Effects of Psychological Antecedents of Engagement on Organizational Performance: Mediating Role of Employee Engagement

This study aims to assess the influence of psychological antecedents of engagement on the performance of public sectored organizations in a developing nation within the context of human resources management and public sector management. The study proposed a conceptual model comprising 7 hypotheses tested with employment of the structural equation modelling-partial least squares. Data was gathered using structured questionnaire from 303 public employees from 10 public sectored organizations in Nigeria. The results revealed that of the three main psychological antecedents of engagement, psychological meaningfulness antecedents of engagement and psychological safety antecedents of engagement directly influenced employee engagement. However, no effect was found for psychological availability antecedents of engagement. The finding also showed that employee engagement mediates the relationship between psychological antecedents of engagement and organizational performance. The most significant effect was established in the relationship between psychological meaningfulness antecedents of engagement and employee engagement. The limitation of this study relates to its generalizability because it focuses on only the public sector organization. Additionally, it is cross-sectional research, and the lack of time which a longitudinal study will have could make the findings broader than it is.