Engaged at work? An employee engagement model in public relations. Issue 1 (4th March 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Shen, Hongmei; Jiang, Hua
• Is Part Of: Journal of public relations research. Volume 31:Issue 1/2(2019)
• Page Start: 32
• Page End: 49
• Publication Date: 2019-03-04
• Subjects: Employee engagement -- organizational engagement strategy -- positive messaging behavior -- negative messaging behavior -- contextual performance -- structural equation modeling; Public relations -- Periodicals; Public relations -- Research -- Periodicals; 659.205
• DOI: 10.1080/1062726X.2019.1585855
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1062-726X

Abstract

ABSTRACT: Engagement has emerged as an important concept in public relations scholarship. Yet a theoretically informed model with a clear and coherent explication of the construct is still lacking. By situating our study in the internal organizational context, we provided an updated conceptualization and operationalization of employee engagement, proposing a strategy-engagement-behavior three-step employee engagement model. Results from an employee survey ( n = 568) supported our conceptual model, showing that organizational engagement strategies positively predicted employee engagement, which in turn accounted for employees' positive and negative messaging behavior, as well as their contextual performance behavior. After controlling for significant demographic variables such as gender, age, organizational size, number of subordinates, and level of management position, we identified a complete mediation effect of employee engagement in our two-step structural equation modeling analysis.