A conservation of resources perspective on public sector employee work engagement

Brennan, Aislinn, Garavan, Thomas N., Egan, Tom, O'Brien, Fergal and Ullah, Irfan (2023) A conservation of resources perspective on public sector employee work engagement. European Management Review, 21 (2). pp. 393-407. ISSN 1740-4762

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Abstract

Research on how and when leader–member exchange (LMX) impacts work engagement in different public sector contexts and categories of employees is scarce. Utilising conservation of resources theory, we advance research on LMX and work engagement in two studies. Study 1 investigates the mediating role of a contextual resource (psychological safety) and an energy resource (job crafting) in a resource-rich context, and Study 2 investigates the moderating role of a personal resource (optimism) in a resource-poor context. Study 1 uses a three-wave research design with employees from the engineering and technical divisions of an Irish public utility operating in the energy market and found that both psychological safety and job crafting functioned as partial mediators. Study 2 uses a sample of teachers and tutors from three Irish local authority education and training organisations and found that subordinate optimism moderated the LMX work engagement relationship. Our study findings highlight that both psychological safety and job crafting operated as important linking mechanisms and shed light on how LMX is linked to work engagement in the case of public utility employees. We also found that employee optimism provided an explanation of when it will impact work engagement with employees working in an education context. We highlight theory and practice implications.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	job crafting; leader–member exchange; psychological safety; public sector organisations; subordinate optimism; work engagement
Subjects:	L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > Teaching Personnel H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Specific Industries > Energy industries H Social Sciences > HM Sociology > Leadership H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > Human Resource Management > Leadership H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Issues of Labour and Work > Quality of Work Life / Job Satisfaction
Divisions:	School of Business > Staff Research and Publications
Depositing User:	Tamara Malone
Date Deposited:	28 Aug 2025 10:15
Last Modified:	28 Aug 2025 10:15
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/8661

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