Investigating the relationship between organisational culture and work engagement.

Abstract

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between organizational culture and work engagement. Work engagement is shown to be powerfully linked to a range of business success outcomes. Although a large number of studies investigate the link between employees’ work engagement and organizational variables, there remains a dearth of scientific research on organizational culture and its impact on work engagement. A quantitative research design is undertaken in a South African ICT company. A total of 455 employees complete the South African Culture Instrument and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale. Correlation analysis showes that all the dimensions of organizational culture correlate positively with work engagement dimensions. Regression analysis reveals that leadership, management processes and goals, and objectives make the strongest statistically unique contribution in predicting the dimensions of work engagement. As work engagement is shown to relate to several positive work outcomes, it makes sense for organizations to increase their employees’ levels of work engagement by addressing and improving organizational culture. The scientific understanding of the potential relationship between these constructs extends organizational culture and work engagement literature by empirically establishing an association between the two constructs.