Employee Engagement Practices and Job Satisfaction in Britain: Theoretical and Empirical Contributions

Lancaster’s (1966a) consumer theory approach extended and tested in this thesis by including the demand-control model shows that individual forms of employee engagement practices are better predictors of various forms of job satisfaction than collective forms. In the context of employees’ engagement practices, the dominance of the collective forms of these practices in the job satisfaction literature raises the question of whether individual forms are better predictors of job satisfaction than collective forms since job satisfaction is about the individual’s appraisal of the job. The nature of job satisfaction also reinforces the fact that the individuality of employees’ engagement practices will more likely motivate employees to use their creativity and contribute to the success of the organisation. Taking into account the fact that some employees may be intrinsically motivated, rewarding performance extrinsically has also been observed to be subjective in some cases and this raises concerns about the fairness of rewards and the process. Non-discriminatory working environment has been observed to complement the presence of employees’ engagement practices. Further, as suggested by the demand-control model, job demands that are associated with employees’ engagement practices and appropriate practices that may moderate the negative effects of job demands are important to consider when analysing job satisfaction.
Logit estimations conducted on merged data from management and employee surveys of the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) suggest that British employees are more likely to be satisfied with different facets of the job when allowed to participate and influence final decisions and rewarded for effort individually. The effects of these engagement practices are strengthened when employees work in non-discriminatory environments. Re-evaluating individual forms of employee engagement practices in the context of the demand-control model, we observe from the logit estimations that employees are more likely to be satisfied in low strain jobs than in high strain jobs. Further, Equal Opportunities (EO) policies are observed to be important practices in the workplace. These results are achieved by extending and testing the demand-control model, accounting for job demand, control and EO policies.