Int. J. Indian Culture and Business Management, Vol. 9, No. 1, 2014 37

Copyright © 2014 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness

Aakanksha Kataria*, Pooja Garg and Renu Rastogi Department of Humanities & Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee (IITR), Roorkee (247667), Uttarakhand, India E-mail: aks2530@gmail.com E-mail: gargpdhs@gmail.com E-mail: renurfhs@iitr.ernet.in *Corresponding author

Abstract: The profound influence of human capital on the success and growth of any organisation is momentous and cannot be unheeded in the contemporary business world. In this direction, the present paper reviews the organisational paradigms of employees’ work engagement and attempts to relate it with organisational effectiveness. The study was designed to generate and test a hypothesised model colligating between the constituents of engagement namely vigour, dedication, and absorption and the organisational effectiveness. A survey-based study was conducted in 27 IT organisations across the national capital region (NCR), India. The sample size for the study comprised 304 Indian IT professionals. Data analysis, performed using structural equation modelling (SEM) approach, revealed that work engagement in terms of vigour, dedication, and absorption is significantly associated with organisational effectiveness in that it also entails a positive impact upon the effectiveness of a firm. The association is further explored to highlight the affective-motivational underpinnings through which employees’ increased level of engagement is likely to elevate organisational effectiveness.

Keywords: work engagement; vigour; dedication; absorption; organisational effectiveness.

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Kataria, A., Garg, P. and Rastogi, R. (2014) ‘The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness’, Int. J. Indian Culture and Business Management, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp.37–54.

Biographical notes: Aakanksha Kataria is currently pursuing her PhD from Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee. She received her Bachelor of Information and Management from Kurukshetra University and MBA from CCS Haryana Agricultural University. She has work experience in teaching and industry and has presented papers in many national and international conferences. Her area of interest includes organisational performance, human resource development, HR practices, employee engagement and sustainable development.

38 A. Kataria et al.

Pooja Garg is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. She received her PhD in Psychology from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, having also received her MA in Psychology from Ch. Charan Singh University (formerly Meerut University). She also received her BA in English, Economics and Psychology from Ch. Charan Singh University (formerly Meerut University). Her current research interest includes organisational behaviour and human resource management. Her articles have been published in journals such as Journal of Management Development, Indian Journal of Technical Education and International Journal of Educational Management.

Renu Rastogi is from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur in Psychology (OB). Currently, she is working as a Professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee and has more than 30 years experience in academia. Her areas of expertise are organisational behaviour and women’s studies. Her articles have been published in a number of national and international journals.

1 Introduction

The concept of organisational effectiveness has been substantiated in organisational sciences for more than over 80 years. It has been qualified as the central theme of every management practice, as organisations are typically viewed as rational entities in the pursuit of goals (Perrow, 1970; Etzioni, 1964). Therefore, from a practical point of view, organisational effectiveness is frequently described to the extent at which an organisation may achieve its goals (Steers, 1977). However, no organisation can achieve its strategic and operational goals without maximising the employees’ contribution that takes into account high physical, emotional, and cognitive involvement with their work. Furthermore, in the face of global economic fluctuations and subsequent downturns of the state economies in present times, it has become very arduous for organisations to boost employee performance by centring only on the traditional notions of job satisfaction, involvement and organisational commitment.

There has been a shift in emphasis within the organisational research and practice, away from the temporary generalities of employee sentiments at work (e.g., job involvement or organisational commitment) that might be responsible for organisational effectiveness, such as employee willingness and capability to invest their positive energies at work and working in consonance with organisational objectives, such as work engagement. In fact, the evolution of this recent perspective on employees’ enduring state of emotional involvement with the work, i.e., ‘work engagement’ seems to be a promising strategy for both individual well-being and positive organisational outcomes.

Work engagement is an enhanced way of thinking and acting that brings both personal fulfilment and positive contributions for organisations (Thomas, 2006; Pitt-Catsouphes and Matz-Costa, 2008). As a matter of fact, the continuance of work engagement goes beyond the other established constructs of well-being because it involves the simultaneous activation of personal energies at work. To be specific, work

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness 39

engagement is more than just the investment of a single aspect of the self; it represents the investment of multiple dimensions (physical, emotional, and cognitive energies) so that the experience is holistic and simultaneous (Kahn, 1992; Rich et al., 2010; Christian et al., 2011). Hence, engagement is a broader construct in that it involves holistic investment of the entire self (Saks, 2006), which may lead to the enhanced organisational performance, success, and growth. There is general belief that engagement is an integrative force in organisations that leads to organisational effectiveness.

While the utility of work engagement is widely accepted as a higher-order psychological construct that is manifested by different psychological states of fulfilment (Christian et al., 2011), and in recent years, empirical evidences in western economies have supported its positive relationship with positive organisational outcomes (Harter et al., 2002; Salanova and Schaufeli, 2008; Sonnentag, 2011), yet much remains unknown in the eastern economies, particularly in the Indian context. Being a growing economy, especially the IT sector which is highly characterised by knowledge workers and where revenues are directly proportional to the number of engaged employees (Saradha and Patrick, 2011), work engagement represents the appropriate investment of resources. Thus, it is necessary to understand the relationship between employees’ engagement at work and effectiveness of these organisations for two reasons. First, though a growing body of literature has emerged that focuses on the association between engagement and some critical elements of organisational success, but very few studies have ostensibly explored the relationship between work engagement and organisational effectiveness (Sundraray, 2011). Further, most studies that have focused on the consequences of engagement have examined engagement from an internal perspective by studying how engagement affects employee attitudes and performance (for e.g., Rich et al., 2010; Menguc et al., 2012). Second, despite the considerable progress that has been made in improving the overall understanding of the influence of work engagement on organisational effectiveness, there remains considerable room for development of affective-motivational underpinnings to stimulate organisational effectiveness. Against this backdrop, it has also been reported recently that the relationship between engagement and organisational effectiveness is yet to be confirmed (Cameron et al., 2011), and thus, calling for a more comprehensive approach to understand the relationship between engagement and its organisational outcomes in terms of organisational success, performance, and effectiveness. Cameron et al. (2011) further pointed out that engagement may have a direct influence on organisational effectiveness. The present research attempts to fill this void in the current theory.

Our research explores the viability of work engagement whether that really matters in organisations? We suggest that work engagement positively affects organisational effectiveness. Engaged employees being enthusiastic, dedicated, and psychologically involved in their work, may show willingness to invest their active physical strength and emotional energy towards the fulfilment of desired organisational goals. We are affirmative that academic efforts that explore the impact of work engagement on organisational effectiveness would most likely provide considerable implications for human resource development scholars and professionals.

40 A. Kataria et al.

The study considers employees’ perceptions of the effectiveness in their organisations. Cain (2006) suggests that employees are in the best position to evaluate the effectiveness of the organisation in meeting its often conflicting goals and mission. Earlier studies have also used the stakeholder approach towards the organisational effectiveness while measuring the impact of psychological climate, employee attitudes, and behaviours on the organisational effectiveness (e.g., Biswas, 2006, 10).

2 Model and hypotheses development

2.1 Work engagement

With the advent of positive psychology in organisational settings (Luthans and Peterson, 2002), employees’ psychological connection with their work has gained critical importance in the management discourse of the twenty first century (Bakker et al., 2011). Recent researches have suggested that ‘engaged’ employees are highly energetic and psychologically involved in their work. Further, engaged employees are emotionally attached to their organisations and highly involved in their job with a great enthusiasm for the success of their employer while going extra mile beyond the contractual agreement (Markos and Sridevi, 2010).

Kahn (1990) has pioneered the academic research on engagement using a framework of ‘personal engagement’ and ‘personal disengagement’. He describes personal engagement as “a state, in which employees ‘bring in’ their personal selves during work role performances, investing personal energy and experiencing an emotional connection with their work” (p.694). Numerous definitions with more or less similar viewpoints on engagement have been well constructed. Saks (2006, p.602) defines engagement as “a distinct and unique construct that consists of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural components that are associated with individual role performance”. While expanding Kahn’s (1990) idea of personal engagement, Shuck and Wollard (2010, p.15) define employee engagement in organisational context as “an individual employee’s cognitive, emotional, and behavioural state directed towards desired organisational outcomes”. Further, Schaufeli et al. (2002, p.74) presents an interesting viewpoint on engagement and observe it as an antipode of burnout and yet a unique construct in organisational sciences which signifies “a positive, fulfilling, affective-motivational state of work related well being that is characterised by vigor, dedication, and absorption”. Vigour and dedication represent energy and identification and that have been emerged as direct opposites of two burnout dimensions as emotional exhaustion and cynicism respectively (Maslach and Leiter, 1997; Schaufeli et al., 2002), whereas absorption was found to be a relevant and distinct aspect of work engagement (Schaufeli, et al., 2002). Vigour is characterised by high levels of positive energy and mental resilience at work. It is the willingness of employees’ to invest their efforts in work and persistence even in the face of difficulties. Dedication refers to being strongly involved in one’s work and experiencing a sense of significance, enthusiasm and challenge. It is a state in which employees’ strongly identify themselves with their work and consider it as a meaningful and significant pursuit. Further, absorption is characterised by the full engrossment in one’s work whereby time passes quickly and one finds it difficult to detach himself from work.

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness 41

Accordingly, engaged employees experience their work as something to which they are capable of and willing to invest their positive physical, mental, and emotional energies. In sum, engaged employees bring their positive physical, mental, and emotional energies at work and are capable of and willing to invest their efforts towards the attainment of desired organisational goals.

2.2 Organisational effectiveness

In order to develop and gain sustainable competitive advantage in contemporary business world organisations need to be effective. Organisational effectiveness is “a company’s long term ability to achieve consistently its strategic and operational goals” (Fallon and Brinkerhoff, 1996). Moreover, organisations are constructed to be the most effective and efficient social units (Cetin and Cerit, 2010). Notably, both the term effectiveness and efficiency are sometimes used in the place of another while referring to the concept of organisational effectiveness. While, organisational effectiveness is a broader term encompassing multiple constituents of organisational performance in terms of increased output, quality, quantity, adaptability, and efficiency. Efficiency is concerned with the optimal use of organisational resources. More specifically, it is the ratio of output to input and an inward phenomenon. Drucker (1993) further clarifies the misconception while describing the effectiveness as ‘doing the right things’ and efficiency as ‘doing the things right’.

Organisational effectiveness has been viewed as the ultimate dependent variable in most organisational research (Cameron and Whetton, 1983; Goodman and Pennings, 1977; Hossein et al., 2011) and therefore, it is one of the most extensively researched topics in organisational sciences (Rojas, 2000; Henri, 2004). It was originated in the 1930s and faced a slow initial phase of development due to a lack of theoretical justification (Hannan and Freeman, 1977). Later, the concept was approached and expanded largely by several organisational theorists, researchers and academicians between 1960s to 1980s. Hannan and Freeman (1977), defines organisational effectiveness as “the degree of congruence between organisational goals and observable outcomes”. Steers (1977), defines organisational effectiveness as “the extent to which an organisation is able to achieve its goals”. On the other hand, Yuchtman and Seashore (1967) views organisational effectiveness as “the ability of an organisation to exploit the organisation in the acquisition of critical resources”. Consistent with the goal system approach, Mott (1972) defines organisational effectiveness as “the ability of an organisation to mobilise its centers of power, for action, production and adaptation”. According to this view, organisational effectiveness comprises of three elements

a productivity

b adaptability

c flexibility.

42 A. Kataria et al.

Productivity deals with the quantity and quality of the product or service, and the efficiency with which it is delivered. Adaptability has two constituents:

a symbolic adaptability

b behavioural adaptability.

Symbolic adaptability refers to both anticipating problems in advance and developing satisfactory and timely solutions to them in addition to staying abreast of new technologies and methods applicable to the activities of the organisation. Behavioural adaptability explicates prompt and prevalent acceptance of solutions (Mott, 1972; Luthans et al., 1988). Flexibility has been considered as conceptually different from adaptability as organisational changes that result from meeting emergencies are usually temporary, usually the organisation returns to its pre-emergency structure, whereas adaptive changes are more likely to be permanent (Mott, 1972; Samantara, 2004). More recently, organisational effectiveness has been viewed as “a company’s long term ability to achieve consistently its strategic and operational goals” (Fallon and Brinkerhoff, 1996).

In sum, organisational effectiveness has been widely accepted as “the degree to which an organisation realises its goals” (Daft, 1995). Additionally, the term effectiveness is well-rounded to encompass several aspects of efficiency and adaptability (Cetin and Cerit, 2010). An effective organisation is both efficient in economic and technical aspects, and able to adapt itself to the external changes as well (Carnall, 2003). Keeping the available literature corpus in mind, it has been observed that there are many foci on defining organisational effectiveness (Mzozoyana, 2002), and varied viewpoints dominate the organisational effectiveness literature and its conceptualisation. Further, due its multidimensional and complex character (Cameron, 1986b), it has been suggested that an organisation can be simultaneously judged effective by one criterion and ineffective by another. In fact, it largely depends on the criteria of the researcher that is being used to evaluate organisational effectiveness.

Katz and Kahn (1966) have recognised the significance of employees’ positive behaviours to achieve organisational effectiveness. Achieving organisational effectiveness requires talented and engaged employees whose capability and willingness to invest personal attitudinal and behavioural energies at work largely affects the productivity, adaptability, efficiency, and flexibility of an organisation. As observed, employees’ active psychological state at work is of greater significance when it comes to innovation, organisational performance, and competitive advantage (Bakker and Schaufeli, 2008). Based on the previous suppositions and logic in the synchronic literature concerning the organisational context of engagement, it is argued that work engagement will be related to organisational effectiveness. This is because organisational effectiveness takes into account various elements in terms of quality, quantity, efficiency, adaptability, growth, and flexibility pertaining to the increased organisational performance and for which employee engagement has recently begun to be considered as a primal notion to consider upon. Keeping this in mind, it is stated that work engagement in terms of vigour, dedication, and absorption significantly affects the organisational effectiveness. The study sets out to validate a structural model wherein work engagement as a whole predicts positively the organisational effectiveness.

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness 43

Figure 1 The conceptual model

Work engagement Organisational

effectiveness

(quantity, quality, efficiency,

productivity adaptability, flexibility)

Vigour

Dedication

Absorption

The hypothesis of the study is as follows:

H1 Work engagement in terms of vigour, dedication, and absorption will have a positive impact upon organisational effectiveness.

3 Method

3.1 Participants

The respondents were 304 employees working as software developers, programmers, team leaders, project managers, and administrative personnel in 27 randomly selected IT organisations across the national capital region (NCR), India. A covering letter delineating the reason for the study was attached with each questionnaire stating about the voluntary and anonymous nature of this study. Participants were also assured of maintaining the confidentiality of responses. Completed questionnaires were returned to the researcher via mail or in-person. Of the 304 participants’, a large proportion (68%) were males and the rest were females. The average age of the participants was 33 years. The work experience profile of the participants varies from the minimum five years of experience from a maximum of 13 years and the average work experience was 7.5 years. A large portion (86%) of the participants was having less than or equal to ten years of work experience, and 14% were having the highest years of experience that is 10 to 13. 27% were unmarried of all the participants and the rest married. The sample was comprised of management graduates (65%) and engineering graduates (35%).

3.2 Measures

3.2.1 Work engagement

Work engagement was measured with the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) reported by Schaufeli et al. (2006a). The scale consists of nine items and measures three

44 A. Kataria et al.

sub-dimensions of work engagement as vigour, dedication, and absorption which have three items each as discussed earlier. All items relating to these three sub dimensions were measured on a seven-point scale ranging from 0 = ‘never’ to 6 = ‘always’. Sample items are as follows, including one sample item from each of the three sub-scales. ‘At my work, I feel bursting with energy (vigour), ‘My job inspires me’ (dedication), and ‘I get carried away when I am working’(absorption). Cronbach alpha for this scale is 0.91.

3.2.2 Organisational effectiveness

An 8-item scale developed by Mott (1972) was used to gauge the overall effectiveness, a three-factor structure and summative effectiveness scale. Mott (1972) completed ten studies to assess the validity of organisational effectiveness questionnaire and argued that subjective measures provide a valid measure of effectiveness (London and Boucher, 2000). Since then, it has been found to be the most frequently used criteria in various models pertaining to effectiveness (Steers, 1975; Luthans et al., 1988; Sharma and Samantara, 1995; London and Boucher, 2000; Hoy and Miskel, 2001; Tarter and Hoy, 2004; Elmuti et al., 2009). The entire measure is found in Hoy and Miskel (2001, p.307).

The scale consists of eight items measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1 to 5 on which employees are asked to describe quality, quantity, efficiency, adaptability, and flexibility of the organisation, e.g., ‘How good is the quality of goods or services produced by the people you know in your division’. Each item needed a different adjective as its response, so the scaling of the items was different. The alpha (α) coefficient of reliability was .88 validity of the scale has been supported by several studies (Hoy and Ferguson, 1985; Miskel et al., 1983; Mott, 1972; Uline et al., 1998; Tarter and Hoy, 2004).

3.3 Control variables

Employees’ age, gender, marital status, and work experience were modelled as control variables in the present study. Age was measured as continuous variable, Gender and marital status were measured as categorical variable, and work experience (as years in job) was modelled as continuous variable.

3.4 Data analysis

As self-reports were used in this study, we considered the recommendations of Podsakoff et al. (2003), to test for common method bias. Consequently, we performed Harman’s 1-factor test with confirmatory factor analyses (CFA; e.g., Iverson and Maguire, 2000). Secondly, the analysis of moments structure (AMOS 18.0) was used to examine the structural models. The statistical analysis included structural equation modelling approach, a two-stage methodology: the measurement model and the structure model recommended by Anderson and Gerbing (1988). Measurement model was tested using confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of the relationships between the indicators and their respective latent variables. Two structural models allowed us to test the study hypotheses. Appropriateness of the models has been assessed by applying the following indexes:

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness 45

a The χ2 test-tests the difference between the predicted and observed correlations, a non-significant χ2 indicates a good model fit (Qian and Daniels, 2008). However, with regard to large sample base, χ2 has its limitations in rejecting the good-fitting models on the basis of poor evaluation (Tabachnick and Fidell, 1996; Giorgi, 2010). Therefore, a number of other fit indices have been recommended to assess the good-fit of the model (Giorgi, 2010).

b The comparative fit index (CFI), acceptable value 0.90, and values close to 0.95 indicate good model fit.

c The normed fit index (NFI), acceptable value 0.90, and values close to 0.95 indicate good model fit.

d The root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA), values ≤ 0.08 (Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1989) is deemed as acceptable fit whereas values ≤ 0.06 indicate good model fit (Byrne, 2001).

4 Results

Table 1 presents the means, standard deviations, correlations of the key variables in this study.

4.1 Test for common method bias

In an effort to determine the extent of common method bias, CFA was used to implement the Harman’s 1-factor test. The output of CFA produced the following fit statistics: χ2 = 5.55, p < .05; NFI = 0.53; CFI = 0.61; and RMSEA = 0.12. The fit statistics showed that the 1-factor model did not fit the data well. The results of these analyses suggest that one single factor cannot account for the variance in the data and so we cannot consider the common method variance to be a serious concern in this dataset and thus is unlikely to confound the interpretation of results. Table 1 Descriptive statistics and correlations of key variables (N-304)

Mean S.D 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

1 Vigour 5.16 1.07 - 2 Dedication 5.84 .81 .78** - 3 Absorption 5.39 .98 .62** .72** - 4 Employee

engagement 16.39 2.23 .82** .75** .76** -

5 Productivity 3.63 .64 .35** .20** .27** .36** - 6 Adaptability 3.63 .66 .40** .28** .26** .41** .36** - 7 Flexibility 3.86 .76 .13* .10 .17** .17** .15* .20** - 8 Organisational

effectiveness 11.14 1.45 .40** .27** .33** .44** .68** .73** .69** -

Notes: *p ≤ .05, **p ≤ .01

46 A. Kataria et al.

4.2 Measurement model

In order to validate the theoretically-based three-factor structure of UWES-9, we first conducted CFA to evaluate the structure of observed measures of the three dimensions of work engagement. We compared the fit of a one-factor solution in which all the nine items were loaded onto one single variable. Results indicated a poor fit (χ2 = 131.73, df = 27, p < .01, RMSEA = 0.11, NFI = 0.81, CFI = 0.84), we then compared the fit of one-factor model to a three-factor measurement model in which each of the items was loaded onto their respective dimensions of work engagement. Results indicated that the three-factor model fit the data well (χ2 = 74.65, df = 24, p < .01, RMSEA = 0.08, NFI = 0.90, CFI = 0.92), and significantly better than the one-factor model.

We then performed CFA for the organisational effectiveness scale. The analysis compared the fit of a three-factor model for three organisational effectiveness dimensions (productivity, adaptability, and flexibility) to the alternative fit of a one-factor model. The results reveal following fit indices: χ2 = 56.34, df = 18, p < .01, RMSEA = 0.08, NFI = 0.88, CFI = 0.92 for three-factor model, and χ2 = 35.43, df = 20, p < .01, RMSEA = 0.05, NFI = 0.94, CFI = 0.97 for one-factor model. A chi square difference test indicated that the one-factor model fit significantly better than the three-factor model (chi square difference = 20.91; df = 2; p ≤ .001). The findings thus support its superiority over the three-factor model.

Table 2 CR and AVE

Factor CR AVE Indicator Standardised loading

Vigour .85 .66 Vigour1 .74

Vigour2 .70

Vigour3 .66

Dedication .79 .56 Dedication1 .72

Dedication2 .69

Dedication3 .55

Absorption .83 .62 Absorption1 .65

Absorption2 .75

Absorption3 .57

Productivity .87 .66 Quantity .48

Quality .61

Efficiency .65

Adaptability .87 .78 Symbolic adaptability1 .64

Symbolic adaptability2 .60

Behavioural adaptability1 .59

Behavioural adaptability2 .61

Flexibility 1.00 1.00 Flexibility 1 1.00

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness 47

The standardised loadings of latent variables on indicators ranged from .48 to .72 and all of the relationships between the indicator and their respective latent variables were found to be statistically significant (p = < 0.001). All indicator factor loadings should be significant and exceed .45 (Jöreskog and Sörbom, 1989). Since flexibility was a single item variable, its factor loadings have been restrained to 1 and the error variance to 0. The composite reliabilities (CR), the average variance extracted (AVE), and the factor loadings are listed in Table 2, indicating adequate reliability and convergent validity of the measurement model.

4.3 Structural model

The results from SEM support the conceptual model (Figure 1) with a χ2 = 13.10, df = 6. The χ2⁄df ratio of 2.18, p > .001, indicating a good match between the proposed conceptual model and observed data. Careful observations of the other fit indices provided further support. As, shown in Table 3, the CFI and NFI were 0.982 and 0.968 respectively, exceeding the 0.95 criterion. The RMSEA value was 0.063. In combination, these fit indices suggests a good fit of the proposed model. Table 3 Model fit

Fit indices χ2 df p RMSEA AGFI GFI CFI NFI TLI Hypothesised model

13.10 6 .00 .06 .91 .94 .98 .97 .96

The path analysis indicated that vigour, dedication, and absorption significantly predicted the criterion variable organisational effectiveness. Results suggest that vigour had the most effect on organisational effectiveness, followed by the dedication, and finally absorption. For a quick review of the results, the direct causal effects between the study variables are shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2 The standardised regression coefficients

.70

.41**

.28** .71

.33

.21**

Work engagement

.78

.62

.72

Vigour

Dedication

Absorption

Organisational effectiveness

Productivity

Adaptability

Flexibility

Note: Standardised path coefficients of vigour, dedication, and absorption on the organisational effectiveness (significant at p < . 001).

48 A. Kataria et al.

5 Discussion

The preceding results exemplify the fact that work engagement entails a positive relationship with organisational effectiveness. It also exhibits a positive impact on organisational effectiveness. Findings indicate that employees’ affective and motivational responses to work in a specific organisational setting may determine the degree to which an organisation is able to achieve its goals. This viewpoint is in harmony with Kahn (1992) that high engagement level of employees is associated with higher growth and increased productivity of an organisation. Engaged employees engross their heart and mind to work, they have consistently been shown to be more productive, profitable, safer, healthier, and less likely to turnover (Fleming and Asplund, 2007; Wagner and Harter, 2006; Wollard, 2011). Furthermore, the results of this study are in line with the conceptual evidences provided in previous studies (Erickson, 2005; Saks, 2006; Macey and Schneider, 2008; Babcock-Roberson and Strickland, 2010; Sundaray, 2011; Welch, 2011).

Saks (2006) suggests that when employees are engaged they are more likely to do things that substantiate organisational effectiveness. Hence, the increasingly documented relationship between engagement and organisational effectiveness can be explained in a variety of ways. To embark upon them, it is vividly observed that engaged employees often experience positive emotions (Bindl and Parker, 2010; Bakker et al., 2011). Positive emotions for instance compassion, joy, etc., lead to the positive activities in organisations like helping behaviour, and that indeed, create an upward spiral of positive feelings (Cameron et al., 2003). Further, when organisation members observe and experience love, compassion and other positive emotions, they enhance their pride in the organisation, enjoyment of the work, and satisfaction with the job which are indispensable ingredients to the managerial success and the organisational excellence (Cameron et al., 2003; Fineman, 1996).

The study in the context suggests that vigour, dedication, and absorption precede organisational effectiveness. It is argued that engaged employees being dedicated experience a sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride and challenge in their work resulting in better task performance. Dedicated employees tend to understand and support the vision of the organisation. Whereas, lack of employee dedication issue leads to high employee turnover and thus, resulting in low organisational effectiveness. It has been suggested previously that to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of organisations, dedicated and committed participation from employees is of profound significance (Saradha and Patrick, 2011).

It has also been exposed that engaged employees are more focused and vigilant towards their jobs and perform better (Christian et al., 2011), they tend to anticipate problems in advance in order to develop timely solutions for them and thereby ameliorates the possibility of organisational adaptability. In addition, engaged employees experience a high level of connectivity with their work and therefore, they strive towards task related goals which may lead to high levels of task performance (Christian et al., 2011). This follows, engaged employees are dedicated fully to achieve the task proficiency at work place. Task proficiency results in

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness 49

higher productivity and better quality of goods and services, consequently augments the organisational effectiveness.

The available diachronic literature taxonomy suggests that engaged employees are happily involved in their jobs so that the time flies unnoticed and one finds it difficult to detach oneself from work (Schaufeli et al., 2002). Results of the study indicate that absorbed employees are significantly and positively associated with effective organisations. It is precisely because of the fact that the total engrossment of the employee in his work with full concentration increases his effectiveness and efficiency at work place in terms of increased output and better quality of goods and services which may enhance customers’ satisfaction and consequently elevate organisational performance.

The aforementioned discussion divulges the fact that engaged employees may alleviate organisational effectiveness through high levels of positive affect, dedication, and involvement with the work. Additionally, as already expounded that engaged employees perform their tasks more effectively and efficiently (Christian et al., 2011). Furthermore, it has candidly been observed that even the individual task performance is a necessary pre-condition for organisational level outcomes (Gruman and Saks, 2011), for instance, organisational performance and effectiveness signifies a collaborative effort of the individual employees. Noted in this direction, the engagement of one person may transfer to others and indirectly improve composite performance of teams (Bakker et al., 2011) which consequently enhance organisational performance.

Finally, consequences of employee engagement are thought to be of valuable to organisational effectiveness (Macey and Schneider, 2008; Erickson, 2005). The investigation of variables in the present study provides a plinth for the words that work engagement can be a deciding factor for organisational effectiveness (Sundaray, 2011).

The implications of this research could provide interest to both practitioners and researchers. If the results of this study hold across other samples, managers could be encouraged to know that an employees’ engagement with the work may influence organisational effectiveness. Researchers should be encouraged at the possibility of exploring individual and organisational peculiarities that might explain the mechanism through which work engagement influence organisational effectiveness. The relationship between work engagement and organisational effectiveness may not be straightforward that is though employees’ engagement level at work influence firm’s performance and efficiency, this does not necessarily imply that engaged employees will uniformly perform in ways to benefit the organisation; contextual factors are likely to function as regulative aspect of engagement and influence the extent to which they augment organisational effectiveness. Further expansion can be made in terms of recognising and examining the effect of mediating and moderating variables between engagement and organisational effectiveness.

6 Limitations and future work directions

The study findings must be considered within certain limitations pertaining to the study-design. First, the cross-sectional nature of the data does not allow the authors to

50 A. Kataria et al.

make causal inferences. Previous studies examining the relationship between employee engagement and organisational level outcomes have provided strong objective judgments based on experiments, and longitudinal study designs compared to the present study. Hence, to establish more certain causality of the relationship between the current study variables of particular interest such experimental studies should be undertaken to make more objective and independent assessments. Further, the self-report nature of the data used for the study and therefore, chances of common-method bias would be a hindrance to generalise the findings in the present study. Though, we checked for the method variance by applying Harman’s single factor test and the results revealed that common method variance cannot be considered a serious deficiency in the dataset, the possibility of this error cannot be all together discounted.

In the future, this study could be extended to examine the association between work engagement and organisational effectiveness with more objective data in addition to the subjective measures particularly, on organisational effectiveness. The measure of organisational effectiveness capturing employees’ perceptions of effectiveness in terms of productivity, adaptability, and flexibility of their firm, and thus does not provide a concrete and objective assessment. Additionally, other indicators of organisational effectiveness like profitability, output, and managerial effectiveness can be included in further studies to maximise the scope of measurement of the variable. To add even more, the mediating, moderating variables that could affect the impact of employee engagement on organisational effectiveness can be explored using the findings from current study.

7 Conclusions

The current research contributes to the ongoing debate about the strategic value of employees’ work engagement in organisations. Our findings suggest that engaged employees being proactive, enthusiastic, and committed in their work are more able to favourably affect the organisational success and performance. The investigation adds to the theoretical development of the nascent construct ‘work engagement’ with a novel contribution to establishing explicitly its association with organisational effectiveness. This further signifies a call for organisations to provide a congenial human resource development climate in order to create conditions for high engagement level of employees and thereby achieving organisational effectiveness. In sum, engaged employees may possibly be one of the key elements in organisations that are necessary to be effectively managed and sustained to augment organisational effectiveness.

Acknowledgements

The funding agency for this study was the University Grant Commission which provided a grant in the form of Junior Research Fellowship to pursue a full-time PhD from Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee. However, the implications, conclusions, and recommendations are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the funding body.

The role of work engagement in the pursuit of organisational effectiveness 51

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