Antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement among academics in Tanzanian: an integrated theoretical approach

Abstract

This thesis aims to contribute to the theoretical advancement in our understandingof the antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement through introducing anew theoretical model developed by integrating the conservation of resources(COR) theory (Hobfol,1989) the job demands-resources (JD-R) model (Bakker &Demerouti, 2007) and the broaden-and-build (B&B) theory of positive emotions(Fredrickson, 1998). Through this approach, the study identified and examinedfactors influencing employee engagement among academics working in public andprivate universities in Tanzania, and the outcomes associated with having theseengaged academic employees. Job and organization resources in the form of jobcharacteristics, perceived organizational support, organizational justice andrewards; personal resources in the form of intrinsic motivation; and job attitudes inthe form of job satisfaction and affective commitment were assessed as the possibleantecedents to employee engagement. Organizational citizenship behavior andreduced turnover intentions were assessed as the possible outcomes of employeeengagement. In addition, the study tested whether belonging to either a public orprivate university can influence the engagement levels of the academic employees.Using 232 cross-sectional survey responses from academic employees, a series ofmultiple regression analyses and independent t-tests were conducted to test theproposed hypotheses. Findings suggest that some of the proposed resources andjob attitudes significantly predicted employee engagement. Moreover, employeeengagement was found to predict organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) andreduced turnover intentions. Finally, there appeared to be a significant difference inthe levels of engagement of academic employees working in private universitiescompared to those working in public universities. The results of this study havetheoretical implications with regards to our approach in assessing employeeengagement, and practical implication to organizations aiming to have an engagedworkforce, all of which are discussed.

Date of Award	2 May 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Sponsors	Commonwealth Scholarships Commission
Supervisor	Bruce Rayton (Supervisor), Robin Shields (Supervisor) & Veronica Hope Hailey (Supervisor)