Work Engagement: Organizational Attribute or Personality Trait?

Abstract

One of the most determining factors of work performance is the degree of engagement of people to their work. That degree of engagement is influenced by both personal and organizational factors. The objective of this research is to analyze the connection between personal characteristics and organizational attributes with the work engagement of workers. The sample consisted of 286 employed workers; 83.5% were Spanish and 16.5% belonged to other Spanish-speaking countries. The mean age was 44.51 years (SD = 8.76) and 55.2% were women. For the prediction of work engagement, a hierarchical linear regression was carried out, first introducing the variables that evaluate personal characteristics (Big Five, entrepreneurial personality, emotional intelligence, and personal happiness) and, later, variables relating to organizational attributes (happiness work and organizational climate). General personality traits (Big Five) explain 22% of work engagement, this percentage rising to 47% when entrepreneurial personality is introduced in the model. Emotional intelligence does not explain additional variance, but personal happiness does. Happiness at work and organizational climate produce a significant increase and the explained variance rises from 55% to 63% when they are included in the model. Both the variables related to the personal characteristics of the employees and variables related to the organizational attributes jointly contribute to the explanation of the degree of work engagement. Workers with high scores on entrepreneurial personality traits achieve higher levels of work engagement, finding a moderating effect of the organizational climate in the relationship between people’s autonomy and their work engagement.