Hardiness, Supervisor Support and Work Engagement: Empirical Evidence from Tertiary Institutions in Ogun State, Nigeria

Ngozi Caroline Uwannah^1, , Constance Ndidi Onyekachi² and Bankole Adeyemi Filade¹

¹Department of Education, Babcock University, Ilisan-Remo, Nigeria

²ProHealth HMO Limited, Nigeria

Cite this paper:
Ngozi Caroline Uwannah, Constance Ndidi Onyekachi and Bankole Adeyemi Filade. Hardiness, Supervisor Support and Work Engagement: Empirical Evidence from Tertiary Institutions in Ogun State, Nigeria. American Journal of Applied Psychology. 2021; 9(1):8-14. doi: 10.12691/ajap-9-1-2

Abstract

In times past, researchers have studied different variables that predict work engagement of employees but few of such studies have looked at the influence of hardiness and supervisor support on employees’ work engagement especially in Ogun State, Nigeria. This study therefore, examined the extent to which hardiness and supervisor support influence the work engagement of employees in public and private tertiary institutions in Ogun State, Nigeria. A sample of 476 employees selected through stratified random sampling technique was used. Hardiness, supervisor support and work engagement of employees were measured with standardized scales while three hypotheses postulated were analyzed with multiple regression and correlation analysis at .05 level of significance. Findings reveal that 43% of the variance in work engagement were accounted for by hardiness and supervisor support showing that hardiness and supervisor support jointly contributed to employees’ work engagement (F_{(2, 473)} = 181.496, p < .05). Specifically, supervisor support (Beta = .658, t = 19.021, p < .05) contributed more to the prediction of employee work engagement than hardiness (Beta = .014, t = .402, p > .05) which had no significant contribution. Finally, there was a significant positive relationship between supervisor support and work engagement ((r = .659, p < .05), and non-significant positive relationships between hardiness and work engagement (r = .038, p > .05), and hardiness and supervisor support (r = .037, p > .05) These findings stress the important role of hardiness and supervisor support on the work engagement of employees. Implications of these findings is that managers need to create and boost needed managerial support at the various levels of employment to enhance employee engagement to meet organisational goals. Although hardiness is found to have no significant influence on work engagement, yet it is noted that individuals who are high in hardiness may be more likely to build and maintain a social network compared to those who are low in hardiness, hence the result of this research may be significant to employers on manpower development for better work commitment and engagement. It would therefore, be beneficial to provide hardiness trainings to new hires in the work place since previous researches has established that hardiness training may increase levels of hardiness in workers improving their job performance while leading to a reduction in attrition rate.

Keywords:
work engagement hardiness supervisor support employees tertiary institutions

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

References:

[1]	Janetius, S. T., Padmanabhan, R. & Mini, T. C. Engaged employees in institutes of higher education. International Journal of Advanced Research, 4 (11), 308-312.
[2]	Ram, P., & Prabhakar, G. V. (2011). The role of employee engagement in work-related outcomes. Interdisciplinary Journal of Research in Business, 1, 47-61.
[3]	Jose, G., & Mampilly, S. R. (2015). Relationships among perceived supervisor support, psychological empowerment and employee engagement in Indian workplaces. Journal of Workplace Behavioral Health, 30(3), 231-250.
[4]	Jones, J. R., Ni, J., & Wilson, D. C. (2009). Comparative effects of race/ethnicity and employee engagement on withdrawal behaviour. Journal of Managerial Issues, XXI (2), 195-215.
[5]	Shaw, K. (2005). An Engagement strategy process for communicators. Strategic Communication Management, 9 (3), 26-29.
[6]	Christian, M. S., Garza, A. S., & Slaughter, J. E. (2011). Work engagement: A quantitative review and test of its relations with task and contextual performance. Personnel Psychology, 64, 89-136.
[7]	Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21, 600-619.
[8]	Mazzetti, G., Vignoli, M. Petruzziello, G. & Palareti, L. (2019). The hardier you are, the healthier you become. May hardiness and engagement explain the relationship between leadership and employees’ health? Frontiers Psychology. 9 (2784), 1-9.
[9]	Gera, N., Sherma, R. & Saint, P. (2019). Absorption, vigor and dedication: determinants of employee engagement in B-Schools. Indian Journal of Economics and Business 18(1), 61-70.
[10]	Burns, K. L. (2016). Perceived organizational support and perceived supervisor support as antecedents of work engagement. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_theses.
[11]	Villavicencio-Ayub, E., Jurado-Cárdenas, S., Valencia-Cruz, A. (2014). Work engagement and occupational burnout: its relation to organizational socialization and psychological resilience. Journal of Behavior, Health & Social Issues, 6 (2), 45-55.
[12]	Aktar, A. & Pangil, F. (2017). Antecedents and Consequences of Employee Engagement: A Conceptual Study. IOSR Journal of Business and Management (IOSR-JBM), 19 (6), 54-67.
[13]	Schaufeli, W. B., Bakker, A. B., & Salanova, M. (2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire: a cross-national study. Educational Psychology Measurement, 66, 701-716.
[14]	Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and dis- engagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 3, 692-724.
[15]	Anitha, J. (2014). Determinants of employee engagement and their impact on employee performance. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 63(3), 308-323.
[16]	Kaliannan, M. & Adjovu, S. N. (2015). Effective employee engagement and organizational success: A case study. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 172 (January), 161-168.
[17]	Ahmad, A. (2019). Employee engagement factors in a higher education institution. Binus Business Review, 10(3), 187-200.
[18]	Jones, J. R. & Harter, K. (2005). Race effects on the employee engagement - turnover intention relationship. Journal of Leadership of Organizational Studies, 11, 78-88.
[19]	Simon, N., & Amarakoon, U. (2015). Impact of occupational stress on employee engagement. Proceedings of 12th International Conference on Business Management (ICBM). Colombo, Sri Lanka: University of Sri Jayewardenepura.
[20]	Azeem, S. M. (2020). Personality hardiness, job involvement and job burnout among teachers. International Journal of Vocational and Technical Education, 2(3), 36-40.
[21]	Moreno-Jimenez, B., Rodriguez-Munoz, A., Hernandez, E. G., & Blanco, L. M. (2014). Development and validation of the Occupational Hardiness Questionnaire. Psicothema, 26(2), 207-214.
[22]	Psychological Reference Research Report (2020). Retrieved from http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/industrial-organizational-psychology/individual-differences/hardiness-i-o/.
[23]	Bartone, P. T. (2006). Resilience under military operational stress: Can leaders influence hardiness? Military Psychology, 18, S131-S148.
[24]	McCalister, K. T., Dolbier, C. L., Webster, J. A., Mallon, M. W. & Steinhardt, M. A. (2006). Hardiness and support at work as predictors of work stress and job satisfaction. Science of Health Promotions, 20 (3183), 156-171.
[25]	Chan, D. W. (2003). Hardiness and its role in the stress-burnout relationship among prospective Chinese teachers in Hong Kong. Teaching and teacher Education, 19 (4), 381-395.
[26]	Britt, T. W., Adler, A. B., & Bartone, P. T. (2001). Deriving benefits from stressful events: The role of engagement in meaningful work and hardiness. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 6, 53-63.
[27]	Bueno de Freitas, F. M., Vannuchi, M. T. O., Haddad, M. L., Carvalho, L. G., & Silva, M. A. (2006). Hardiness and occupational stress in nurses’ managers of hospital institutions. Journal of Nursing, 11 (10), 4199-4204.
[28]	Baran, B. E., Shanock, L. R., & Miller, L. R. (2012). Advancing organizational support theory into the twenty-first century world of work. Journal of Business and Psychology, 27, 123-147.
[29]	Bakker, A. B. & Albrecht, S. (2018). Work engagement: Current trends. Career Development International, 23 (1), 4-11.
[30]	Babin, B.J. & Boles, J. S. (1996). The effects of perceived co-worker involvement and supervisor support on service provider role stress, performance, and job satisfaction. Journal of Retail, 72, 57-75.