Worthwhile concept or old wine? A review of employee engagement and related constructs

Abstract

Employee engagement is still in its infancy as a concept. Scholars are still trying to unravel inconsistencies concerning its conceptualization and measurement. At the same time, the concept is said to overlap with other well- known and established constructs such as commitment, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior and job involvement, to the point where the concept may be redundant. Unless more extensive studies are conducted to discriminate the concept of engagement from those established psychological constructs it risk being continuously criticized and may continue to be seen as "old wine in a new bottle". Future studies must therefore focus on elucidating the value of engagement in impacting outcomes beyond the above-mentioned established constructs.