While commitment refers to employee's satisfaction as well as identification with the organization, employee engagement goes a step further, and involves the employee making discretionary efforts towards attainment of organizational goals.
this question is nice answered in http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Employee-Engagement-Perspectives-Management/dp/184980950X.
if you can get hold of this, you can also see diff b/w job involvement, job satisfaction , OC and engagement
The commitment vs. engagement debate is for many an issue of semantics. Simply, personnaly, I would say that employee commitment may be the extent to which employees are bound emotionally to their organization, while employee engagement would be the degree to which employees are passionate about what they do, about their work, and committed to their coworkers, and their organization. So I would say that probably, as used nowadays, the concept of engagement would be a wider and better measure that gives the organization a better barometer about the employee work environment. But the truth is that it is not easy to differenciate both concepts.
Maybe we should distinguish employee engagement and work engagement. Till now there is no academic definition of employee engagement, this construct is used mostly by practitioners for defining positive organisational behaviors & high level of organisational commitment (e.g. employee engagement surveys). Some scholars (Schaufeli and Bakker) prefer to focus on work engagement that is well developed in academia, whereas others (Macey and Schneider) try to give a definition of employee engagement by integrating different definitions in one. The last approach is criticised for the risk of developing a massive concept that measures everything but nothing.
Thanks for your wonderful response. May i also ask whether commitment can be used a measure of engagement?
I would like to mention here the following taken from one of my joint research papers:
Employee engagement is different from job involvement, but there is a close relationship between the two. Armstrong (2009) mentions that, as defined by Porter et al., (1974), commitment is the relative strength of the individual’s identification with and involvement in a particular organization. Armstrong (2009) also mentions that there are three characteristics of commitment identified by Mowday et al., (1982). They are:
1. A strong desire to remain a member of the organization
2. A strong belief in and acceptance of the values and goals of the organization
3. A readiness to exert considerable effort on behalf of the organization
According to Meyer & Allen (1991), organization commitment includes three kinds. They are listed below.
1. Affective commitment – A desire to maintain membership in the organization that develops largely as the result of work experiences that create feelings of comfort and personal competence.
2. Continuance commitment – Reflects a need to remain and results from recognition of the costs (e.g., existence of side bets, lack of alternatives) associated with leaving.
3. Normative commitment – An obligation to remain resulting from internalization of a loyalty norm and/or the receipt of favors that require repayment.
Albdour & Altarawneh’s (2014) findings show that, employees who have high job engagement and organizational engagement have high level of affective commitment and normative commitment.
Saks (2006) states that organizational commitment is different from engagement, because organizational commitment is about one’s attitude and attachment towards his/her organization. Macey & Schneider’s (2008) view is that commitment might be a facet of engagement but it is not sufficient for engagement. Armstrong (2009) considered employee engagement and commitment as two constructs.
According to Armstrong (2009), engagement is job-oriented and commitment is organization-oriented. Commitment refers to attachment and loyalty. It is associated with the feelings of individuals about their organization.
So what is the conclusion ? work engagement drives commitment or commitment drives engagement ?
And then we add workplace spirituality as a notion that can enhance both engagement and commitment. Vasconcelos (2015) reckon that it can be regarded as the missing link to humanize capitalism - make it people friendly (Renesch, 2008). De-spirited workplaces tend to have lower levels of engagement and commitment.
Dear @Esther Palmer:
I will deeply appreciate if you can share the complete reference of the two writers that you have mentioned. Thank you very much for your time and support. Cristina
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