Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice

Everyday connotations of engagement refer to involvement, commitment, passion, enthusiasm, absorption, focused effort, zeal, dedication, and energy.In a similar vein, the Merriam-Webster dictionary describes the state of being engaged as "emotional involvement or commitment" and as "being in gear".This chapter focuses on engagement at work, a desirable condition for employees as well as for the organization they work for.Although typically "employee engagement" and "work engagement" are used interchangeably, this chapter prefers the latter because it is more specific.Work engagement refers to the relationship of the employee with his or her work, whereas employee engagement may also include the relationship with the organization.As we will see below, by including the relationship with the organization the distinction between engagement and traditional concepts such as organizational commitment and extra-role behavior becomes blurred.Although the meaning of engagement at work may seem clear at first glance, a closer look into the literature reveals the indistinctness of the concept.As with many other psychological terms, work engagement is easy to recognize in practice yet difficult to define.In large part, as Macey and Schneider (2008: 3) argued, the confusion about the meaning of engagement, "…can be attributed to the 'bottom-up' manner in which the engagement notion has quickly evolved within the practitioner community".However, this bottom-up method that flourishes in business is not only at odds with the top-down academic approach that requires a clear and unambiguous definition of the term, but it also hampers the understanding of work engagement for practical purposes.A Babylonian confusion of tongues precludes a proper assessment, as well interventions to