Antecedents of employee engagement : an examination of the banking sector of Nigeria

• Main Author: Egwuonwu, Ifeanyi Celestine
• Published: University of Salford 2016
• Subjects: 332.1068
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.686997

The meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and practitioners. The term has been used differently; either a psychological state or a state of mind. This research aims to study employee engagement antecedents within the Nigerian banking industry with a unique contribution of identifying evolutionary waves in the development of the concept. Drawing on relevant literature, some basic employee engagement antecedents were selected and analysed using a correlational coefficient as well as thematic content analysis process. While much has been written on the topic, little is known about the engagement of administrative workers in most of the developing countries especially in the banking industry of Nigeria. This research fills this gap. Though a lot of research on the antecedents of employee engagement has been carried out with different findings, there is considerable confusion about the meaning of employee engagement. The thesis objectives include: (i) To study selected antecedents of the employee engagement concept within the Nigeria banking sector; (ii) To study and analyse the overlaps between employee engagement and other work attitude concepts (job satisfaction, motivation, employee involvement, employee commitment and organisation citizenship behaviour) with a view to provide more clarity on the overlaps between the concepts. The study was conducted using a mixed methods sequential design involving quantitative (questionnaires) and qualitative (interview exercise) collection of data. 800 employees were selected as the sample population for the study. Empirical findings show a positive correlation between employee engagement and other work attitude concepts (job satisfaction, motivation, employee involvement, employee commitment and organisation citizen behaviour) and define employee engagement as a cultural, multi-faceted concept, that is, a combination of different constructs put together to form a concept. Additionally, this study uncovered few other employee engagement antecedents such as target setting, employee union, economic situations, job security within the Nigeria banking sector, however, further investigation is recommended to clarify these results and explore the possibility of other variable influences. Finally, the knowledge gained from this thesis will be used by students who are interested in the topic of employee engagement, as well as in human resource management reviews, to address issues regarding the employee engagement.