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14

THE SELF AND ENGAGEMENT AT WORK

Sabine Sonnentag and Doris Fay

Today’s organizations want an engaged workforce: employees who are energetic, fully present, vigorous, and highly dedicated to their work are an asset for most organizations. The idea of bringing one’s self into work is at the core of Kahn’s (1990) engagement concept. Using an ethnographic approach, Kahn provided vivid descriptions of how people connect their selves to their work –and disconnect their selves from it. Other researchers also emphasized the importance of being highly immersed in one’s work and being energetic while working, characterizing engagement as an aspect of well-being (Maslach & Leiter, 1999; Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002). Consequently, during the past decades, research on work engagement developed rapidly and is a flourishing research area.

In this chapter, we discuss the role of the self in relation to engagement. We start by introducing the various streams of research that laid the foundation for engagement studies. In the second part of our chapter, we discuss predictors of engagement. Part three addresses the role of the self for engagement at work. In this part, we differentiate between Kahn’s approach that conceives self-employment and self-expression as essential aspects of engagement, and the well-being approach (Schaufeli et al., 2002) that specifies self-related concepts as predictors of engagement. In the final two sections we discuss engagement from a self-perspective and highlight important questions for future research.

Conceptualizations of Engagement

Kahn (1990) approached the engagement concept from an ethnographic perspective. He was interested in the process of how people “express and employ their personal selves” (1990, p. 692) at work, emphasizing that people differ in the degree to which they engage at work and describing that this engagement can fluctuate over the course of a workday. Kahn defined personal engagement as “the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles” (p. 694), implying “the simultaneous employment and expression” (p. 700) of the self in task behaviors, drawing on physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects of the self. Self-employment refers to investing personal energies into cognitive, physical, and emotional work, and self-expression relates to the display of authentic thoughts and feelings and to the expression of one’s true identity in terms of one’s beliefs and values. Hence, personally engaging behaviors involve both investing personal energies into task behaviors as well as expressing the actor’s preferred self in these behaviors. Kahn contrasted engagement from disengagement, defined as “the uncoupling of selves from work roles” (p. 694), implying to “withdraw and defend” (p. 694) oneself from work. Based on observations in a summer camp and an architecture company, Kahn described how persons bring their selves into work and express themselves as well as how they withdraw and hide their selves in work settings. Moreover, he identified three conditions that need to be met so that people can employ and express themselves at work: meaningfulness, psychological safety, and availability. We will describe these conditions later when addressing predictors of engagement.

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Based on his observations, Kahn (1992) argued that the personally engaging behaviors are accompanied by a specific experiential state, which he called psychological presence. Psychological presence comprises four dimensions. First, psychological presence implies attentiveness, hence being aware of oneself and one’s environment. Second, psychological presence means to be connected to someone or something outside oneself (e.g., to another person, to the task, or to a larger mission). This connection could be experienced as empathy. Third, psychological presence is characterized by what Kahn (1992) called integration. Integration means to bring one’s full self into work, including thoughts, feelings, and physical experiences. Finally, psychological presence implies focus and absorption (cf. Kahn & Fellows, 2013). Importantly, focus and absorption means not only to be present as a person, but as the person “in role” (1992, p. 327).

One stream of research on engagement built strongly on Kahn’s conceptualization of engagement. This research either focused on Kahn’s notion of psychological presence (Rothbard, 2001) or his holistic view of investing physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects of the self into work (May, Gilson, & Harter, 2004; Rich, LePine, & Crawford, 2010). Rothbard (2001) addressed the aspect of psychological presence, and regarded attention and absorption as the core components of engagement. In her view, attention refers to the “cognitive availability and amount of time one spends thinking about a role” (p. 656). Absorption implies “being engrossed in a role and refers to the intensity of one’s focus on a role” (p. 656). May et al. (2004) as well as Rich et al. (2010) focused on the simultaneous investment of “affective, cognitive, and physical energies” (Rich et al., 2010, p. 617) into role performance. The affective component of engagement refers to excitement, enthusiasm, and pride; the cognitive component captures absorption, mental focus, and concentration; and the physical component implies a high work intensity as well as exertion of effort and energy. Thus, this research was strongly guided by the purpose to capture the self-employment aspect of Kahn’s engagement concept; the self-expression aspect in the sense of displaying “real identity, thoughts and feelings” (Kahn, 1990, p. 700) was not addressed. In terms of the timeframe for which the investments of energies are studied, Rich et al. (2010) as well as May et al. (2004) focused on studying rather enduring levels of energy expenditure (i.e., similar to trait or chronic manifestations). Kahn’s intriguing observation that individuals move back and forth between moments of personal engagement and moments of disengagement within a given workday was not incorporated in this approach.

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A second stream of research on engagement emerged from the field of burnout and well-being (Maslach & Leiter, 1999; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Maslach and Leiter (1999, p. 278) described engagement as the opposite of burnout and suggested that engagement is the “positive end” of the three burnout dimensions of exhaustion, cynicism, and inefficacy. Accordingly, they defined engagement as an “energetic state of involvement with personally fulfilling activities that enhance one’s sense of professional efficacy” (Maslach & Leiter, 2008, p. 498). In terms of operationalization, they considered a person as highly engaged when this person had low scores on a measure of burnout.

The engagement conceptualization of Schaufeli, Bakker, and their colleagues has its roots in burnout research as well. These researchers described engagement as a “positive antipode of burnout” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 294; Schaufeli, Salanova, González-Romá, & Bakker, 2002). However, unlike Maslach and Leiter (1999, 2008), they did not see burnout and engagement as two ends of one continuum, but conceived engagement as an independent construct, distinct from burnout. Specifically, they defined engagement “as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 295). Vigor means to be energetic and resilient at work, to be motivated to invest effort, and to be persistent. Dedication refers to a “sense of significance, enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge” (p. 295). Absorption is characterized by full concentration on one’s work and the experience that time passes quickly. Schaufeli and Bakker (2004, p. 295) emphasized the “persistent and pervasive” nature of engagement.

There is a long and controversial discussion if burnout and work engagement – conceptualized mainly as an energetic state (Maslach & Leiter, 2008; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) – are distinct constructs or whether they represent opposite ends of one common continuum. Maslach and Leiter (2008) indeed place burnout and engagement on a one-dimensional scale, whereas Schaufeli, Bakker, and their colleagues emphasize their distinctness. In our view, it makes sense to conceptually differentiate between burnout and engagement, even though the two constructs are negatively correlated: a person who scores low on burnout is not necessarily engaged and a person who scores low on engagement does not necessarily have burnout. Empirically, confirmatory factor analyses tend to support the distinctiveness of the constructs when items are used as indicators for the constructs (Byrne, Peters, & Weston, 2016). However, Cole, Walter, Bedeian, and O’Boyle (2012) concluded from their meta-analysis – that was based on scales as indicators – that burnout and work engagement (conceptualized as vigor, dedication, and absorption) are empirically redundant. A closer look at the correlational patterns shows that particularly the inefficiency dimension of burnout is highly correlated with work engagement, ranging between ρ = -.72 and ρ = -.85. Exhaustion and cynicism show substantially lower correlations with the work-engagement subdimensions (ranging between ρ = -.21 and ρ = -.43 for exhaustion and ranging between ρ = -.39 and ρ = -.69 for cynicism). The size of these correlations suggests that low engagement is not redundant with exhaustion or cynicism.

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Taken together, when Kahn (1990) described engagement he emphasized the role of the self that people bring to work and that they “employ and express” in their roles. He saw people as rather active agents who “drive” (p. 700) versus “remove” (p. 701) their energy into work roles. This active component in Kahn’s (1990) conceptualization was also highlighted by Rothbard and Patil (2011, p. 60) who stressed that “engagement . . . involves a proactive garnering and application of resources to fully concentrate and dedicate oneself to a certain task.” In contrast to the active role that Kahn assigned to the individual, Schaufeli, Bakker and their colleagues (who conceptualized work engagement as an aspect of well-being) characterized work engagement as the experience of being energetic, absorbed, and dedicated during work activities (Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, & Taris, 2008; Schaufeli et al., 2002). In their research they were highly interested in job conditions and personal factors that contribute to engagement, however, without asking how people bring their selves to work in an agentic way.

A recent piece of research provided an empirical comparison of the two engagement conceptualizations that had been developed by Kahn (1990) and Schaufeli et al. (2002). Byrne et al. (2016) analyzed the associations between Rich et al.’s (2010) job engagement scale (JES) – which corresponds to the self-employment aspect of Kahn’s engagement concept – and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli et al., 2002) – capturing Schaufeli and colleagues’ conceptualization of work engagement as an aspect of well-being characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Confirmatory factor analyses performed with data from multiple samples demonstrated that the JES and the UWES refer to distinct constructs. Nevertheless, in three out of four studies, correlations between the JES and UWES ranged between .63 and .70, suggesting that the two underlying engagement concepts are substantially correlated.

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Predictors of Work Engagement

Kahn (1990) specified three main classes of conditions that should contribute to engagement: meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability. Meaningfulness refers to the experience of being “worthwhile, useful, and valuable” (Kahn, 1990, p. 704) and that investing one’s self into the role pays off in physical, cognitive, or emotional terms. Meaningfulness depends on tasks, roles, and work interactions. Kahn described meaningful tasks as being challenging, varied, requiring creativity, and providing autonomy as well as clear goals. Meaningful roles offer identities that fit with a person’s self-view and that provide status as well as power. Meaningful interactions are characterized by dignity, self-appreciation, and a sense of value, and are both personal and professional at the same time.

Psychological safety describes circumstances in which people feel confident to express and invest themselves without being afraid that this will have negative consequences to their self-view, status, or career (Kahn, 1990). In his ethnographic work, Kahn identified four factors that contribute to this experience of psychological safety: trusting and supporting interpersonal relationships, group and intergroup dynamics, supportive and resilient management style, and organizational norms that permit the investment of self.

With regard to the final class of conditions that facilitate engagement, Kahn (1990, p. 714) defined psychological availability as “the sense of having the physical, emotional, and psychological resources to personally engage at a particular moment.” Psychological availability requires physical as well as emotional energy, and it is impaired by individual insecurity and preoccupation with one’s life outside work. Physical and emotional energy refer to the physical and emotional capacity to stay present and to fulfill one’s role. According to Kahn (1990), lack of self-confidence, “heightened self-consciousness” (p. 716), and ambivalence about person-organization fit are three dimensions of individual insecurity that prevent psychological availability. Lack of self-confidence refers to anxiety about one’s role, which, in terms of social-cognitive theory, could be described as low self-efficacy (Bandura, 1997). Heightened self-consciousness implies a preoccupation with others’ perceptions of and reactions to one’s behavior so that impression-management issues make full engagement impossible. Ambivalence about fit takes up emotional and cognitive resources and reduces the motivation to employ and express oneself at work. Preoccupation with life outside work can reduce psychological availability and therefore distract from full engagement at work. Kahn (1990) observed that outside lives, however, can also fuel people with more energy so that they become more psychologically available at work.

Only a few pieces of research have put Kahn’s propositions to test with quantitative methods. Using a cross-sectional survey-based research design, May et al. (2004) collected data from a large US insurance company in order to examine the role of meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability as predictors of work engagement. Their measure of work engagement focused strongly on Kahn’s notion of self-employment (i.e., investing personal energy into cognitive, emotional, and physical labor), whereas the self-expression component of Kahn’s concept was not included in their specific engagement measure. In support of Kahn’s (1990, 1992) model, meaningfulness, safety, and availability were significantly linked to work engagement, with meaningfulness showing the strongest relationship. In addition, May et al. also investigated factors that might predict the experience of meaningfulness, psychological safety, and psychological availability. Again, aligned with Kahn’s theorizing, characteristics of work (e.g., job enrichment and work-role fit) were associated with meaningfulness, aspects of the social system (e.g., relations with coworkers and supervisors, norms) as well as (low) self-consciousness were linked to the experience of psychological safety, and resources (i.e., emotional and physical energy) and a low level of engagement in outside activities resulted in psychological availability.

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Somewhat counter-intuitive at first sight, May et al. (2004) identified a direct negative association between resources and engagement. However, a closer look at the measures applied in this study suggests that this finding is not in contradiction with Kahn’s model. May et al. assessed resources with regard to emotional and physical energies available at the end of the workday. Spending physical, cognitive, and emotional energy on work should result in the experience of low resources at the end of the day. This is aligned with Kahn’s (1992, p. 333) statement that psychological presence (i.e., the experiential state accompanying personal engagement) “is relatively exhausting in terms of the vigilance and personal effort it requires.” This finding highlights that dynamic and longitudinal research designs are needed that take the complexity of reciprocal linkages between engaged task behaviors and resources into account.

Furthermore, in order to further a stronger integration of the well-being approach and that posited by Kahn to work engagement, researchers could include measures of work engagement that stem from both streams of research, as was done by Byrne et al. (2016). Their findings from multiple samples are predominantly in alignment with Kahn’s description that meaningfulness, psychological availability, and psychological safety should be associated with engagement. The pattern of result was, however, to some extent dependent on the specific measure of engagement employed. More specifically, Byrne et al. found that meaningfulness was more strongly related to engagement when engagement was measured with the JES than when it was measured with the UWES; psychological availability was related to engagement when measured with the UWES but not with the JES, and psychological safety was related to engagement, irrespective of the specific engagement measure. Thus, future research should strive for a better understanding of why results are not consistent across measures. Furthermore, given the cross-sectional nature of the majority of extant research, future research will also have to apply more rigorous research designs that will address issues around causality.

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Engagement conceptualizations that have their roots in well-being research have focused on other types of predictors. Maslach and Leiter (1999) argued that lack of congruence between the person and the job leads to burnout. Because they view engagement as the opposite of burnout, perceived congruence between person and the job should predict engagement. Specifically, they described six areas where congruence between the person and the job is important so that burnout is low and engagement is high: workload, control, reward, community, fairness, and values. Cross-sectional analysis indeed showed that lack of congruence was associated with high exhaustion and high cynicism scores, corresponding to low energy and low involvement. Over time, however, only increase in control was associated with a change from exhaustion to engagement (Maslach & Leiter, 2008).

Similar to Maslach and Leiter (1999) as well as Kahn (1990), Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) also considered work characteristics as key antecedents of work engagement. However, in line with the job-demands resources model (JD-R model; Bakker, Demerouti, & Sanz-Vergel, 2014; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001), Schaufeli and Bakker primarily focused on job resources such as social support and feedback. Later, scholars extended the breadth of resources considered and also took other job resources into account, such as job control (i.e., autonomy) (Mauno, Kinnunen, & Ruokolainen, 2007), and also acknowledged the role of personal resources (e.g., optimism, self-efficacy, and organization-based self-esteem; Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2007) as relevant antecedents of engagement at work. Moreover, according to the JD-R model, resources should show a particularly strong association with engagement when job demands are high (Bakker et al., 2014).

According to Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), job resources trigger both intrinsic and extrinsic motivations that in turn should help people be engaged at work. With respect to intrinsic motivation, Schaufeli and Bakker argued that job resources (e.g., social support, job control) satisfy basic psychological needs (e.g., need for relatedness, need for autonomy) such as specified within self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985; see also the Diefendorff et al. chapter in this volume). Need satisfaction, in turn, should result in high intrinsic motivation. In addition, job resources will also be extrinsically motivating because they help employees to achieve their work goals. Both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation should contribute to positive work outcomes and “engagement . . . is likely to occur” (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 298).

Two meta-analyses have summarized the empirical evidence on the predictors of engagement (Christian, Garza, & Slaughter, 2011; Crawford, LePine, & Rich, 2010). Overall, these meta-analyses showed that job resources (e.g., autonomy, feedback, social support, and opportunities for development) and other job characteristics that have a strong motivating potential (e.g., task variety, task significance) were positively related to engagement, with effect sizes ranging between ρ = .21 and ρ = .53. Similarly, correlations between positive aspects of leadership (i.e., transformational leadership, leader-member exchange) and engagement were also significant (ranging between ρ = .27 and ρ = .31). Challenging job demands (e.g., workload) also showed positive associations with engagement, however, with relatively small effect sizes ranging between ρ = .13 and ρ = .21. Other job demands such as role stressors, administrative hassles, or physical demands were negatively related to engagement, with effect sizes ranging between ρ = -.17 and ρ = -.25. In terms of dispositional characteristics, conscientiousness, positive affect, and proactive personality were positively related to engagement, with correlations ranging between ρ = .42 and ρ = .44.

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The Role of the Self for Engagement at Work

The Self as Part of the Engagement Concept

The self plays a central role in Kahn’s (1990) engagement concept. With his specific focus on “the moments in which people bring themselves into or remove themselves from particular task behaviors” (p. 692), for Kahn, engagement is the “simultaneous employment and expression” of the self in task behaviors. Thus, unlike in other research (e.g., Xanthopoulou et al., 2007), self-related concepts (e.g., self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem) are not just facilitators or consequences of engagement; bringing the self into work and expressing it constitutes the core of engagement. Importantly, in Kahn’s conceptualization, engagement is the “holistic investment of the entire self” (Christian et al., 2011, p. 97), comprising physical, cognitive, and emotional aspects. Kahn mentioned the “preferred self” as the quality of the self that is relevant for engagement, without explaining in detail the idea behind the “preferred self.” Rich et al. (2010, p. 617) referred to this quality as the “full self,” and later Kahn and Fellows (2013, p. 108) used the term “real” self. According to Kahn (1990), the degree to which employees engage at work depends on the choices they make – although they do not need to be always aware of these choices.

In contrast to Kahn’s conceptualization of engagement, the self does not play a major role in other engagement concepts. In the conceptualization by Maslach and Leiter (1999) that sees engagement as the opposite of burnout, the self is not at the core of the engagement concept. However, Maslach and Leiter’s (1999) discussion of value incongruence as a factor contributing to burnout and low exhaustion shows some link to Kahn’s description of self-expression. Value congruence should allow for expressing one’s values at work, thereby contributing to personal engagement.

Schaufeli and Bakker (2004, 2010) also do not put much emphasis on the self as part of the engagement concept. Only the absorption dimension refers to a person’s experience of immersing the self into work, most strongly evident in the item “It is difficult to detach myself from my job.” However, empirical work building on Schaufeli and Bakker’s engagement concept paid substantial attention to self-related concepts (Xanthopoulou et al., 2007). As we report later in this chapter, this research treats self-related concepts as predictors rather than integral parts of engagement.

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Self-Related Concepts as Predictors of Engagement

Research has examined self-related concepts as predictors (and possible outcomes) of engagement. Among the most frequently self-related concepts studied as potential antecedents of engagement are self-evaluations such as self-efficacy and self-esteem (see the Vancouver, Alicke, & Halper chapter on self-efficacy and the Brown & Zeigler-Hill chapter on self-esteem in this volume). Also, concepts referring to self-control and to identity have been examined in connection with work engagement.

The research stream following Schaufeli et al.’s (2002) conceptualization of work engagement subsumed self-related concepts such as self-efficacy and self-esteem under the umbrella term of personal resources. Building on earlier work by Hobfoll, Johnson, Ennis, and Jackson (2003), Xanthopoulou et al. (2007, pp. 123–124) defined personal resources as “aspects of the self that are generally linked to resiliency and refer to individuals’ sense of their ability to control and impact upon their environment successfully.” Thus, the core idea here is that individual traits and states that are important for mastering challenging situations are relevant for work engagement. Possibly, it is important to believe that one is able to be effective and influential at work in order to devote energy at work and to become immersed in it. However, when people experience self-doubt, they would not be able to fully employ and express themselves at work.

Rich et al. (2010) proposed core-self evaluations (CSEs) as a predictor of job engagement. CSEs are fundamental orientations and beliefs people have about themselves (Judge, Locke, Durham, & Kluger, 1998). CSEs are conceptualized as a higher-order concept comprising self-efficacy, self-esteem, internal locus of control, and emotional stability. Rich et al. built their argument about the importance of CSEs for engagement on Kahn’s model that described psychological availability as an important factor necessary for job engagement (Kahn, 1990). Kahn argued that individuals must feel secure about themselves in order to express themselves in a social setting. Thus, confidence should contribute to psychological availability. People with high CSEs possess confidence about themselves, which should help them to be psychologically available at work. Rich et al.’s empirical data support the idea that CSEs are positively related to job engagement.

Similar to CSEs, Xanthoupoulou and her colleagues (2007) also considered self-related variables as key antecedents of engagement. Focusing on self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism, their work showed that a latent factor comprising these constructs was positively related to work engagement (which was operationalized as vigor, dedication, and absorption). Taking potential reciprocal relationships between engagement and self-variables into account, this group of authors extended their research with a longitudinal study design. They found on the one hand that a composite score comprising self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism predicted a change in work engagement over a two-year period (Xanthoupoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009a). On the other hand, work engagement also predicted changes in self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism. This pattern of findings highlights not only that self-related variables may help to develop work engagement over time, but also that work engagement seems to foster self-efficacy, organization-based self-esteem, and optimism.

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The notion of reciprocity has been developed further in research that addressed more specific self-concepts in their relationship with work engagement. For instance, Salanova and her colleagues proposed a gain cycle which implies that efficacy beliefs increase engagement over time which, in turn, should contribute to higher levels of efficacy beliefs (Salanova, Llorens, & Schaufeli, 2011; Salanova, Schaufeli, Xanthopoulou, & Bakker, 2010). Empirical findings lend support to the idea of reciprocal relationships (Simbula, Guglielmi, & Schaufeli, 2011). Thus, the confidence that one is able to perform well at work is an important prerequisite for being energetic, dedicated, and absorbed at work. High engagement at work might be associated with a mastery experience (Bandura, 1997) that in turn increases subsequent self-efficacy. Interestingly, self-efficacy does not only operate over longer periods of time (e.g., months and years), but seems to benefit engagement also at the day level. Findings of daily-survey studies imply a positive association between the experience of self-efficacy on a specific workday and work engagement on the same day (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2009b). Moreover, lagged associations between momentary self-efficacy and subsequently assessed engagement have been shown (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, Heuven, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2008).

Also, self-esteem has been examined in relation to engagement. Studies assessing organization-based self-esteem (OBSE; i.e., “the degree to which an individual believes him/herself to be capable, significant, and worthy as an organizational member”; Pierce & Gardner, 2004, p. 593) reported positive cross-sectional associations between OBSE and work engagement (Pierce, Gardner, & Crowley, 2016; Wu, Liu, Kwan, & Lee, 2016). A cross-lagged analysis of a two-year panel design revealed a positive association between OBSE and the three engagement dimensions of vigor, dedication, and absorption assessed two years later (Mauno et al., 2007). This finding suggests that seeing oneself as a valuable organizational member helps one to be energetic at work and to be immersed in it. Maybe engaging oneself at work triggers a reinforcing process with employing and expressing oneself at work, contributing to a more positive image of oneself. However, the effect of OBSE on engagement (assessed two years later) became non-significant when extending the lagged analysis into a longitudinal analysis (i.e., controlling for baseline engagement), which suggests that questions around causality still deserve more attention.

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Other self-related constructs that have received some interest in engagement research include self-control (see the Johnson, Muraven, Donaldson, & Lin chapter in this volume). Specifically, self-control capacity seems to play a role for work engagement. Self-control capacity is the ability to inhibit or alter a habitual or automatic response that interferes with effective goal pursuit or goal attainment (Baumeister & Heatherton, 1996). Exertion of self-control allows, for instance, the suppression of unwanted thoughts. Importantly, this capacity is seen as a limited resource that is depleted by exerting self-control, and depleted self-control capacity is assumed to reduce subsequent performance on tasks that require self-control, even after switching to a different task (Muraven & Baumeister, 2000). With respect to engagement, self-control capacity might be helpful because it helps in suppressing distractions that may undermine absorption and employment of the self at work. In partial support of this idea, employees’ who report a higher level of trait-like self-control capacity also report higher levels of (trait-like) work engagement (i.e., vigor, dedication, absorption; Barber, Grawitch, & Munz, 2013). Diestel, Rivkin, and Schmidt (2015), however, did not find such a direct relationship between self-control capacity and work engagement. Interestingly, these authors showed that a factor that could buffer the effects of a demanding situation could only unfold its protective function for individuals with high levels of trait-like self-control capacity. More specifically, their daily diary study revealed that emotionally demanding work was associated with lower work engagement, and this association was buffered by high sleep quality the previous day. However, the buffering effect of sleep quality emerged only for individuals who had high self-control capacity. For employees with a low self-control capacity, work engagement was low on days when they needed to display emotions that they did not actually feel, regardless of the previous nights’ sleep quality. This finding suggests that self-control capacity alone does not suffice to stay engaged under adverse circumstances; one needs also the physiological prerequisites – as acquired during a good night’s sleep.

Other research on self-control capacity focused on its dynamic rather than trait-like component. Self-control capacity is assumed to fluctuate as a function of previous self-control exertion as well as reversing replenishing processes. A diary study on the effects of work-related smartphone use at night suggests that smartphone use impairs sleep. As a consequence, employees experienced a diminished state of self-control (i.e., depletion) in the morning, which was in turn associated with a lower level of work engagement throughout the day (Lanaj, Johnson, & Barnes, 2014). Two other studies did not directly link self-control capacity to work engagement, but looked at self-control demands at work that might undermine an employee’s self-control capacity. Using day-level designs, Rivkin and his colleagues found that when employees experienced high self-control demands at noon (e.g., the requirement to control one’s impulses) they reported lower work engagement in the afternoon, particularly when employees had low affective commitment (Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, 2015) and when not experiencing flow at work (Rivkin, Diestel, & Schmidt, in press).

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Finally, identity processes obtained some initial attention within engagement research. Generally, identity refers to a “self-referential description that provides contextually appropriate answers to the question ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Who are we?’” (Ashforth, Harrison, & Corley, 2008, p. 327; see also the van Knippenberg and Hogg chapter in this volume). Within organizations, people can derive their identities from group memberships (social identity, Haslam & Ellemers, 2005), from their “unique sense of self” (personal identity; Postmes & Jetten, 2006) or from particular roles they fulfill within the organization (Stryker & Burke, 2000).

Research that has linked social-identity processes to work engagement are based on the following premise: Social identification with the organization implies that the employee experiences a strong connection with the organization. This connection in turn fosters orientations and behaviors that are consistent with organizational goals (Ashforth & Mael, 1989). One way of behaving in accordance with the organization’s goal is to demonstrate high work engagement, that is, employing the self at work, and being dedicated and absorbed. Thus, when identification with the organization is high, employees should experience excitement and vigor while working. Findings based on cross-sectional research provide initial support to this idea (He, Zhu, & Zheng, 2014; Karanika-Murray, Duncan, Pontes, & Griffiths, 2015). Moreover, in workgroups in which leaders support social identity, work engagement is higher than in workgroups in which leaders do not show this behavior (Steffens, Haslam, Kerschreiter, Schuh, & van Dick, 2014). However, the power of social identity may not be equally strong for people with a low versus high organizational tenure. In an experimental study that simulated organizational-socialization processes, Cable, Gino, and Staats (2013) reported that not organizational identification, but personal identity enhanced engagement. Having a strong sense of one’s self seems to boost work engagement.

Discussion and Future Directions

Taken together, our review suggests that research on engagement is flourishing, but that conceptual clarification would help to make future research even more fruitful. Two approaches to engagement have received the most research attention: Kahn’s (1990) concept of engagement as employing and expressing the self at work and Schaufeli and his colleagues’ approach of engagement as a concept of well-being (Schaufeli et al., 2002). These approaches are similar in that they include the experience of energy and absorption, but there are differences too. Kahn’s conceptualization focuses more on the person as an active agent who brings his or her self to work, whereas Schaufeli et al. are particularly interested in the energetic experience of being engaged. This difference is also reflected in the specific items that aim at measuring the various engagement concepts. The JES (Rich et al., 2010), which is based on Kahn’s conceptualization, includes many items that emphasize the acting person as the causal agent of engagement by focusing on the investment of the self (e.g., “I exert . . . ,” “I devote . . . ,” “I try . . . ,” “I strive . . . ,” “I focus . . . ,” “I concentrate . . . .” In contrast, the UWES, which is based on Schaufeli et al.’s conceptualization, includes items that imply a more passive stance in that they capture what happens to the individual when engaged (e.g., “Time flies when I’m working,” “My job inspires me,” and “I get carried away. . .”). Although there is overlap between the two conceptualizations and even though they are related empirically, they can still be clearly differentiated (Byrne et al., 2016). In our view, neither of the two engagement conceptualizations is better than the other because they capture partially distinct aspects of engagement. When emphasizing the self-relevance of engagement, Kahn’s (1990) conceptualization might be preferred; however, when targeting a more general energetic aspect of work-related well-being (Sonnentag, 2015), the conceptualization of Schaufeli and his coworkers might be a good choice (cf. Byrne et al., 2016). Accordingly, future research should acknowledge the fact that there are multiple engagement conceptualizations that overlap only partially. When conducting research about engagement, scholars’ choice about the engagement concept employed should be made explicit and based on careful theory-based considerations.

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All of the concepts that Kahn (1990) discussed as predictors of work engagement (meaningfulness, psychological availability, psychological safety) received some support in primary studies, although the degree of support was not uniform for all three constructs (Byrne et al., 2016; May et al., 2004). Meaningfulness emerged as a robust predictor across several studies, whereas findings for availability were less consistent. Meta-analytical evidence suggests a broader range of potential predictors, including job resources such as autonomy, other job characteristics (e.g., task variety), leadership variables, job demands, and individual-difference variables (Christian et al., 2011; Crawford et al., 2010). These findings are largely in line with the JD-R model that described that resources predict work engagement as an indicator of well-being (Bakker et al., 2014).

The two approaches to engagement also differ in the role they assign to the “self” for engagement. Kahn (1990) conceived the self as crucial for the engagement concept. In his view, employing and expressing the self in task behaviors is engagement. In contrast, the conceptualization of Schaufeli and his colleagues (Schaufeli et al., 2002; Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004) does not position the self as an integral part of engagement. This group of researchers and other scholars referring to their engagement concept examined self-concepts as predictors of engagement. Empirical studies have provided evidence that self-related concepts such as self-efficacy and OBSE indeed predict work engagement (Mauno et al., 2007; Simbula et al., 2011); furthermore, self-control capacity matters (Lanaj et al., 2014), but sometimes only under specific circumstances (Diestel et al., 2015).

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Overall, there has been noticeable progress in the field of engagement research during the past two decades. Particularly with respect to the role of the self, however, engagement research is still in its infancy. In the remainder of this chapter we will highlight three questions that future research ought to address: (1) What about self-expression? (2) Is engagement exhausting? and (3) Does engagement change the self?

What About Self-Expression?

Kahn (1990, p. 700) defined engagement as the “simultaneous employment and expression” of the self at work. In his view, self-expression means to “display real identity, thoughts, and feelings” (p. 700) and implies showing one’s self to the outside world. Accordingly, in his ethnographic study, Kahn described how people expressed themselves at work by, for instance, talking and behaving in a specific way.

However, most empirical research conducted in the decades after Kahn’s seminal study has focused on the employment aspect of engagement, and has largely neglected its expression aspect. This rather narrow focus becomes also evident in the engagement measures based on Kahn’s conceptualization. None of the items in the measures developed by May et al. (2004) and by Rich et al. (2010) cover the expression aspect. An item that is closest to self-expression is one emotional-engagement item in the May et al. measure (“I really put my heart into my job”), yet this item lacks an outward aspect of self-expression. The UWES items are also silent with respect to self-expression.

Thus, engagement was mainly studied as bringing one’s self to the job in terms of investing and employing it when performing one’s task. The possibility that people explicitly express their selves at work was not seen as part of the engagement concept. A unique study that incorporated self-expression in the engagement literature conceptualized authentic self-expression as a predictor of engagement – but not as an aspect of the engagement construct (Cable et al., 2013). The negligence of self-expression in the engagement literature may, to some extent, be the result of job demands in contemporary work that actually require that employees suppress the expression of the self. In many of today’s jobs employees have to follow display rules and have to show behavior and emotions that adhere to strict organizational norms, leaving little room for expression of one’s self (Hochschild, 1983). Moreover, cultural differences may play a role here (Kokkoris & Kühnen, 2014).

Self-expression has not been completely ignored in the organizational behavior literature. Kahn (1990) argued that self-expression underlies many specific but well-known aspects of job performance. For example, he suggested creativity, voice, or authentic behavior to be instantiations of self-expression (Amabile, 1996; Van Dyne & LePine, 1998; Yagil & Medler-Liraz, 2013). However, these behaviors are typically seen as conceptually distinct from engagement and are not discussed as aspects of engagement. Without doubt it is important not to confound the engagement concept with other concepts (e.g., creativity, authentic behavior). Nevertheless, the self-expression aspect of engagement deserves more attention.

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Interestingly, research on job crafting could speak to the self-expression aspect of engagement. Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001, p. 179) defined job crafting as “the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work.” These authors argued that people craft their jobs in order to change their work identity, for instance, in order to express a more positive sense of their self and to have this more positive sense of self confirmed by others. To date, empirical research has looked at job crafting mainly as a predictor of work engagement. For example, a daily diary study that focused on the investment and employment aspect of engagement (conceptualized as vigor, dedication, and absorption) demonstrated a positive association between daily crafting and engagement (Petrou, Demerouti, Peeters, Schaufeli, & Hetland, 2012). Indeed, it makes sense to assume that people can be more engaged at work when they have crafted their jobs such that they fit their preferred ways of working. When re-visiting Kahn’s conceptualization of engagement as employment and expression, it becomes clear that the conceptual link between job crafting and work engagement could go beyond the employment component of engagement. That is, crafting one’s job could be seen as a way of expressing oneself at work and might even be one aspect of being engaged at work.

With respect to authenticity, some studies have looked at authenticity as a predictor of work engagement (conceptualized as vigor, dedication, and absorption) and found moderate associations between the two constructs (Leroy, Anseel, Dimotrova, & Sels, 2013; Reis, Trullen, & Story, 2016; van den Bosch & Taris, 2014). Although these findings demonstrate that work engagement is linked to experiences of authenticity, the self-expression aspect underlying the notion of authenticity – again – is not incorporated in the work engagement construct itself.

Is Engagement Exhausting?

Kahn (1990) argued that physical and emotional energy is needed in order to be psychologically available, which in turn should fuel engagement. In addition, he described that psychological presence (i.e., the experiential state accompanying personal engagement) can be exhausting, because it requires vigilance and effort (Kahn, 1992, p. 333), even speculating that in specific working circumstances engagement might lead to burnout.

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Thus, this description portrays engagement as a process that (1) requires energy and that (2) depletes energy. The energy-demanding aspect of engagement is in line with research that has found moderate to strong negative correlations between exhaustion and engagement (Cole et al., 2012; Crawford et al., 2010): employees who feel exhausted are less engaged than employees who are not exhausted. Day-level studies, in addition, reported that when employees feel recovered in the morning and come to work in an energetic state, they experience higher levels of engagement throughout the day (Sonnentag, 2003; Ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012), whereas when they arrive depleted at their workplace they are less engaged during the day (Lanaj et al., 2014).

However, what about the energy-draining aspect of engagement? Cross-sectional evidence summarized in meta-analyses provides little information about this possibility and tends to speak against the idea that engagement results in exhaustion. Research by Halbesleben, Harvey, and Bolino (2009), however, suggests that there might be indeed a downside of a high level of engagement. These authors found that highly engaged employees reported an increase in time-based work-family interference over the study period. This study, however, looked at conflicting time demands that could result from increased levels of organizational citizenship behavior, but did not directly address potential exhaustion processes. Other studies sketch a different picture of the association between high engagement and depletion processes. For instance, Bakker, Petrou, and Tsaousis (2012) found that teachers who were engaged at work reported also investing more into their intimate relationship, speaking against the idea that engaged employees are too exhausted to spend effort in other life domains. However, if the depleting effect of engagement can be compensated by recovery processes, then the negative relation of engagement with subsequent depletion will not be detected in cross-sectional studies (such as Bakker et al., 2012). Day-level studies can more appropriately reveal relatively immediate depleting effects of engagement. Nevertheless, daily diary studies suggest that being engaged at work is associated with increased levels of positive activation after work (Culbertson, Mills, & Fullagar, 2012; Rodríguez-Muñoz, Sanz-Vergel, Demerouti, & Bakker, 2012), suggesting that on average work engagement is not depleting at the day level. Similarly, Christian, Eisenkraft, and Kapadia (2015) reported negative associations between work engagement and withdrawal behavior at the day level.

Is Kahn’s contention on the exhausting effect of engagement wrong? In our view, this would be a premature conclusion. The studies cited above were based on samples from various jobs (cf., Culbertson et al., 2012), such that characteristics of the job that may affect the consequences of engagement have so far not been explored. It might be that work engagement is not uniformly related to depleting experiences for everyone or on all days. Characteristics of the workplace or of the person may moderate the energy-depleting effect that was proposed by Kahn. For example, in interactions with customers or clients high engagement may be draining; at the same time, good interaction outcomes may have an energizing aspect, such that the energy-depleting component is balanced by gains. Thus, the quality of interaction with customers might influence immediate outcomes of engagement. Likewise, additional burdens such as workplace stressors may play a role. For instance, a daily-survey study showed that the association between work engagement and subsequent level of feeling recovered broke down on workdays when employees encountered a high level of situational constraints (Sonnentag, Mojza, Demerouti, & Bakker, 2012). Thus, when having to deal with a high level of hindrance stressors, employees’ energy level does not benefit from having been engaged any longer. Mäkikangas et al. (2014) followed a person-centered approach and assessed vigor (as one component of work engagement) and exhaustion during workdays. They found that although the majority of the sample was consistently either mainly vigorous or mainly exhausted, about 12 percent of their sample experienced both vigor and exhaustion during the same workdays. This finding suggests that for a minority of workers being vigorous at work may have resulted in a higher exhaustion level later on.

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Does Engagement Change the Self?

Empirical research on engagement has shown that self-related concepts predict an increase in work engagement over time (Simbula et al., 2011; Xanthoupoulou et al., 2009a). Importantly, studies that modeled reciprocal relationships between self-related concepts and engagement suggest that engagement is also related to a change in self-efficacy and other self-concepts (Simbula et al., 2011; Xanthoupoulou et al., 2009a). Psychological processes that might underlie this association have not received much research attention thus far. Earlier we had suggested that engagement might be associated with a mastery experience (Bandura, 1997) that fosters future self-efficacy. More specifically, engagement helps in task performance (Salanova, Agut, & Peiró, 2005) that contributes to employees’ confidence that they are able to accomplish their tasks, thereby fueling employees’ self-efficacy.

In addition, the engagement experience in itself may trigger self-enhancement processes (Sedikides, 1993; see also the Ferris and Sedikides chapter in this volume). Employing one’s “preferred self” (Kahn, 1990, p. 700) or “full self” (Rich et al., 2010, p. 617) at work means to use the positive aspects of one’s self that otherwise would be neglected when disengaging from work. Being present at work with positive aspects of one’s self and expressing these positive aspects confirms a positive self-view that in turn will be reflected in an increased self-esteem. Given these possibilities, future research might want to move some of the research efforts from looking at self-based predictors of work engagement to self-based outcomes of engagement. In our view, a closer look at how engagement might impact self-efficacy and self-esteem would be particularly interesting.

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To conclude, in this chapter we have argued that it is worthwhile to differentiate between various engagement concepts and that this differentiation is particularly important when addressing self-related processes in connection to work engagement. Work engagement seems to be influenced by a person’s self-evaluations, self-control and identity and – most probably – also exerts an influence on these self-relevant concepts. We hope that future studies will build on this idea and will contribute to this intersection between two fruitful research areas addressing the self at work and work engagement.

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