Work Engagement: Creating Value Through Sustainable Leadership and Resilience

Abstract

The accelerating need for sustainable development across the globe has put firms under great pressure to play their role in social sustainability by working on several objectives. Among them, the demand for a highly resilient and engaged workforce to sustain their competitive edge is at the forefront. Despite noted literature revolving around work engagement, there is a lack of research investigating the effect of sustainable leadership on employee resilience and work engagement. The current epidemic (COVID-19) brings many challenges for organizations. In these times of uncertainty, sustainable leaders provide the basis for achieving the human dimension of sustainability by fostering and cultivating a vision across the employees that enables the organizations to work positively for their well-being, enhancing their ability to be resilient and engaged in their work. The present chapter has two broad aims, first to give a comprehensive review of our present understanding of work engagement, that is, the conceptualization, operationalization, and prediction of work engagement; and the second part outlines the interventions that may facilitate the sustainability of work engagement in times of uncertainty. The study suggests that sustainable leadership and the ability of resilience enables employees to overcome their experience of fluctuating levels of engagement. It is established that in the uncertainties of an epidemic, the construct of work engagement with its antecedents and consequences has its theoretical and practical implications for academicians as well as for industry.

Citation

Ashfaq, F., Abid, G. and Ilyas, S. (2022), "Work Engagement: Creating Value Through Sustainable Leadership and Resilience", Berrones-Flemmig, C.N., Contreras, F. and Dornberger, U. (Ed.) Business in the 21st Century, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 121-132. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80382-787-220221010