Employee Engagement
Supervisor: Clare Kelliher BSc MA PhD
Examining the Meanings and Antecedents of Employee Engagement in Different Contexts
The idea of employee engagement has attracted much attention in recent years from employers and from policy/governmental organisations. Governments have seen high levels of employee engagement as a means to improve performance of firms and thereby increase the competitiveness of the national economy. Many employers have developed mechanisms to monitor engagement levels amongst their workforce and have tried to develop policies and practices to foster high levels of employee engagement. However, there remains a lack of consensus in the academic literature regarding what is actually meant by the term and the extent to which it relates to well-established concepts such as organisational commitment and citizenship behaviour. Similarly beyond a few general conditions, the antecedents of employee engagement are not well understood, nor the conditions in which they apply. For multi-national corporations, there is a further question of whether employee engagement is a universal concept, or whether its meaning and the factors which influence it differ in the different parts of the world in which they operate.
References
Albrecht, S. (2012). Handbook of Employee Engagement: Perspectives, issues, research, opinion and practice. Edward Elgar Publishing.
http://www.shrm.org/about/foundation/research/documents/farndale%20final%20report%2010-11.pdf
The following are potential topics for doctoral study; however Professor Kelliher would be happy to discuss other related topics with applicants.
- Defining employee engagement - exploring the extent to which it is new and distinct from existing constructs
- Employee Engagement and organisational outcomes
- Factors influencing the meaning and nature of employee engagement
- Antecedents of employee engagement and the role of context
Doctoral Researcher Profile
Applicants should have either a background in social sciences or business and should have had some experience of conducting academic research such as an undergraduate or master's thesis which made a significant contribution to the degree.
Professor Clare Kelliher Tel: 01234 751122 email: clare.kelliher@cranfield.ac.uk