Access Type

Open Access Dissertation

Date of Award

January 2012

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Marcus W. Dickson

Abstract

There has been a recent interest in positive organizational scholarship. Leadership stemming from a positive framework and employee engagement in the workplace have become of increasing interest to researchers and practitioners. Antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement were examined using a sample of 327 employees from retail organizations in the Midwest United States. The leadership styles of authentic, transformational, and transactional leadership were examined as antecedents of employee job engagement, beyond employees' psychological meaningfulness, safety, and availability. Engagement was examined as a mediator between the leadership constructs and employees' extra-role behaviors and work withdrawal behaviors. The results suggest employee job engagement is positively related to employee extra-role behaviors and negatively related to employees work withdrawal behaviors. Contrary to hypotheses the leadership variables were not significant predictors of employee engagement.

Share

COinS