Experience in implementing management

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Contents

management engagement resource organization

Introduction

1. Theoretical framework of management by engagement

1.1 Definition of Employee Engagement

1.2 Related constructs

1.3 Management by Engagement Models

2. Research design and methodology

2.1 An Integrated Engagement Management Model

2.2 Qualitative Methodology: Semi-structured interviews

2.3 Sampling strategy and procedure

3. Analysis of management by engagement implementation experience in Russian and global companies operating in Russia

3.1 Individual Interpretation and Perception of Employee Engagement of Russian Employees

3.2 Motivation to stay in the company

3.3 Task level resources and organization of work

3.4 Organization level resources

3.5 Interpersonal and Social Relations

4. Main findings and managerial implication

4.1 Main findings

4.2 Managerial Implications

Conclusion

References

Appendix 1

Appendix 2



Introduction

Employee engagement is a relatively new concept, which gained interest among academicians as well as practitioners just over the last decade, who made an attempt to investigate weather management by engagement is the substantial knowledge unit which adds to management knowledge (Saks and Gruman, 2011).

The concept of employee engagement has steadily gained popularity and at the moment it is recognized as one of key factors which leads to business success.

Although there is still lack of empirical research on employee engagement as researchers keep facing the problem to find the “right” definition of engagement, taking into consideration certain cultural or business contexts, several engagement management models have been tested and, then, a number of positive outcomes and benefits for organization were presented.

Engaged employees are the employees who are fully committed to their job, immerse into organizational processes and express strong willingness to go extra mile for the sake of their organization's prosperity. On the contrary, disengaged employees are demotivated, do not feel enthusiastic about their job tasks, job roles, and are not ready to invest their time and energy to work hard (Towers Perrin, 2009). Globally, only 24 percent of employees in the world are “Highly Engaged” and 39 percent are “Moderately Engaged” (AON Hewitt Report, 2017).

Coffman and Gonzalez-Molina (2002) in their book “Follow This Path”, which was written on the basis of the Gallup research (global research on employee engagement) claimed that engaged workforce fuels the profit growth of the organization.

Furthermore, nowadays, due to globalization and dynamic change of economical and political situation in the world some companies are forced to change and adapt and have to be agile. There is an evidence that employee engagement management might be one of the key factors that predict the process of organizational change to go smoothly and successful (Graen, 2008).

Employee engagement is also argued to be positively correlated with organization's profitability, productivity, customer services and customer satisfaction as well as with employee retention (Xanthopoulou et al., 2009; Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes, 2002).

Not to mention, employee retention is a serious issue in Russian Federation today. According to the results of the survey conducted by the recruiting Agency Antal Russia, average turnover rate made up to 21 %. However, this indicator varies widely among the industries. The highest turnover rate (75%) was observed in the retail industry (Antal Russia, 2017). Thus, there is a need to examine which drivers are relevant to boost employee engagement levels and reduce retention among Russian employees.

Multitude of studies were conducted and proved the positive influence of employee engagement on job performance and other outcomes both at the organizational and at personal level. The purpose of this study is to explore engagement management implementation experiences in Russian and global companies operating in Russia, examine the availability of various job resources regarded to as drivers or antecedents of employee engagement.

Overall, there is a lack of research on management by engagement particularly in Russia, so it will be practically useful for managers and even academicians to look at the experiences of engagement management in Russian organizations as well as Russian subsidiaries of global companies from within.

Moreover, in the study we will try to investigate the variations in engagement management experiences between Russian companies and global companies in Russia as we assume that HR practices in global companies are more developed and focused on engagement that in Russian firms as some of practices might be adopted from the foreign parent company or subsidiaries.

So the study aims to answer the following research questions:

· Which job resources are provided in Russian and global companies operating in Russia that drive employee enngagement?

· What are the problem areas of management by engagement implementation in Russian and global companies operating in Russia?

· Is there any difference in management by engagement implementation experience in Russian companies and in global firms operating in Russia? If so, which aspects of engagement management reflect this discrepancy?



1. Theoretical framework of management by engagement

1.1 Definition of Employee Engagement

There are various interpretations of the term “employee engagement” which were developed by scholars as well as by practitioners. Consequently, employee engagement is a relatively vague concept to the extent that each scholar or consulting company as a practitioner, for instance, has to state clearly what employee engagement is in their research.

Employee engagement as a concept was first introduced and developed by William Kahn (1990) who defined employee engagement as “the harnessing of organization members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performances” (Kahn, 1990, p. 694). In other words, Kahn distinguishes three components of engagement - physical engagement, cognitive engagement and emotional engagement. Kahn also states that a person can not have a high level in each component of engagement: physical, cognitive and emotional.

Physical engagement indicates the situation when employees apply their physical energies to immerse in the work fully and express sincere desire to exceed not only their supervisors' expectations but also to surpass their own expectations. Cognitive engagement is associated with an employee who is aware of the organizational strategy and his or her mission and role in it. As for emotional engagement, this term describes the extent to which employees feel truly connected to their supervisors and co-workers and the organization as a whole.

Another definition of employee engagement, which is also quite widely used in empirical studies, was suggested by Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonsalez-Roma and Bakker. In their paper, they define employee engagement as «a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption» (Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, Bakker, 2002, p.74). Turning to the components of engagement in detail, vigor is associated with mental viability and high energy levels while performing at work, the willingness to go extra mile in accomplishing tasks and the persistence even in difficult circumstances; dedication is characterized by an employee's sense of enthusiasm, pride, inspiration, challenge and significance; finally, absorption is described by the state when an employee is completely concentrated and deeply immersed into his work that time seems to pass very quickly (Schaufeli et al., 2002).

Robinson, Perryman and Hayday (2004) provide the definition of employee engagement as an employee's positive attitude towards the organization and organizational values. They claim that an engaged worker is well aware of business contexts and works together with colleagues to improve job performance for the welfare of the organization. Moreover, they suggest that engagement is bilateral relationship between an employer and employee, which an organization has to foster and improve.

Additionally, Saks (2006) suggested his definition of employee engagement: “а distinct and unique construct that consists of cognitive, emotional, and behavioral components that are associated with individual role performance” (Saks, 2006, p. 602). What is more important is that he “drew the line” between job engagement and organizational engagement. Job engagement is employees' psychological presence at their work roles while organizational engagement is employees' psychological presence by working in a way that leads to achieving organizational goals and contributing to its growth and success.

However, separating the term into two related constructs makes the meaning of it confusing and blurry. Thus, in this paper the term “employee engagement” will be used as it includes both self and organizational dimensions of engagement.

Having discussed the definition of employee engagement formulated by scholars, we also consider various definitions of employee engagement designed by practitioners in the industry.

The Business Communicator (2005) gives the definition of employee engagement of three experienced engagement practitioners, as they state. The first practitioner defines engagement as a construct which includes the necessary knowledge for performing effectively on the job and the motivation for applying that knowledge. Second interpretation of employee engagement is enhancing personnel dedication to achieve business goals. Lastly, employee engagement is defined as a social process which is characterized by people being personally involved into strategy and change in their everyday work (The Business Communicator, 2005).

Development Dimensions International (2005) derives the definition of employee engagement basing on the one suggested by Kahn (1990). They also state that employee engagement involves three dimensions - cognitive, affective (emotional) and behavioral.

The cognitive component of employee engagement includes employees who are cognitively considerate and aware of their roles and goals within the organization, and do understand organizational objectives itself. The affective engagement refers to the degree in which employees feel emotionally connected with their co-workers and supervisors/subordinates, the whole organization, and perceive working conditions within the company. Last dimension, which is behavioral dimension, involves employees' willingness to dedicate extra energy and time to their work, to work in the sake of the work itself that they enjoy, and also the length they remain or plan to remain working in this organization (Wellins et al., 2005).

Towers Perrin designed another definition of employee engagement. They describe the term as an employee's sense of satisfaction, inspiration an acknowledgement they feel being part of the organization and doing their work (Perrin, 2009).

1.2 Related constructs

There is a common problem in engagement management theory - the concept of employee engagement intersects with a number of earlier developed and existing constructs such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, job involvement and motivation. Debates continue being present among scholars and practitioners about which construct leads to or causes another one, or which concept includes others as simple components. This section aims to present existing evidence of differences, similarities and relations between employee engagement and other engagement-congruent concepts in literature.

A number of scholar use the concepts of organizational commitment and employee engagement, connecting them to each other or even considering these two terms being interchangeable. However, there is much evidence of a clear difference between employee engagement and organizational commitment.

Allen and Mayer (1990) describe organizational commitment as a psychological state which consists of three dimensions - affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment.

Affective commitment involves refers to an employee being emotionally attached to the organization and voluntary intention to stay in and work for the organization for a long period of time. As for continuance commitment, this state is associated with the situation when an employee decides to stay in the company if only perceived costs of leaving the organization are higher than potential personal gains of remaining in the company. Normative commitment means an employee's perceived feeling of obligation to stay in the organization because of his loyalty and devotion to it (Allen and Mayer, 1990).

Among these three dimensions only affective component of commitment can be compared to employee engagement as both concepts refer to emotional attachment and involvement of employees (Vigoda-Gadot, Eldor, Scholat, 2013).

Macey and Schneider (2008) suggest that engagement includes elements such as involvement, empowerment, satisfaction and commitment, thus, claiming that commitment is just one of the key components of employee engagement (Macey and Schneider, 2008).

Christian et al. (2011) in their empirical research investigated that while commitment refers to employees' loyalty to the organizational, employee engagement is a broader concept which consists of several dimensions mentioned earlier: cognitive, emotional and physical.

Job Involvement

Lodahl and Kejner (1965) suggested that job involvement is characterized by the state when an employee believes that work plays a major role in his life and that work itself, working conditions and the organization has an impact on him or her.

Another definition of job involvement was provided by Lawler and Hall (1970) who described the term as the psychological state when employees identify themselves with their work (Lawler and Hall, 1970).

A number of scholars defined job involvement in relation to employee engagement. Paullay, Alliger & Stone-Romero (1994) described jo involvement as the extent to which an individual is cognitively concerned with, engaged in and preoccupied with his or her job. May, Gilson & Harter (2004) argued that employee engagement leads to job involvement as the more an individual is engaged the more one is likely to identify oneself with a job. Furthermore, Beck (1996) defined involved employees as those who perceive their jobs inspirational and challenging, are committed to their job and the organization and engage tightly in professional relationships.

On the contrary, Salanova, Agut and Peiro (2005) distinguished these two concepts (employee engagement and job involvement). They concluded that job involvement refers to employees who concentrate on work, while engaged workers focus not only on the job but the whole organization too. Consequently, employee engagement is a wider concept as in the case of commitment and engagement comparison.

Saks (2006) states also that job involvement is a component of employee engagement. The scholar explains that employee engagement includes cognitive, emotional and behavioral elements but job involvement means that an individual employs oneself only cognitively.

Job Satisfaction

The concept of job satisfaction also often is mentioned in engagement-related discussions. Locke and Henne (1986) defined job satisfaction as a positive emotional state which is the result of the appreciation of an individual's job and job experience.

Burke (2005) in the research used the level of job satisfaction as a factor which has an impact on employee engagement rate. Perrin (2003) suggested that job satisfaction is a factor which is connected with the emotional dimension of employee engagement. The argument is that emotional engagement is closely related to employees' personal satisfaction and self affirmation they get from the work and being a part of the organization.

Some scholars, though, believe that there is significant distinction between job satisfaction and employee engagement. Hellevig (2012) in his book “Employee engagement in Russia” argues that job satisfaction, unlike employee engagement, does not lead to better job performance because an individual's satisfaction with his job comes mostly from receiving a decent salary, various benefits and a nice work environment. The author states that such contentment will possibly make an employee to focus one's time and energy on other things that one is more engaged in. Hence, it contradicts with the willingness to be innovative and opened to challenges, which is what definitely is expected from truly engaged workforce. Job satisfaction, unlike true employee engagement, does not involve the essential facets of focus, urgency and intensity (Hellevig, 2012). A comparable conclusion was earlier suggested by Macey and Schneider (2008) that employee engagement is a concept which infers not just a simple job satisfaction of positive or negative emotions employees get about job characteristics or work conditions, but also commitment, passion and a strong desire to go extra mile in achieving organizational goals. They also claimed that satisfaction is a component of employee engagement when it is interpreted as a positive psychological state that stimulates energetic and enthusiastic mindset (Macey and Schneider, 2008).

Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Organizational citizenship behavior is defined as discretionary behaviors that are beyond formal job instructions and job descriptions. Organizational citizenship behavior is inherent to an individual who chooses to contribute to the organization voluntarily and does not expect any formal rewards for going extra mile on the workplace (Farth et al., 1990). This description of organizational citizenship behavior corresponds with the «going extra mile» part of most of employee engagement definitions.

Besides, Podsakoff, Ahearne & MacKenzie (1997) argue that organizational citizenship is related to job satisfaction and organizational commitment in a way that these discretionary behaviors are the result of relations of job satisfaction and commitment. Consequently, it is similar to the definitions of showing respect and offering help to colleagues at work and willingness to work more effectively (Robinson, et al., 2004).

Saks (2006) claims that the discretionary behaviors are not employee engagement itself, but rather the result of engagement. He explains that engaged employees choose certain behavior to support organizational efficiency.

Moreover, there are several scholars who consider employee engagement being more than just organizational citizenship behavior. For instance, Robinson et al. (2004) suggested that engagement is bilateral interaction between an employee and an employer that is not included into organizational citizenship. This two-way process is explained by the theory which was earlier suggested by Kahn (1990) - employees are engaged when they expect that their employer will give something back in the form of material as well as non-material rewards or better conditions, for example. Schohat and Vigoda-Gadot (2010) suggested their explanation of bilateral collaboration mentioned above. They claimed that an individual is ready to go extra mile if one is provided with certain conditions (resources, leadership, infrastructure etc.) which describes organizational citizenship. However, employee engagement, withal, includes formal and informal activities that require commitment, creativity, loyalty.

Motivation

There are lots of debates about the difference between motivation and engagement among academicians and practitioners. Some continue using it interchangeably and many can not explain if engagement is the cause of motivation or viva versa, or these two concepts are completely different.

Paul Marciano in his book “Carrots and Sticks Don't Work: Build a Culture of Employee Engagement with the Principles of Respect” provides a comprehensible explanation of the difference between a motivated employee and an engaged employee. He suggests that engaged employees work for the sake of work itself whereas motivated employees are ready to contribute all their time and energy when they expect and clearly see the so-called “carrot” in the form of any reward which is valuable for them (Marciano, 2010). Clearly, here the author consider engagement as a construct for intrinsic motivation while naming extrinsic motivation just “motivation”.

American psychologists Edward L. Deci and Richard M. Ryan were the first who divided motivation into intrinsic and extrinsic forms. Extrinsic motivation is just a means to reach certain goals or to receive external rewards (e.g. wage increase, increased status at work or bonuses). By contrast, people who are motivated intrinsically are ready to work efficiently for the sake of work itself, and not only because of any kind of rewards. Deci and Ryan (2000) argue that the source of intrinsic motivation is an individual's demand for decision-making autonomy and self-determination. They also state that only intrinsic motivation of employees will lead to achieving long-term organizational goals (Ryan and Deci, 2000).

The concept of motivation was traditionally used by practitioners in the sense that employers have to create conditions to externally motivate people that is providing employees with high salaries, bonuses and other material benefits. Although these benefits remain very important engagement theory is more about creating environment, working conditions and relationships for employees to make them intrinsically motivated or self-motivated (Hellevig, 2012).

Empowerment

Another concept which is widely used in management theory is empowerment. Empowerment is defined as the employee endowment with the credentials to participate in making strategic decisions.

Hellevig (2012) argues that empowerment is an important component of engagement, as employees are needed to be given the authority to make strategic decisions in order to be engaged and feel that their ideas are taken into account and they are empowered to contribute to organizational development.

However, empowerment is not reasonable without taking into account other aspects of employee engagement. Managers can only empower self-disciplined, organized and adequately engaged workers. Moreover, empowerment should be backed up by certain corporate culture based on engagement principles and values (Hellevig, 2012).

1.3 Management by Engagement Models

A great number of scholars as well as professionals from the community of practitioners attempted to construct various models and frameworks that outline the organizational benefits and outcomes resulting from managing highly engaged workforce. Furthermore, many also tried to provide various strategies and organizational initiatives that generate high levels of employee engagement.

The large part of models and approaches was provided on the basis of the case studies of particular organizations which were considered good examples of the firms which implement management by engagement and realize what potential and benefits implementing system of engaging workforce can bring, or from consulting firms (survey companies) who provide their clients' evidence of engagement management. The proof that these strategies or frameworks have worked out is provided in form of certain indicators of performance improvement, or simply managers' impressions that implemented strategies implemented were prosperous.

In this section the overview of key models and frameworks based on existing literature will be presented. As a result, the integrated engagement management model will be constructed for the purpose of this study.

Kahn's Framework of Employee Engagement

Kahn (1990) suggests that there are three antecedent psychological conditions that lead to employee engagement - psychological safety, psychological availability and psychological meaningfulness.

When we refer to psychological safety, we mean that employees need to be able to feel that their authentic identities are accepted and supported by their co-workers and supervisors and that being themselves will not lead to negative consequences related to status, career or reputation at work (Kahn, 1990). Psychological availability constitutes availability of physical (sufficient budget, available manpower and supplies), emotional and psychological resources (self-confidence, a reasonable degree of job fit, commitment to the organization) which are required to perform their role at work successfully (Hallberg and Schaufeli, 2006; Shuck et al., 2011). Finally, psychological meaningfulness is defined as an individual's perception that his or her work is valued and considered significant. Employees tend to contribute more time and energy, add value to their work when they receive feedback from their manager or co-worker that the work one has done was worthwhile (Kahn, 1990).

Although Kahn's approach for employee engagement includes important psychological conditions that act as antecedents of engagement, it does not completely disclose why employees will respond to these psychological conditions with different levels of engagement (Bandura, 2001).

The framework was first used in empirical research of engagement management in American insurance company published by May et al. (2004). The results of the study showed that psychological conditions proposed by Kahn (1990) were positively correlated with employee engagement. Moreover, they also revealed that supportive relationships with coworkers and supervisors were positively associated with safety, personal resources were positively related to psychological availability, and role fit and job enrichment were positively correlated with psychological meaningfulness (May et al.,2004). Bakker and Demerouti (2007), and Xanthapoulou et al. (2009) also implemented Kahn's framework in their study and found out that autonomy and challenging work conditions lead to psychological meaningfulness, while organizational social system and organizational norms and values result in psychological safety, thus, lead to higher levels of engagement. Psychological safety is claimed to be the antecedent which offers leaders the greatest opportunity to impact employees' engagement levels. (Xanthapoulou et al., 2009)

Maslach and Leiter Engagement - Burnout Framework of Employee Engagement

Maslach and Leiter first introduced their concept of employee engagement as a positive antithesis of burnout in the late 1990s (Maslach and Leiter, 1997).

Burnout, also referred as disengagement, was associated as “a psychological syndrome of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy, which is experienced in response to chronic job stressors” (Maslach and Leiter, 2004, p. 93).

According to Maslach and Leiter (2012), employees' reactions and perceptions of work and organization change along dimensions of engagement-burnout continuum (from burnout to engagement) based on their individual emotional and psychological resilience.

Consequently, three correspondent dimensions of engagement are complete opposites to burnout's dimensions. Engagement, thus, is defined as a psychological state of energy, involvement and efficacy. (Maslach and Leiter, 2012)

The illustration of engagement-burnout continuum is illustrated in the chart below. (Leiter and Maslach, 2000, p.3)



Fig. 1 Maslach and Leiter's Engagement-Burnout Continuum

Maslach and Leiter (1997) in their study determined six aspects of the workplace setting which yield in employee engagement or employee burnout. These aspects or factors, which can be referred to as drivers/antecedents of engagement/burnout, are the following:

· Workload;

An engaged workforce is able to remain engaged if the amount of work given is stable and adequate. Otherwise, if employees are overloaded with tasks, relationships between coworkers, productivity and job performance are undermined (Maslach and Leiter, 1997).

· Control;

This antecedent of engagement is related to employees' feeling that they have control of decisions that have an impact on their work, possess professional autonomy and have access to needed resources to accomplish any tasks efficiently. (Maslach and Leiter, 1997)

· Fairness;

Fairness includes three critical aspects such as openness, trust and respect. Organizations has to achieve such work environment where employees trust their colleagues and supervisors, openly communicate and share their ideas and recommendations, and express respect to one another. Then, high levels of engagement can be achieved (Maslach and Leiter, 1997).

· Reward;

Reward is associated not only with material benefits such as pay and bonuses but also with social reward in the form of recognition from supervisors and coworkers. Employees need to feel that they receive fair pay and recognition in order to be engaged and maintain engagement (Leiter & Maslach, 1999).

· Community;

Community is associated with the social interaction within the organization which involves the following elements: conflicts, mutual support, proximity and teamwork. Connection with coworkers is essential to maintain employee engagement (Leiter and Maslach, 2004).

· Values.

Maslach and Leiter (1997) state that employees' personal values and work values alignment is a key antecedent of employee engagement. An individual is more likely to be engaged if one has an opportunity to work in a role which supports one's personal values and beliefs (Leiter and Maslach, 1997).

In their study, Maslach and Leiter (2004) used the MBI-GS (Maslach-Burnout Inventory-General Survey) to measure employee engagement. Alternatively, six antecedents of employee engagement mentioned earlier were measured with AWS (the Areas of Worklife Scale), then employees who were reported to have a good match with these six aspects of work environment scored high on the AWS and low on the MBI-GS, low burnout levels. So engagement in their model was assessed on the reversed scale of burnout level, which is considered to be a huge disadvantage of this approach as, initially, burnout is assessed with certain items, which express certain degree of negativity, and then low level of burnout are equaled to high levels of employee engagement which is not always the case. Furthermore, a number of scholars and practitioners consider burnout and engagement levels as separate concepts which should be operated and estimated also separately. So the Maslach's framework was widely criticized.

Job Demands - Resources (JD-R) Model of Employee Engagement

Although both Kahn's and Maslach and Leiter's frameworks of employee engagement provide psychological conditions or factors that drive employee engagement, they fail to completely determine why employees will react to these conditions differently, with varying levels of engagement. Have taken this issue into consideration, the Job Demands - Resources (JD-R) Model was introduced by Demerouti et al. (2001). According to the JD-R model psychosocial work characteristics are divided into job resources, personal resources (comprising personal traits of character) and job demands (Demerouti et al., 2001; Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004).

Accessibility of job resources and personal resources enhances work engagement while job demands lead to employee's energy resource depletion, thus, resulting in burnout and even health disorders (Schaufeli and Bakker, 2004).

Resources can be divided into following categories - resources arising from tasks, organization of work, organization, social and interpersonal relations, or from individuals themselves (Shuck et al., 2011). Task level resources include task significance, autonomy, performance feedback, task identity and skill variety. Examples of resources coming from organization of work are opportunity to participate in decision-making process, role clarity. Resources that come from an organization include pay and benefits (level of payment or fairness of pay), job security and other various organizational procedures and processes. Interpersonal and social relations involve supportive relations between supervisor and subordinate and coworkers, teamwork, psychological climate in teams, work groups (Shuck et al., 2011). Source of personal (or individual) level resources can come from individual perceptions of optimism, trust, motivation, feeling valued, resiliency, effectiveness, willingness to learn, the need for challenging work, or even health conditions (Bakker and Demerouti, 2007).

Job demands are categorized into physical demands, work conditions and other social, organizational and psychological sides of the job, which employees face and have to be able to withstand. The theory of job resources and demands assumes that job resources help to cope with physical and psychological pressure from job demands (Bakker, 2011).

However, JD-R model was later modified and involved also the assumption that employees can also enable job crafting. Job crafting involves the process of designing the content of work by choosing tasks themselves or certain methods of accomplishing it, or by assigning the meaning to the certain tasks or jobs if necessary (Bakker, 2011). The example of job crafting is the situation when an individual voluntarily increases job demands because one want to work in a more challenging work environment, thus, feeling that he or she is doing something really meaningful. Likewise, some employees may decide to increase their job resources by simply asking for performance feedback from supervisor or even colleagues. Moreover, through taking part in learning and development initiatives provided by the organization, for instance, or by own choice, employees increase the availability of personal resources (Bakker, 2011).

Fig. 2 The modified JD-R model of engagement (adapted from Bakker, 2011)

The JD-R model was employed in quite many empirical studies in different countries. Hakanen et al. (2008) investigated employee engagement in dentistry industry in Finland. The results of their research showed that the availability of job resources has an influence on work engagement, while job demands result in burnout. Similar results were presented by the study of work engagement of managers in Holland (Schaufeli et al., 2009).

The JD-R model was criticized because it failed to reflect how employees perceived job demands, thus, the influence of job demands on engagement remained confusing. Moreover, Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) found unexpected ad conflicting relations between job demands and work engagement, while testing the model. Consequently, it was considered that job demands were called into question in the sense that they are irrelevant to make predictions about employee engagement.

Having faced this issue related to job demands, Crawford et al. (2010) suggested to classify job demands into challenge demands and hindrance demands. Challenge demands those aspects of work which employees perceive as positive challenges and opportunities to develop their skills, to grow personally and professionally, to demonstrate their competencies which are expected to be rewarded and appreciated by supervisor or coworkers. Examples of challenge demands are large job responsibilities, high workload, time pressure. Hindrance demands, on the contrary, drain personal growth, learning and attainment of goals and are perceived as barriers to progress. These demands involve role conflict, emotional conflict, organizational politics, bureaucratic red tape (Crawford et al., 2010, pp.836-838). As a result, later researches concluded that challenges in JD-R model should be considered as resources as they trigger positive emotions among employees and result in active performance of employees to cope with these challenges, thus, increasing engagement, as they perceive those challenges at work as an opportunity to stand out and develop themselves (Schaufeli and Taris, 2014).

Overall, the model tried to resolve the problem that other models faced, particularly, the problem of explaining why people react to a certain set of drivers of engagement differently. Obviously, job resources as well as demands do vary in different countries. For instance, employees in Greece work longer hours than Dutch employees, have less autonomy, are provided with less training and development opportunities (Demerouti et al. 2001).

Consequently, certain work conditions and antecedents of employee engagement will not be equally important and effective in all countries. Moreover, we are all humans, hence, we are all individuals who perceive same resources and demands differently and demonstrate different levels of employee engagement.



2. Research design and methodology

The following chapter is dedicated to shaping the research design and outlining adopted methods used in the current study.

After thorough review of existing literature on employee engagement, related constructs and key academic based, and consultancy based models of engagement management models and frameworks was carried out, the integrated engagement management model is chosen for the purpose of this study.

The research questions of this study require implementation of qualitative method of analysis. Hence, qualitative data analysis method along with qualitative data collection will be discussed in the chapter.

2.1 An Integrated Engagement Management Model

Detailed literature review on the concept of employee engagement and existing engagement management models was carried out. Taking into account the strong points and limitations of observed key frameworks and models of employee engagement, the integrated engagement management model adapted from Saks and Gruman (2014) was chosen. The modified model includes elements of Kahn's framework of employee engagement and JR-D model of engagement. The model will play the role of theoretical frame of reference and will be the basis for interview-guide construction for the purpose of this research.

The model includes three key elements - job resources, which result in certain psychological conditions, finally, yielding in employee engagement.

As I have already mentioned, job resources proposed in JD-R model of employee engagement are categorized into task level resources, resources coming from the organization of work, interpersonal and social relations.

According to Saks and Grumman (2014), each type of resources is linked to certain psychological condition (psychological meaningfulness, safety and availability) suggested by Kahn (1990).

Integrated Engagement Management Model and the linking of different types of resources and psychological conditions are illustrated in figure 2 below:

Fig. 3 Integrated Engagement Management Model (adapted from Saks and Gruman (2014))

Task level resources and organization of work result in psychological meaningfulness in work, while organization level resources and interpersonal and social relationships lead to meaningfulness at work. The main difference between these two psychological conditions is that meaningfulness in work occurs more due to availability of specific resources coming from the task, while meaningfulness at work derives from employees' attachment to organization. (Saks and Grumman, 2014).

Interpersonal and social relations create psychological safety for the employees. Psychological safety, as it has been already discussed earlier, is feeling safe and being sure that they can be themselves and engage in work, not being afraid of negative consequences to their status, career and reputation among colleagues. Finally, providing employees with task level resources and maintaining positive social and interpersonal relations leads to psychological availability which is described as the employee's possession of physical, emotional and psychological resources in order to fully immerse into work. (Kahn, 1990; Saks and Grumman, 2014).

The resources proposed in the model are further used to construct an interview guide for qualitative data collection, where types of recourses play role of so-called guidelines of the interviews with respondents.

2.2 Qualitative Methodology: Semi-structured interviews

For the purpose of present study qualitative method was adopted to examine management by engagement implementation experience in Russian and global companies, operating in Russia. By implementation experience I mean which types of job resources are provided in the organization to maintain high levels of employee engagement.

Semi-structured interview was chosen as an instrument to collect the data from employees of Russian organizations and Russian subsidiaries of global companies to conduct the research. Semi-structured interview included open-ended, in-depth questions which allow interviewee to tell the story on their own and not to lead the respondent in a particular direction, thus, decreasing the probability of any bias from the interviewer. Employees' narrative of their perception of job resources proved by organization or coming from work environment and work community should provide plenty of information which is relevant for the analysis.

The purpose of the quantitative method employed in the study is to answer the following research questions:

· Which job resources are provided in Russian and global companies operating in Russia that drive employee enngagement?

· What are the problem areas of management by engagement implementation in Russian and global companies operating in Russia?

· Is there a difference in management by engagement implementation experience in Russian companies and in global firms operating in Russia? If so, which aspects of engagement management reflect this discrepancy?

2.3 Sampling strategy and procedure

The respondents were recruited using random sampling as well as snowballing. A simple random sample assumes that each unit of general population has a chance to be selected for the interview (Brace, 2008). I focused on large companies, more than 250 employees, as there are certain specific peculiarities of engagement management in the organizations of various sizes. Hence, in order to avoid any additional bias, only large companies were included into sample.

Overall, twelve semi-structured interviews were conducted with managers and employees. Half of the respondents works in Russian companies and another half - in Russian subsidiaries of global companies. Such distribution was chosen in order to compare engagement management implementation experiences within Russian and global companies in Russia.

First, the list of contact details of potential respondents (employees of large Russian and global companies in Russia) was formulated. Secondly, potential interviewees were contacted by e-mail or/and via social networks to make an appointment for conducting the interview.

Interviews lasted on average 25-35 minutes each.

The profiles of interviewees are presented in the table 1 below:

Table 1

Respondents' profiles

	Demographical Characteristics	Organization Description
Respondent 1	Female 46 years Head of Department of Quality and Efficiency 20 years in the company	Sberbank of Russia 325 000 employees
Respondent 2	Male 32 years Head of Marketing Strategy and Planning Group 14 years in the company	Procter & Gamble 125 000 employees
Respondent 3	Male 27 years Project Manager 4 years in the company	Yandex 6 200 employees
Respondent 4	Female 25 years Senior consultant 7 years in the company	PWC 2 500 employees
Respondent 5	Female 24 years Marketing manager 3 years	Kaspersky Laboratory 3 600 employees
Respondent 6	Female 28 years Head of Learning and Development Department 6 years in the company	Starbucks 185 000 employees
Respondent 7	Male 47 years Investment Program Manager 20 years in the company	Fortum 3 850 employees
Respondent 8	Female 43 years Training Manager 20 years in the company	Loreal 1 600 employees
Respondent 9	Female 40 years Сhief Accountant 3 years in the company	Cotton Way 2 000 employees
Respondent 10	Female 26 years Leading Credit Manager 3 years in the company	Uralsib Bank 10 500 employees
Respondent 11	Female 22 years Project Operations Support Specialist 2 years in the company	JTI 4 000 employees
Respondent 12	Female 24 years Market Research Analyst 4 years in the company	JLL 600 employees

Interview guide was divided into four sections or driver/antecedent themes, which were related to general information and each of the type of job resources - task level resources and organization of work, organization level resources, social and interpersonal relations. Guide of the semi-structured interview consists of open-ended predetermined questions and related probes in the form of examples of job resources of each level (Patton, 2002). The interview guide can be found in Appendix 1.

All the interviews with employees were recorded and then transcribed (refer to the transcripts in Appendix 2).



3. Analysis of management by engagement implementation experience in Russian and global companies operating in Russia

In this chapter, main findings from the conducted qualitative research of engagement management implementation experience are presented. First, experiences of engagement management shared by the employees of Russian and global companies are discussed. Secondly, key problem areas, if any, are discussed as well as comparison of management by engagement implementation experience in Russian and global companies in Russia are provided. Then best practices and tools of engagement management based on the information, shared by the interviewees, are presented.

3.1 Individual Interpretation and Perception of Employee Engagement of Russian Employees

Overall, all the respondents put the similar meaning into the definition of employee engagement. They connected employee engagement to emotional state of an individual when one expresses a sincere desire to work for the benefit of his organization, to participate in organizational activities and is motivated to work as hard as possible.

«Employee engagement is the employee's willingness to actively participate in the activities of the company for the benefit of development, i.e. the development of themselves and their company. Engagement is the emotional and intellectual state that motivates employees to do their job as best as possible. » [Appendix 2, Interview 10]

Not to mention, one of the interview mentioned a very important detail: engagement is a desire to work as best as possible, which depends on his or her loyalty to organization.

“…employee engagement is, shall we say, emotional and intellectual condition in which employees arrive while performing the tasks, when they seek to do the best job possible, depending on how loyal they are and how they are willing to do it. [Appendix 2, Interview 9]

One respondent used the terms loyalty and engagement as equal concepts rather than loyalty being a condition of employee engagement.

«Engagement is a broad concept, the desire, the motivation of employees to work for the benefit of the enterprise, the organizations, and it is also employee satisfaction, loyalty, customer centricity of the organization. Under the involvement of a lot of concepts can be deployed. » [Appendix 2, Interview 1]

The exception was the Training Manager from “Loreal” who suggested the idea of engagement as involvement into work process, thus, the goal of a manager is to identify the individual needs of the subordinates in order to receive engaged workforce.

Each employee will be involved in the process, if he had motivation. For me as a Director it is important to determine that my co-worker is the motivation and give the opportunity of self-realization. Only then the employee will be involved in the process and will perform its tasks. [Appendix 2, Interview 8]

Another interpretation of employee engagement that was expressed by the only respondent which concluded that understanding your value for the organization and willingness to go extra mile expresses what true engagement really is.

«For me, probably, the employee engagement is when you, as a small link in a big chain can influence or, at least, express your opinion and be heard in the development of the company. Engagement is when you realize that you mean something and you can influence some of the decisions, give advice to your company or point out those areas that the organization does not pay attention to.» [Appendix 2, Interview 4]



3.2 Motivation to stay in the company

One of the key outcomes of employee engagement is employee retention (Hewitt, 2017). Thus, I asked employees about their intention to stay for a long period of time within the company as well as about their motivation to stay in order to understand which aspects are major for them, if they are driven by intrinsic or extrinsic motivation.

The following motivators - potential antecedents of employee engagement were mentioned: (Appendix 2)

o Interesting job;

o Challenging tasks;

o People;

o Pay and benefits;

o Self-development;

o Supportive leadership;

o Interest in the field;

o Feeling valued;

o Appreciation from the colleagues/supervisor;

o Feeling proud for the organization (reputation);

Although material rewards were claimed not to be a priority for the most of respondents, several interviewees did mention that pay and benefits provided by the organization are still important.

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