagement through joint efforts from the enterprise and the employee. The research results provide a valuable reference for employee growth and enterprise development.
Key words: Psychological Capital Construction, Human Resource Management, Employee Engagement, Questionnaire.
Received: 02-03-19 | Accepted: 10-11-19
INTRODUCTION
With the continuous development of social economy and the deepening trend of economic globalization, the competition among enterprises is becoming fiercer and fiercer. Human resources are an important force for the development of enterprises, and the human resource management in enterprises is a huge engine for the growth of enterprises. Therefore, strengthening the human resource management in enterprises plays an important role in the long-term development of enterprises (Avey, Luthans, & Jensen, 2009). In the process of enterprise human resource management, employee engagement is an important aspect
Chongqing Three Gorges University, Chongqing 404199, China.
E-Mail: 848742162@qq.com
and has received extensive attention from enterprise managers. Relevant research shows
that enterprises with high employee
engagement has higher productivity and higher customer satisfaction than enterprises with low employee engagement (Isenhour, Stone, & Lien, 2012). Therefore, strengthening the investigation and research on the employee engagement of enterprises and continuously making adaptive adjustments according to the measures to improve the employee engagement of the enterprise in human resource management can gradually realize the goal of enterprise development, thus effectively promoting the improvement of human resource management level and the
long-term development of enterprises
(Merriman, 2013).
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and abroad have done a lot of research on psychological capital, engagement and other related issues, and formed a series of research results. Some scholars have studied the connotation and components of psychological capital (Kappagoda, Othman, & Alwis, 2014); some scholars have conducted in-depth research on the influential factors of employee engagement (Sarwar, 2017); other scholars have studied the relationship between employee engagement and performance and management of enterprises (O"Donohue, Martin, & Torugsa, 2015). However, it can be seen from the existing literature that there is a lack of research on the relationship between psychological capital construction, especially employee engagement, and human resource management of enterprises. This paper mainly takes employee engagement as an example to deeply study the influence of employee psychological capital construction on human resource management, which can make up for the gaps in relevant research to a certain extent.
This paper takes five enterprises in Fengtai Science and Technology Park in Beijing as the research subjects, studies the relationship between
employee engagement and enterprises’ human
resource management through investigation and empirical analysis, and puts forward relevant countermeasures and suggestions to improve engagement. The research herein provides theoretical guidance and practical reference for the growth of employees themselves and the long-term development of enterprises.
OVERVIEW OF RELEVANT CONCEPTS AND THEORIES
Psychological capital
For general enterprises, there are four major capitals, namely human capital, financial capital, social capital and psychological capital, as shown in Figure 1. It can be seen that psychological capital is an important component of enterprise capital (Luthans & Youssef, 2004). Psychological capital is a positive psychological state shown by individuals in the process of growth, which is not long-term lasting and stable, but will continuously develop and change with time.
Psychological capital management mainly includes two attributes: one is profitability, which mainly means that increasing psychological capital can effectively improve the rate of return of enterprises; the other is development, which mainly refers to strengthening the management and development of psychological capital can effectively improve the overall performance of individuals and organizations (Freese & Schalk, 1996).
Employee engagement
Kahn was the first scholar who studied employee engagement. He believed that employee engagement is the degree to which employees put themselves into work, which includes many aspects such as physiology, emotion and cognition. Then, many scholars have studied employee engagement and formed their own views, as shown in Table 1.
Based on the research results of scholars, it can be found that employee engagement essentially reflects the degree of willingness of employees to stay in the enterprise and the degree of input in the
Figure 1
.
The main composition of the capital of an enterprise
Psychological capital
Financial capital Enterprise
capital
Social capital Human capital
INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT 532
enterprise in terms of their own emotions, abilities and commitments, which is a spontaneous and voluntary expression (Katou, 2015). For enterprises, good atmosphere and conditions should be created to continuously improve the employee engagement, so as to realize the common development of employees and the enterprise as a whole.
Table 1.
Different scholars' understanding and
analysis of employee engagement structure
Scholar Year employee engagement structure
Kahn 1990 Physiological input, cognitive input and emotional input Mastach &
Leiter 1997
Energy, Involvement, Professional Efficacy Schaufeli 2002 Vigor, Dedication, Absorption Alan M.Saks &
Joseph L. 2006
Work engagement, organizational engagement
BASIC INVESTIGATION AND ANALYSIS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT
Research subjects
This paper takes five enterprises in Fengtai Science and Technology Park in Beijing as the research subjects to learn about the basic situation of employee engagement by randomly issuing questionnaires. A total of 500 questionnaires are distributed and 490 valid questionnaires are recovered, with an effective rate of 98%. Some basic information of the subjects is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. Basic information of the subjects
Classification Quantity Proportion/%
Gender Male 258 52.65%
Female 232 47.35%
Age
20-30 112 22.86% 31-40 199 40.61% 41-50 104 21.22%
＞50 75 15.31%
Educational level
Undergraduate
and below 139 28.37% Undergraduate 168 34.29% Master 154 31.43%
Doctor 29 5.91%
Working life
≤1 year 127 25.92%
1-2 year 188 38.37% 2-4 year 102 20.82%
≥4 year 73 14.89%
As can be seen from the data in Table 2, the proportion of men and women is roughly the same in terms of gender; in terms of age, the proportion under 40 years old exceeds 60%, indicating that the
employees of the enterprises are relatively young; in terms of educational level, the proportion of employees with bachelor's degree or above exceeds 70%, indicating that the educational level of employees in the enterprises is relatively high; in terms of working life, the proportion of employees who have worked for 1-4 years is relatively high.
Research methods
(1) Scale analysis
In the questionnaire, besides some basic situations of the subjects, the analysis also includes three scales of human resource management, psychological capital and employee engagement. Specifically, the human resource management scale includes four dimensions: recruitment, training, performance appraisal and salary incentive; the psychological capital scale includes optimism, self-efficacy and resilience; the employee engagement includes three dimensions: dedication, energy and input. All the scales are scored by Likert 5-point system (Gold & Yeo, 2012).
(2) Analytical methods
In this paper, SPSS19.2 statistical software is selected to carry out correlation analysis and regression analysis on the data obtained from the survey.
Analysis of basic situation
The overall engagement of the subjects is investigated with the specific results shown in Figure 2. As can be seen from the data in the figure, the proportion of low engagement is less than 20%, which indicates that the current level of employee engagement of enterprises is relatively high.
Figure 2
.
Engagement of subjects
The educational level, age and working life of the subjects are analyzed respectively. The relationship
8.2% 8.7%
23.9% 30.7%
28.5%
0.0% 5.0% 10.0% 15.0% 20.0% 25.0% 30.0% 35.0%
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between employee engagement and education level is shown in Figure 3, and the relationship between employee engagement and age and working life is shown in Table 3.
Table 3.
The relationship between employee
engagement and age and working years
Age Score Working life Score
20-30 3.72 ≤1 year 3.92
31-40 3.06 1-2 year 3.73 41-50 3.54 2-4 year 3.84
＞50 4.38 ≥4 year 3.57
Figure 3
.
The relationship between
employee engagement and education level
From the data in Figure 3, we can find that with the continuous improvement of education level, the level of employee engagement also shows a gradual upward trend, which indicates a positive correlation between employee engagement and education level.
As can be seen from the data in Table 3, there is no obvious correlation between age and working life and engagement. In terms of age, employees aged 31-40 have the lowest degree of engagement, while employees over 50 have the highest degree of engagement. In terms of working life, employees
who work less than one year have the highest degree of engagement, while employees who work more than four years have the lowest degree of engagement.
ANALYSIS OF THE INFLUENCE OF EMPLOYEE
ENGAGEMENT ON HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT Correlation analysis
The results of correlation analysis between employee engagement and human resource management are shown in Table 4. According to the data in Table 4, the correlation coefficient between human resource management as a whole and employee engagement is 0.707, showing a significant positive correlation, and there is a significant positive correlation between each dimension of human resource management and engagement, of which the highest correlation degree is salary incentive, which also reflects to a certain extent that the current employees attach great importance to the salary and treatment that the enterprises can provide (Sarwar, Nadeem, & Aftab, 2017).
Regression analysis
Regression analysis is carried out on the relationship between employee engagement and human resource management. The gender, age, educational level and working life of employees are taken as control variables, the three dimensions of employee engagement such as dedication, energy and input are taken as independent variables, and human resource management as a whole is taken as dependent variables for regression analysis. The specific results are shown in Table 5, it can be seen that employee engagement has a significant positive role in promoting enterprise human resource management.
Table 4.
Correlation analysis results between employee engagement and human resource
management
Human resource
management Recruitment Training
Performance appraisal
Salary incentive
Employee engagement
Human resource
management 1.000
Recruitment 0.516** 1.000
Training 0.704** 0.372** 1.000 Performance
appraisal 0.819** 0.401** 0.623** 1.000
Salary incentive 0.832** 0.496** 0.531** 0.617** 1.000 Employee
engagement 0.707** 0.627** 0.696** 0.718** 0.753** 1.000
3.17
3.52
3.77
4.12
3 3.4 3.8 4.2 4.6 5
Undergraduate and below
INFLUENCE OF PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL CONSTRUCTION ON HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT 534
Table 5.
Regression analysis results of human resource management and employee engagement
Dependent variable Independent variable
Standard regression
coefficient t value Saliency Adjustment R2 F Value
Human resource management
Employee engagement 0.628 12.415 0.000 0.425 19.625** Dedication 0.512 10.628 0.000 0.296 14.327**
Verdure 0.607 9.074 0.000 0.283 15.082**
Investment 0.539 11.237 0.000 0.315 17.143**
Countermeasures and suggestions on
improving employee engagement
(1) Enterprise level
First of all, enterprises should create a good environment for the development and growth of employees and formulate an effective incentive mechanism, so that employees can fully realize that they can obtain job promotion and salary improvement through their own efforts, and then they will be willing to contribute to the enterprises (Lizar, Mangundjaya, & Rachmawan, 2015). In addition, enterprises can set a benchmark and example of loyal employees within the enterprise, thus driving those employees with low engagement and improving the overall engagement level (Caprara & Zimbardo, 1996).
(2) Employees themselves
Employees themselves should strengthen the study and understanding of corporate culture, enhance their sense of identity and belonging to the enterprise, and keep consistent with the enterprise in terms of values (Rew, Thompson, Brown et al., 2014). In the actual work, they should start from the overall development strategy of the enterprise, continuously improve their working ability, and closely combine the development of the enterprise with their own development so as to continuously improve their engagement (Martin, J., & Sugarman, J. 1997).
CONCLUSIONS
This paper takes five enterprises in Fengtai Science and Technology Park in Beijing as the research subjects, and studies the relationship
between employee engagement and enterprises’
human resource management through investigation and empirical analysis. The specific conclusions are as follows:
(1) At present, the level of employee engagement in the enterprises is relatively high. There is a positive correlation between employee engagement and educational level, while there is no obvious correlation between age, working life and engagement.
(2) There is a significant positive correlation
between human resource management as a whole and employee engagement, and there is a significant positive correlation between each dimension of human resource management and engagement, of which the highest correlation degree is salary incentive.
(3) Employee engagement has a significant positive role in promoting enterprise human resource management. Therefore, countermeasures should be taken from the two levels such as enterprises and employees to improve employee engagement, so as to promote the improvement of the enterprise's human resource management level and the long-term development of the enterprises.
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