Employee engagement: finding a generally accepted measurement scale

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to present a method to find a generally accepted employee engagement scale, particularly in the presence of various alternatives and objectives.

Design/methodology/approach

To find the measurement scales, seminal works encapsulating organizational engagement, job engagement and work engagement in Cinhal, PsycINFO and ABI/INFORM database have been reviewed. For finding the optimal choice from available scales, multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) method was used.

Findings

An agreed-upon measurement scale is achievable through the knowledge of alternatives and consequences, as well as consistent preference ordering and a decision rule. However, choice of the most effective scale varies according to the preference of decision makers.

Practical implications

This study proposes MCDM method as an intervention for practitioners who aim to assess the level of employee engagement in their organizations. It also provides a decision-making method to scholars to surmount conflicting objectives in their measurement.

Originality/value

While previous studies have developed manifold measurement scales, there is no study to indicate which scale best measures employee engagement. This paper attempts to define how to choose one scale among the various existing gauges of engagement.

Citation

Khodakarami, N., Dirani, K. and Rezaei, F. (2018), "Employee engagement: finding a generally accepted measurement scale", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 50 No. 6, pp. 305-311. https://doi.org/10.1108/ICT-11-2017-0090