The influence of Effective Communication and Interpersonal Trust on Employee Engagement: The Role of Employee Involvement

Abstract

Employee Engagement has become a more frequent area of organizational study. Engaged Employees are believed to raise performance, customer satisfaction, and overall growth to the organizations (Hough, Green, & Plumlee, 2015). This dissertation aims to investigate how effective communication, broadly defined to include the quality of feedback, and interpersonal trust relates to employee engagement through the influence of employee involvement. The dissertation uses employee voice theory as theoretical foundation to explain the direct and indirect effects of effective communication and trust on employee engagement through employee involvement. An online survey was conducted using MTurk with about 250 employees from different organizations and sectors. Although, the dissertation uses previously validated instruments, a Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was performed to assess the factor structure of the data. The hypothesized direct relationships were tested using structural equation modeling (SEM) and mediation analysis using Hayes (2012) Process Macro. Results for the direct relationships revealed that effective communication was positively related to employee involvement. Results also showed that interpersonal trust was positively related to employee engagement and employee involvement, which also served as a partial mediator in the relationship between interpersonal trust and employee engagement. Finally, results revealed that employee involvement fully mediated the relationship between effective communication and employee engagement. Implications of these findings are discussed.