The Impact of Employee Engagement on Task Performance in Developing Countries: An Examination of the State-Owned Enterprises in Ghana

In recent past, there has been growing interest in the research on employee engagement (EE). The basic premise of this growth is that there is correlation between EE and task performance, which enables the organisation to meet... [ view full abstract ]

In recent past, there has been growing interest in the research on employee engagement (EE). The basic premise of this growth is that there is correlation between EE and task performance, which enables the organisation to meet its objectives. For instance, it is believed that engaged employees tend to be more productive, have lower turnover, offer quality service, and are ready to go the extra mile to enable the organisation achieve its objectives. Unfortunately, our knowledge about the impact of EE on task performance is limited to studies from the developed world with paucity of research on developing countries. At the same time, such research, even those on the public sector, have focused more on the Civil Service and agencies at the neglect of State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), despite the fact that SOEs continue to play crucial role in the delivery of public service to citizens in these countries.

As has been well noted in the extant literature that many SOEs in developing countries continue to perform below expectations and solutions need to be found to help them meet their objectives. Indeed, due to such low performance, some policymakers and researchers have continually advocated for the privatization of SOEs, while others have vehemently criticised, and continue to criticise, the privatisation idea. To the latter, these enterprises should rather be well structured with effective and efficient boards, and devoid of politicisation, for them to perform well and meet their objectives, although advocates of restructuring seem to have glossed over the importance of EE. We believe that one way to enhance the performance of SOEs is effective EE, which may impact on task performance. Effective EE may enhance the creation of public value for these enterprises. The question the paper intends to answer therefore is, how can EE impact task performance in SOEs in developing countries? We argue that if SOEs employees are well engaged by their leadership, including board members, such an engagement can lead to the building of trust between employees and organisational leadership. Such an engagement will lead to strong public value systems in these organisations and will subsequently lead to effective task performance and better service delivery. We attempt to answer this question and prove our argument by examining three SOEs in the energy sector in Ghana. This sector was selected in view of the important role energy plays in the economy. Furthermore, recent problems in the sector have reignited the debate about privatising some of these SOEs despite research showing that privatisation has been less successful in this sector in other developing countries (Bayliss and Fine, 2008; The Economist, 2016). The study is quantitative in nature, with data collected through employee survey in the organisations. Regression analysis is undertaken to examine the link between EE and employee task performance.