Increasing the work engagement of agrarian enterprise employees through the support of the direct manager, organisational trust and job autonomy

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to research the interrelationships between variables – the support of the direct manager (SDM), work engagement (WE), organisational trust (OT), and job autonomy (JA) in enterprises operating in agriculture. Both direct and indirect effects affecting the increase in work engagement of agrarian employees are analysed. For the data collection, a questionnaire survey among the employees of agrarian enterprises in Slovakia was used (680 respondents). For testing, we applied the theoretical research model and purposed hypotheses with the partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) method through the SmartPLS 3.0 software. The findings point out the existence of a statistically significant relationship between SDM and WE, which is, though, weaker than the overall effect by involving the mediation variables. Both mediation variables (OT and JA) separately increase the overall effect, but their common mediation influence mainly has a substantial significance. The intensity of the researched relationship increases with the length of employment. In the case of the employee's age and the size of the agrarian enterprise, there was a negative moderating effect on the relationship of the main proven variables.