| Abstract [eng] |
Kadžiulis Marius. Factors Affecting Engagement of Different Generations Employees. Master’s Final Thesis in Human Resources Management / supervisor prof. dr. Violeta Šilingienė. Department of Management the School of Economics and Business, Kaunas University of Technology. Social sciences: Management and Administration. Key words: different generations, employee engagement, factors affecting engagement. Kaunas, 2016. 67 p. During the last few decades not only academic researchers, but business managers as well found employee engagement as one of the most important factors towards increasing organizational financial and operational metrics. At the same time researchers started to report findings that older employees are likely to be more engaged than their younger colleagues. Following those findings there were developed generational theories suggesting that engagement is not affected by age, it’s rather driven by different work values and attitudes of different generations. Empirical researches tried to examine work values and attitudes of different employee generations, but no evidences about the research examining factors affecting engagement of different generations was found. This research is aiming to fill the gap and explore the correlation between factors affecting engagement and engagement of different generations employees. The objective of this research is to examine the relationships between factors affecting employee engagement and the engagement of different generations, including the main tasks: 1. Define employee engagement tipology after the theoretical background research. 2. Identify factors affecting employee engagement as a result of theoretical engagement models exploration. 3. Research the corelations between factors affecting employee engagement and engagement of different generations. 4. Develop empirically tested model of relationship between factors affecting employee engagement and engagement of different generations. The first part of thesis describes the theoretical background and problem statement. Second part covers the detailed literature overview on employee engagement and generational differences, also applicable theoretical solutions. In this part theoretical model is developed and hypothesis were formulated. Third part describes the scope and aim of empirical research, methodology and the structure of the selected research method survey. The fourth part consists of survey results analysis, econometric analysis and theoretical model evaluation. Also it covers results presentation and discussion. 147 respondents took part in the survey: 31 % “baby boomers”, 27 % X generation and 42 % Y generation. There was no significant correlation between employee generation and engagement found. However it was confirmed that different factors affect engagement of different generations and at least one factor from hypothesis for each generation was empirically confirmed. This research contributes to academic and practical findings by proposing valid and significant engagement research model and by examining the engagement factors of each generation that can be adopted by business. |
