En studie om arbetsengagemang vid gränslöst arbete - En kvantitativ studie som undersöker hur meningsfullhet, socialt stöd, arbetstillfredsställelse och om kön påverkar arbetsengagemang

Abstract

Today's technology allows flexibility for individuals in organizations meaning that they can work reg ardless of time and locations (Acker, 2006). This complex situation that comes with working without boundaries involves allowing employees to handle much of their work themselves and usually at a distance from colleagues and managers (Grönlund, 2007). Being socially distanced from social support and once workplace can affect individuals work engagement. Work engagement is something that can be enhanced by a balance between demands and resources and can also create a sense of well-being at work (Dellve & Eriksson, 2016; Grönlund, 2007). The Job Demand-Resources model emphasizes the importance of social support for employees to experience work engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). This model is about how the employer can increase work engagement if the demands of a person’s work are in line with the resources in terms of social support that the individual has access to within the company (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). The aim of this study is to investigate how meaningfulness, social support, job satisfaction and sexes can affect work engagement in individuals who work without boundaries. This is a quantitative study where empirical data was collected through a web-based survey with 80 participants. The data of the study was analyzed with Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). The hypotheses were tested with several regression analyses to extract the result and to find what correlation was the strongest. The results show that meaningfulness has the strongest correlation with work engagement. This shows in bivariate regression analysis with work engagement as the dependent variable and meaningfulness as the independent variable. It is also displayed in the multivariate regression analysis with all the independent variables that meaningfulness is the strongest. The second strongest was social support in the bivariate regression although in the multivariate regression, this correlation fades and was no longer significant result. Job satisfaction showed as well as meaningfulness and social support a correlation with work engagement and stayed significant in the multivariate regression. However, in the search to find out if there was a difference between the sexes, it showed that women were slightly more engaged in their work, but the result was far from significant which also supports the previous studies within the area.