Employee engagement: relevance and application in the third sector?

Fox, James

Abstract

This research explores whether engagement is relevant and applicable to Third Sector Organisations (TSOs), particularly those in the Aberdeen City area, to assist in meeting contemporary organisational challenges. It explores the level of understanding and use of engagement in TSOs. It assesses the engagement experience of senior leaders in those TSOs. Finally, the work uses these data to extend current theoretical perspectives on engagement to contribute to knowledge. Engagement in this context can be expressed as how people express themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally as they interact with their jobs (Kahn 1990). It can be described as an internal state of being which relates closely to behaviour, such as discretionary effort or "going the extra mile" (CIPD 2024). TSOs face significant challenges in delivering their services. Funding constraints, reductions in public sector service provision, tight local labour markets, recruitment and retention challenges, and the cost-of-living crisis all place demands on TSOs. Research suggests that engagement levels of staff depend on various antecedents (such as perceived organisational support) and that engagement leads to enhanced organisational performance through engagement consequences (such as job satisfaction). This study uses job and organisational engagement, based on Social Exchange Theory (SET), as the theoretical focus to explore the relevance and applicability of engagement for TSOs in addressing the challenges facing the sector. This work presents an analysis of the relevant literature on engagement including a summary of the various theoretical perspectives. Primary data collection used an abductive and qualitative methodological approach based on semi-structured interviews with senior leaders in TSOs in the Aberdeen City area. These data were then analysed using a thematic analysis process to create a series of key data themes. Findings based on these themes show that the compounding of external contextual factors such as the cost-of-living crisis on top of funding issues and a challenging local labour market create considerable issues for TSOs in Aberdeen. In addressing whether engagement is relevant and applicable for TSOs, senior leaders in TSOs believe engagement to be relevant and important to addressing the challenges faced by their organisations, but there is considerable variation across the sample in the approach taken to engagement. Despite the struggles to define engagement, value congruence, meaningful work and involvement were common in their perceived importance to delivering engagement, which broadly aligns to some of the antecedents to engagement specified in the theoretical lens. The engagement experience of TSO senior leaders is also presented. In contrast with the job and organisational engagement theory used as the theoretical lens, these individuals do not make a distinction between their engagement with the job and the organisation. Engagement theory is significantly extended by offering new insight into how the context of a TSO creates compounded challenges that impact upon engagement. Additionally, the theoretical lens can be significantly extended to better explain the experience of engagement for those in senior positions in TSOs by recognising their lack of separation of engagement by job and organisation which is both a positive and negative for the individuals concerned.

Citation

FOX, J. 2024. Employee engagement: relevance and application in the third sector? Robert Gordon University, PhD thesis. Hosted on OpenAIR [online]. Available from: https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-2795528

• Thesis Type: Thesis
• Deposit Date: Apr 17, 2025
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 17, 2025
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.48526/rgu-wt-2795528
• Keywords: Employee engagement; Third sector organisations; Social exchange theory; Cost-of-living crises
• Public URL: https://rgu-repository.worktribe.com/output/2795528
• Award Date: Sep 30, 2024