Antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement in the hospitality sector: A non-western study

Abstract

Both academics and practitioners increasingly emphasize employee engagement as a means to generate higher levels of job performance and organizational success. While the employee engagement literature is well established not much is known about employee engagement in the Arab region and engagement of the expatriate’s workforce living in these countries is non-existent despite their importance and disproportionate number compared to the local population. This paper focused on the antecedents of employee engagement of expats residing in Kuwait. It examined the relationship between employee engagement, service climate, co-worker support, and psychological capital. On the second level of analysis, we assessed the relationship between employee engagement and organizational citizenship behavior, employee engagement and quit intention. We also examined the extent to which job satisfaction is impacted by OCB. Results are based on 536 cases. Two software statistical packages (SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 24.0) are used for the analyses. The SEM results revealed that service climate, co-worker support, and psychological capital were positively related to employee engagement. Furthermore, we found that employee engagement has a positive relationship with OCB. However, employee engagement does not have any significant relationship with quit intention. Finally, the results showed that OCB is negatively associated with quit intention. Seven hypotheses were tested and subsequent managerial implications are provided. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings provide detailed and novel insights.