An integrated model of work engagement: How the satisfaction of basic psychological needs explains the relationship between personality and work engagement

Abstract

This paper aims to broaden the understanding of work engagement antecedents. It focuses on impact of personality characteristics – positive affectivity, proactive personality, and conscientiousness on work engagement, and examines whether personality influence can be explained by self-determination theory, i.e., the satisfaction of needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness. An online questionnaire on a sample of 783 Czech workers provided our data. Structured equation modelling showed the influence of positive affectivity and conscientiousness on engagement can be partly explained by the satisfaction of the need for competence. The relationship between proactive personality and engagement cannot be explained by the satisfaction of any of the basic psychological needs. More specifically, positive affectivity predicts the satisfaction of all three needs, conscientiousness predicts only the satisfaction of the need for competence, and proactive personality does not predict the satisfaction of any need. Interestingly, engagement is predicted only by the satisfaction of the need for competence.

Keywords

• work engagement
• positive affectivity
• proactive personality
• conscientiousness
• self-determination theory