Engagement at work: An emerging concept

According to the Society for Occupational Health Psychology, occupational health psychology (OHP) seeks “… to improve the quality of working life, and enhance the safety, health and well-being of workers” (SOHP, 2008). Similarly, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health states that OHP concerns “… the application of psychology to improving the quality of work life, and to protecting and promoting the safety, health and well-being of workers” (NIOSH, 2008). What is interesting about these two definitions is that they consider OHP as aiming to enhance and promote worker health, safety and well-being. That is, the discipline should not only be concerned with “fixing what is wrong”; it should also “develop what is right” (Schaufeli, 2004, p. 514).

However, practice is rather different. Much research in OHP is about ill health, and this also applies to what is published in Work & Stress. Leafing through the journal's previous five volumes shows that the majority of the contributions focus on problems such as physical violence and aggression, work–home conflict, burnout, musculoskeletal complaints, workplace accidents, high emotional and time demands, and so forth. These issues are central to occupational health psychology and many of these papers have made important contributions to the knowledge in their respective areas. Yet, there does seem to be an imbalance between the number of contributions addressing how what is wrong can be fixed (risk prevention), and the number of papers dealing with developing what is right (health promotion).

Editors are dependent upon the input of authors, in that their submissions constitute the pool from which they select the papers for publication; what is not in the pool cannot be published. We were therefore pleased when three prominent researchers in OHP (professors Arnold Bakker, Wilmar Schaufeli, and Michael Leiter) contacted us with the idea of editing a special issue on the emerging concept of work engagement, which refers to a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigour, dedication, and absorption, certainly something worth promoting. Their efforts have resulted in the present special issue, entitled Engagement at work: An emerging concept.

This issue includes six papers. The first (authored by Bakker, Schaufeli, Leiter, and Taris, 2008) sets the stage, presenting an overview of work engagement research and concluding with a research agenda. Then two longitudinal studies (by de Lange, De Witte, and Notelaers, 2008, and by Hakanen, Schaufeli, and Ahola, 2008) focus on the predictors of work engagement, and analyze whether these differentially predict engagement for those who stay and those who leave the organization. In the fourth paper, Halbesleben and Wheeler (2008) investigate the differences between two related concepts, namely engagement and job embeddedness (a form of attachment to one's job). The fifth contribution (by Sonnentag, Mojza, Binnewies, and Scholl, 2008) examines whether those who are engaged at work detach at home on a weekly basis. Finally, Van den Broeck, Vansteenkiste, De Witte, and Lens, 2008) address the question why job resources translate into engagement. In conjunction, these papers present a broad overview of state-of-the-art research into work engagement, building on strong designs as well as showing thorough knowledge of the subject matter. We therefore believe that this issue will be a significant contribution towards advancing research on work engagement.