employee engagement: validating the isa

Conference of the International Journal of Arts & Sciences, CD-ROM. ISSN: 1943-6114 :: 11(01):99–108 (2018)

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT: VALIDATING THE ISA ENGAGEMENT SCALE

Passanan Phuangthuean, Waiphot Kulachai and Kwanta Benchakhan Burapha University, Thailand Thaywuse Borriraksuntikul Ministry of Interior, Thailand Patipol Homyamyen Rajamangala University of Technology Suvarnabhumi, Thailand

The main objective of this study was to validate the ISA engagement scale developed by Soane et al. (2012). The data were collected from 152 government officers in the Ministry of Interior, Thailand. The second-order confirmatory factor analysis was employed to validate the scale. The results showed that all sub-scales of the latent variable (employee engagement) had a high level of reliability. The measurement models of the three dimensions (intellectual engagement, social engagement, and affective engagement) had a good fit with empirical data. There was a reasonable fit for the secondorder employee engagement CFA. We concluded that the ISA engagement scale showed reasonable fit and could be applied in the Thai context. Keywords: Empployee engagement, ISA, CFA.

Introduction Employee engagement can be defined “as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli et al., 2002). However, Kenexa (2008) defined employee engagement as “the extent to which employees are motivated to contribute to organizational success, and are willing to apply discretionary effort to accomplishing tasks important to the achievement of organizational goals.” Based on these definitions, employee engagement is different from organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, and job involvement. It has unique construct consisting of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components. All these components are associated with individual performance (Saks, 2006). Employee engagement has provoked a great attention recently since it has been claimed as an important factor for both employee and organization performance. It could result in employee satisfaction (Saks, 2006; De Simone et al., 2016; Coco et al., 2011), employee performance (Mayo, 2016; Lathabhavan et al., 2017), negative intention to turnover (Saks, 2006: Gyensare, et al., 2017; Lathabhavan et al., 2017), innovative behaviors (Garg & Dhar, 2017),

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Employee Engagement: Validating the ISA Engagement Scale

organizational citizenship behavior (Saks, 2006). It also enhances an organization to gain the competitive advantages (Albrecht et al., 2015), and to obtain the financial advantages (Richman, 2006; Coco et al., 2011). Hence, engaging employees, especially talented people must be the first priority of an organization (Woodruffe, 2006). Recent studies on employee engagement usually emphasize on antecedents (Saks, 2006; Rich, LePine, & Crawford, 2010; Wollard & Shuck, 2011; ArunKumar & Renugadevi, 2013; Rasheed et al., 2013; Baily et al., 2017), and the consequences (Saks, 2006; Rich, LePine, & Crawford, 2010; ArunKumar & Renugadevi, 2013; Rasheed et al., 2013; Baily et al., 2017) of employee engagement. Some studies focused on measuring the employee engagement (Langford, 2009; Cotton, 2012; Fletcher et al., 2014; Imandin, Bisschoff, & Botha, 2014; Kumar & Pansari, 2014; Snowden & MacArthur, 2014; Nienaber, 2015; Ahmed et al., 2016; Shahrazad et al., 2016). Measuring employee engagement has been developed over time. Recently, there are some instruments have been developed; the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) by Schaufeli and Bakker (2003), the IES 16-item measure developed by Robinson et al. (2004), the Shirom Melamed Vigor Measure (SMVM) developed by Shirom (2004), the two-6 item questionnaire scale developed by Saks (2006), Job Engagement Scale (JES) developed by Rich, LePine and Crawford (2010), the 9-item ISA engagement measure developed by Soane et al. (2012). However, the UWES is the most popular measure widely used and measured over 60,000 individuals in the world (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2010). However, Fletcher et al. (2014) suggested that ISA engagement they capture three dimensions; intellectual, social, and affective engagement, is more powerful than the UWES in predicting employee performance. Since the authors are interested in the impacts of employee engagement toward employee performance, we have decided to employ the ISA engagement for our future research. Prior to using an employee engagement measure in our future study, the ISA engagement should be validated whether it is suitable for the context of our study. Literature Review Measuring Employee Engagement There are several instruments developed to measure employee engagement. The most popular and widely is the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) by Schaufeli and Bakker (2003). This measurement comprises of three facets; vigor, dedication, and absorption. Vigor is measured by six items associated with a high level of energy to perform a task, a high level of effort, not being easily fatigued, and diligence or persistence in dealing with problems and difficulties. The sample items are “At my work, I feel bursting with energy,” “At my job, I feel strong and vigorous,” and “When I get up in the morning, I feel like going to work.” Dedication is a five-item measure associated with feeling important, enthusiastic, proud, inspired, and challenged in one’s job. The sample items are “I find the work that I do full of meaning and purpose,” “I am enthusiastic about my job,” and “My job inspires me.” The third facet is absorption which is assessed by six items. For instances, “Time flies when I’m working,” “When I am working, I forget everything else around me,” and “I feel happy when I am working intensely.” The IES Engagement Scale developed by the Institute for Employment Studies (IES). The development of the measurement was led by Robinson et al. (2004). Originally, twelve statements were developed to measure employee engagement. As they concerned that the longer the questionnaire, the less likely individuals want to complete it. They, therefore, considered the twelve statements into five subsets; positive attitude and pride of one’s organization, belief in the organization, two-way engagement relationship, altruism, and high level of effort. Then, five statements are “I speak highly of this organisation to my friends,” “I would be happy for my friends and family to use this organisation’s products/services,” “This organisation really inspires the very best in me in the way of job performance,” “I try to help others in this organisation whenever I can,” and “I volunteer to do things outside my job that contribute to the organisation’s objectives.”

Passanan Phuangthuean et al.

The Shirom Melamed Vigor Measure (SMVM) was developed by Shirom (2004). This measure comprises of three dimensions; physical strength, emotional energy, and cognitive liveliness. Physical strength is measured by five items while an emotional energy, and cognitive liveliness are measured by four, and five items in that order. All items are measured using 7-point Likert’s scale. The samples items of physical strength are “I feel energetic, “I feel full of pep,” and “I feel vigorous.” The samples items of emotional energy are “I feel able to show warmth to others,” “I feel able to be sensitive to the needs of coworkers and customers,” and “I feel I am capable of investing emotionally in coworkers and customers.” Finally, the samples items of cognitive liveliness are “I feel I am able to contribute new ideas,” “I feel I can think rapidly,” and “I feel able to be creative.” Saks (2006) developed the two-6 item questionnaire scale to measure engagement. His scale comprises of six items for measuring job engagement, and another six items for organization engagement. The samples item of job engagement is “Sometimes I am so into my job that I lose track of time” and for organization engagement, “One of the most exciting things for me is getting involved with things happening in this organization.” All items are measured using 5-point Likert’s scale. According to his study, one item was removed since this item loaded below .30. Hence, only five items for job engagement are remaining. For organization engagement, all six items .75 or higher. He suggested that “employee engagement is a meaningful construct that is worthy of future research.” Job Engagement Scale (JES) developed by Rich, LePine, and Crawford (2010). This measure consists of three dimensions; physical, emotional, and cognitive engagement. Each facet is measured by six items. The sample items of physical engagement include “I work with intensity on my job,” “I exert my full effort to my job,” and “I devote a lot of energy to my job.” The sample items for emotional engagement include “I am enthusiastic about my job,” “I feel energetic about my job,” and “I am interested in my job.” These are some recent measures developed to assess employee engagement. However, we feel that the ISA Engagement scale developed by Soane et al. (2012) is the most suitable for our interest as suggested by Fletcher et al. (2014) that the ISA engagement is powerful in predicting employee performance. The development of the ISA Engagement Scale is as discussed in the next topic. Development of ISA Engagement Scale The ISA Engagement Scale was developed by Soane et al. (2012). Their developed the scale based on Kahn’s (1990) concepts. The original version of the scale consisted of 21 items; eight items for intellectual and social engagement, and 5 items for affective engagement. All items were developed based on their theoretical development and previous concepts of similar construct. Then, they conducted a pilot study by asking employees from various organizations to complete the questionnaire. Factor analysis was employed to investigate whether a number of variables of interest are linearly related to a smaller number of unobservable factors. Hair et al., (2010) described it as “an independent technique, whose primary purpose is to define the underlining structure among the variables in the analysis.” According to the results derived from principle components analysis using Varimax rotation, the three-facet model of engagement was supported. They, later, conducted another two studies; Study 1 and Study 2 as follows: They conducted the Study 1 by asking 540 employees working in a UK manufacturing company which produces blow-moulded plastic bottles. Completed questionnaires of 278 were obtained. According to this study, the respondents were asked to complete the 7-point Likert scale anchored by 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). The screening analysis using Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient revealed that two items of social engagement were deleted since their inter-correlations among the items were lower than .30. Hence, 19 items remained. Later, they conducted exploratory factor analyses for each facet of engagement using principle components analysis, orthogonal, and Varimax rotation in that order. The analysis results suggested removing two items of intellectual engagement. The 17 remaining items comprised of 5 items for affective engagement, 6 items for each of social and intellectual engagement. After that, they examined internal consistency of each facet using Cronbach’s alpha (Cronbach, 1951). Only 9 from 17 items were chosen since they had high internal reliability, and

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high total score variance. Finally, they performed a confirmatory factor analysis in order to test how well measured variables represent a small number of constructs. The results revealed that the overall model fit was very strong (X2 = 64, df = 24, normed chi-square = 2.67, GFI = .95, SRMR = .04, RMSEA = .08, CFI = .98). Affective engagement provided the highest factor loading of .98 followed by of .73 for intellectual engagement, and of .60 for social engagement. Each facet revealed the high reliabilities; .94 for affective engagement, .92 for social engagement, and .90 for intellectual engagement. The study 2 was conducted to examine the relationship between employee engagement and organizational outcomes; task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intentions. The 835 respondents working in a retail organization were asked to complete the questionnaire, and 759 completed questionnaires obtained. The second-order confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the three facets loaded strongly to the employee engagement; .33 for social engagement, .73 for intellectual engagement, and .95 for social engagement. Each facet revealed the high reliabilities; .95 for affective engagement and intellectual engagement, and .88 for social engagement. The findings of this study indicated that social engagement had the negative influence on turnover intentions. However, affective engagement and intellectual engagement are influential predictors of task performance, organizational citizenship behavior, and turnover intentions. In conclusion, the three facets of engagement performed a good validity. Methods Participants The samples of this study were 145 government officials working for the Local Administrative Organizations (LAOs) in Suphanburi, Thailand. Most of them were female (72.4%), More than half of them are married (53.8%). The average age, and tenure of the respondents was 39.84 (SD = 9.58), and 11.76 (SD = 6.52) in that order. Measures The ISA engagement scale was employed in this study. This instrument has three dimensions with three items each. The respondents were asked to complete the 5-point Likert’s scale anchored by “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” The analysis revealed an acceptable level of reliability for all dimensions with the Cronbach’s alpha of .897 for social engagement, .817 for intellectual engagement, and .896 for affective engagement. Analysis The second-order confirmatory factor analysis was employed to validate the ISA Engagement Scale. This analysis method can test how well measured variables represent a small number of constructs. The number of items representing a construct should be at least three, preferably four. Chi-square goodnessof-fit statistic and degree of freedom, two absolute fit indices (GFI, RMSEA), one incremental fit index (CFI), and one parsimony fit index (AGFI) will be examined whether the model is fit with the empirical data. (Hair et al., 2010). Results The results revealed the model chi-square of 42.488 with 24 degrees of freedom. The p-value was significant. According to Hair et al. (2010), the number of sample less than 250, and the observed variables less than 12, the insignificant p-value should be expected. Hence, the chi-square goodness-of-fit statistic did not indicate that the observed covariance matrix matches the estimated covariance matrix


within sampling variance. The value of GFI and RMSEA, the absolute fit index, were .946 and .073 in that order. This value indicates additional support for model fit. The normed chi-square was 1.769 which falls below 2.00 indicating an acceptable fit for the CFA model. According to the incremental fit indices, the CFI, an incremental fit index, had a value of .978, which exceeds the suggested cut-off values. In addition, the AGFI, a parsimony fit index, had the value of .899, which reflects a moderate model fit. All information of goodness-of-fit statistics is illustrated in Figure 1 and Table 1.

Figure 1. CFA model of employee engagement

Table 1. The CFA Goodness-of-fit statistics Goodness-of-fit statistics Chi-square Degree of freedom p-value Normed chi-square

Value 42.448 24 .011 1.769

GFI

.946

RMSEA

.073

CFI

.946

AGFI

.899

The authors had checked a number of model diagnostics since they may suggest the way for improving the model. The authors allowed the errors of estimation to covariance (the measurement error of item 5 and Item 8) in accordance with the modification indices. The CFA model was then re-estimated. The overall model fit statistics of the analysis are detailed in Figure 2 and Table 2.

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Figure 2. Revised CFA model of employee engagement

Table 2. The revised CFA Goodness-of-fit statistics Goodness-of-fit statistics Chi-square Degree of freedom p-value Normed chi-square

Value 29.549 23 .166 1.281

GFI

.960

RMSEA

.014

CFI

.992

AGFI

.922

The results revealed the model chi-square of 29.549 with 23 degrees of freedom. The p-value was insignificant. Hence, the chi-square goodness-of-fit statistic indicated that the observed covariance matrix matches the estimated covariance matrix within sampling variance. The value of GFI and RMSEA, the absolute fit index, were .960 and .014 in that order. This value indicates a good fit of the model. The normed chi-square was 1.281 which falls below 2.00 indicating a good fit for the CFA model. According to the incremental fit indices, the CFI, an incremental fit index, had a value of .992, which exceeds the suggested cut-off values. In addition, the AGFI, a parsimony fit index, had the value of .922, which reflects an excellent model fit. Figure 2 reveals that the three dimensions of employee engagement had factor loading of .80 for social engagement, .82 for intellectual engagement, and .86 for affective engagement. These indicate that all dimensions contributed strongly to the employee engagement construct. The results revealed the standardized factor loadings, an average convergent validity, and the construct validity as illustrated in Table 3.


Table 3. Standardized factor loadings, average variance extracted, and reliability estimated Dimension/Item

Standardized factor loadings

Intellectual engagement 1. I focus hard on my work

.77

2. I concentrate on my work

.75

3. I pay a lot of attention to my work

.81

Social engagement 4. I share the same work values as my colleagues

.84

5. I share the same work goals as my colleagues

.88

6. I share the same work attitudes as my colleagues

.87

Affective engagement 7. I feel positive about my work

.81

8. I feel energetic in my work

.91

9. I am enthusiastic in my work

.87

Average variance extracted (AVE)

.604

.746

.747

Construct reliability

.963

.977

.977

According to Table 3, the lowest loading obtained is .75 intellectual engagement (INTELLECTUAL) to item 2 “I concentrate on my work.” All factor loadings were greater than the .70 standard. The average variance extracted estimates and the construct reliabilities are shown in the bottom of the table. The AVE estimates range from 60.4% for intellectual engagement (INTELLECTUAL) to 74.7% for affective engagement (AFFECTIVE). All exceed 50% rule of thumb. The construct reliabilities range from .963 for the intellectual engagement (INTELLECTUAL) construct to .977 for the social (SOCIAL) and affective (AFFECTIVE) constructs. These exceed the .70 standard which indicates adequate reliability. Intellectual engagement (INTELLECTUAL) has three items with the factor loading range from .75.81. The lowest factor loading obtained is .75 linking INTELLECTUAL to item 2 “I concentrate on my work.” The other two factor loadings are greater than .70. The results show average variance extracted (AVE) of .604 suggesting adequate convergence. According to the CR of .963 which greater than .70, it suggests a good reliability. Social engagement (SOCIAL) has three items with the factor loading range from .84-.88. The lowest factor loading obtained is .84 linking SOCIAL to item 4 “I share the same work values as my colleagues.” The other two factor loadings are greater than .70. The results show average variance extracted (AVE) of .746 suggesting adequate convergence. According to the CR of .977 which greater than .70, it suggests a good reliability. Affective engagement (AFFECTIVE) has three items with the factor loading range from .81-.91. The lowest factor loading obtained is .81 linking AFFECTIVE to item 7 “I feel positive about my work I share the same work values as my colleagues.” The other two factor loadings are greater than .70. The results show average variance extracted (AVE) of .747 suggesting adequate convergence. According to the CR of .977 which greater than .70, it suggests a good reliability. Discussion and Conclusion As employee engagement has become an important factor leading to organizational and individual performance, a study on this issue would be very beneficial for all stakeholders. The authors, therefore, are interested in the consequences of employee engagement and would like to conduct a research on this

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issue. However, the valid and reliable measure is a very important tool to obtain primary data. Hence, we have chosen the ISA Engagement Scale since it is fit with our objective. Prior to using this instrument in the Thai context, the ISA Engagement Scale developed by Soane et al. (2012) must be examined and validated. According to our analysis, the ISA Engagement Scale demonstrated a very good validity. Hence, it is applicable and suitable to be applied in the Thai context. References 1.

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