Trends and Directions of Employee Engagement: Perspectives from Literature Review

There has been an immense focus on the topic of employee engagement in the past two decades yet it is inconsistently defined. Numerous overlapping definitions by academicians and practitioners make literature in a fluid state. However, both view highly engaged workforce as a means for achieving a competitive advantage in a dynamic business world. An understanding of employee engagement in different conceptual spaces has led to a fragmented approach for developing and implementing strategies for capitalizing the positive outcomes of employee engagement for the organizations. This review paper explores the trends and traces the directions of employee engagement using perspectives from literature review. The seminal works on the topic of employee engagement are reviewed to understand the development of the construct and explore the areas of consistency and inconsistency among various constructs of employee engagement.