Exploring the mediating role of work engagement between the linkages of job characteristics with organizational engagement and job satisfaction

The purpose of this study is to empirically test a hypothesized model establishing job characteristics as an antecedent of work engagement leading to job satisfaction and organizational engagement of employees working with public sector banks (PSBs) in India.

Based on responses to a survey questionnaire by a sample of 622 Scale I employees of Indian PSBs, the hypothesized mediation model was tested with SPSS macro (Preacher and Hayes, 2004).

The testing of hypotheses established that job characteristics positively influence work engagement, organizational engagement and job satisfaction. The full mediation by work engagement between the relationships of job characteristics with job satisfaction and organizational engagement is established after the testing of mediation hypotheses.

Jobs of banks (especially in the public sector) are recommended to be enriched with more emphasis on offering employees with identifiable and significant tasks that have autonomy in decision-making and feedback. PSBs should also focus on developing a positive perception of employees toward job design, to increase their levels of job satisfaction and organizational engagement through engaging them with work.

The contribution of this study should be understood in many ways. First, the study has introduced work engagement as a mediator in the study model (between job characteristics and job satisfaction) replacing the three psychological conditions (i.e. experienced meaningfulness, experienced responsibility and knowledge of results) of job characteristics model. Further, the main contribution of this study is the exploration of the linkage between work engagement and organizational engagement. The relationship between these two forms of engagement (i.e. work and organization) has been very rarely investigated in the literature. Finally, this study has attempted to hypothesize a model proposing work engagement as a mediator between the job characteristics and organization engagement which does not seem to be studied so far.