Company Performance Impacts Employee Engagement through Individual Benefit of Senior Management as a Mediator

Abstract

The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to persist. The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on numerous Chinese companies, particularly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), resulting in substantial challenges for their business growth and development. The employees experience heightened levels of tension and unease as they are concerned about potential job loss in the event that their respective companies fail to achieve sustained recovery and business growth. This, in turn, has a direct impact on employee performance and engagement. Simultaneously, a multitude of worker strikes emerged in the western world with the objective of securing higher wages and salaries. Notably, certain strikes were predominantly instigated by public sector employees during the current year. An illustration of this phenomenon can be observed in the United Kingdom during the first half of 2023, where an extended period of public sector strikes occurred. These strikes were initiated by teachers, doctors, and other workers in response to their demand for increased wages in light of high inflation (M & James, 2023). All of them had an impact on and worsened both company performance and employee engagement. In a context characterized by instability, it is crucial for companies, particularly those who regard senior management as critical personnel, to effectively mitigate employee anxiety and foster a positive work attitude. The research framework is constructed and the relationships among variables are explained using the expectancy theory of motivation (Vroom et al., 2015). The main research problem in this study is to determine the relationship between company performance on employee engagement in the presence of individual benefit of senior management as a mediator. Keywords: Company Performance, Employee Engagement, Individual Benefit of Senior Management, Expectancy Theory