The mediating role of social support on selected trait engagement and resilience on employee engagement

Abstract

Employee engagement has received ample attention from scholars, practitioners, researchers, and consulting bodies. Due to the rising level of uncertainty in the business environment, employee engagement construct has become well-known in human resource management (HRM) as a means to address this need and to increase employee productivity to remain competitive in the ever-increasing globalisation. However, the fundamental issue around this subject matter is that many theoretical and empirical studies on employee engagement have mostly concentrated on organisational factors, with less focus on individual factors. Also, despite eminent literature on personality and employee resilience in the management discourse, there are still limited studies on how specific personalities and employee resilience affect individuals' engagement levels at work. Therefore, this study seeks to examine the underlying mechanism of social support on direct relationships between autotelic personality, positive affectivity personality, proactive personality and employee resilience on employee engagement using Conservation of Resources Theory and the Job-Demand and Resources Model among nurses in public hospitals in Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey research design was adopted for this study to collect data from a sample of 289 registered nurses working in public hospitals in Lagos, Nigeria. The hypotheses were tested using AMOS-27. The findings indicated that proactive personality and social support were significantly related to employee engagement, while other direct relationships to employee engagement were not significantly related. Whereas the mediation effect of social support on employee resilience and employee engagement was significantly related, other mediated paths were not significant. Theoretically, this study adds to the existing knowledge that social support is an underlying mechanism under which employee resilience can significantly impact employee engagement. Also, using the Conservation of Resources Theory as an underpinning theory between proactive personality and employee engagement is another theoretical contribution of this study. Furthermore, this study provides policy-makers and human resource departments with practical implications on the most proficient method required to identify, select and recruit workers with the right personality traits. Also, this study provides how to build concepts and patterns to improve employee resilience through social support to help foster an engaging work environment.