Examining how respectful engagement affects task performance and affective organizational commitment: The role of job engagement

The purpose of this paper is to advance research on the newly developed construct of respectful engagement (RE) (Carmeli et al., 2015), which focuses on positive interrelating behaviors characterized by respect in the organizational context. Further, this study aims to examine whether RE was associated with task performance and affective organizational commitment, and whether employee job engagement mediated these relationships.

Using the self-reported measures and online survey method, data were collected from 185 employees working in one of the world’s largest hosiery firms located in the eastern part of Punjab, Pakistan. Structural equation modeling and multiple regressions were used to test the proposed conceptual model.

RE had significant positive effects on task performance and affective commitment. The effect of RE on affective commitment was stronger than it was on task performance. Moreover, job engagement significantly mediated the effects of RE on task performance and affective commitment.

This study provides empirical evidence that RE enhances job engagement of employees by improving their levels of effort, enthusiasm and pride and concentration in work roles. Consequently, the enhanced level of job engagement leads employees to demonstrate better task performance and increased affective commitment with the organization.

Managers can institutionalize RE by applying strategies suggested by (Dutton, 2003) that focus on conveying presence, being genuine, communicating affirmation, effective listening and supportive communication. Training programs around these strategies can help managers to achieve this goal. Furthermore, in their day-to-day performance discussions, managers should follow the above strategies that could open further avenues for RE at the workplace. Managers can also allocate some weight to employees’ RE as part of their performance appraisals. The use of rewards would encourage employees to adopt RE as a norm desired by the organization.

This study extends research on the new developed construct of RE by focusing on task performance and affective commitment as its key outcomes. Furthermore, this study is the first to introduce job engagement as mediator in the relationship of RE with task performance and affective commitment. Another important aspect of this study is that its model has been tested on the data collected from Pakistan, which is an underrepresented geographical region in the management literature.