Participation, Power and Engagement: An examination of factors influencing engagement and disengagement among members of an employers association

Employee engagement has been a critical challenge for contemporary organisations, and a major concern of academic research today (Iddagoda & Opatha, 2016), especially because of its close links with performance, motivation, commitment, job satisfaction and organisational citizenship behaviour (Gruman & Saks, 2011; Leiter & Bakker, 2010; Macey et al., 2009; Saks, 2006).

The complexity of this concept and difficulties in engaging employees are particularly evident in the worldwide employee engagement crisis (Mann & Harter, 2016). Therefore, there appears to be a significant need for a greater understanding of the nature of employee engagement and developing practical solutions for its improvement.
Conducting this study will provide an opportunity to identify the particular drivers of engagement and disengagement among members of employers associations in great depth, from an ethnographic perspective. Consequently, it will offer recommendations for future actions for developing engagement in such settings.
It appears that diversity has a significant impact on employee engagement and its antecedents. Current research conducted by an analytics firm Peakon (2016) shows that engagement differs by gender, and for men a sense of accomplishment and personal growth are bigger factors in workplace engagement rather than for women. This should be taken into account considering the male domination at BESA. Moreover, this study could investigate further consequences of diversity in the workplace in order to identify its impact on employee engagement.