The Meaning and Bleeding of Employee Engagement: How Muddy Is the Water?

If we are to accept engagement as a new and unique concept, it must be distinct from other more established constructs. However, according to Macey and Schneider (2008), engagement behavior is an ‘‘aggregate multidimensional construct.’’ In other words, it is a little bit of this, a little bit of that, some of this, and some of that. For example, they state that behavioral engagement is ‘‘simultaneously citizenship behavior (OCB), role expansion, proactive behavior, and demonstrating personal initiative, all strategically focused in service of organizational objectives’’ (p. 19). Thus, engagement is much more than ‘‘old wine in a new bottle.’’ It is made up of many different wines and spirits all mixed up into a perfect blend—a kind of cocktail construct. However, if the meaning of engagement ‘‘bleeds’’ into so many other more developed constructs, then engagement just becomes an umbrella term for whatever one wants it to be. Macey and Schneider appear to subscribe to the view that engagement is a repackaging of other constructs or the so-called jangle fallacy. However, they take this further than others by describing a trait, state, and behavioral engagement package. Unfortunately, by creating three packages of engagement (trait, state, and behavioral), one is left wondering which of the three should be measured and be the focus of future research. Although they argue that ‘‘identifying these different conceptualizations will help researchers and practitioners have a firmer idea about the locus of the issue when they work with it’’ (p. 6), I believe it will only perpetuate the confusion and inconsistency surrounding the meaning and measurement of engagement. Furthermore, it is questionable whether state engagement is an antecedent that precedes behavioral engagement. In fact, state engagement might occur during and/or after behavioral engagement. At any rate, given that state engagement is an indirect indicator of behavioral engagement, which is observable and ultimately what organizations are most concerned about, the focus and measurement of future research should be behavioral engagement. Macey and Schneider also define engagement in terms of ‘‘discretionary effort or a form of in-role or extra-role effort or behavior’’ (p. 6) that involves adaptive and innovative performance as well as ‘‘behaviors (that) are typically not prescribed and that they go beyond preserving the status quo, and instead focus on initiating or fostering change in the sense of doing something more and/or different’’ (p. 24) and ‘‘going beyond the usual or typical’’ (p. 19). This is problematic for a number of reasons. First, it is not consistent with how engagement has been defined in the academic Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Alan M. Saks. E-mail: saks@utsc.utoronto.ca Address: Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto, 121 St. George Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5S 2E8 Alan M. Saks, Centre for Industrial Relations and Human Resources, University of Toronto. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 1 (2008), 40–43. Copyright a 2008 Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. 1754-9426/08