The Role of Religiosity on Employee Engagement and Performance: The Perspective of Muslim Employees
Main Article Content
Keywords
job engagement, job performance, Muslim, religiosity
Abstract
Literature suggests that religiosity is an imperative factor in influencing a person's work. However, a lack of attention has been given to its effect on employee engagement and employee job performance. The purpose of this study is to assess the direct effect religiosity has on employee job performance and its indirect effect through employee engagement from the perspective of Muslim employees. To examine the religiosity-job performance model, this study utilizes Partial Least Squares (PLS) modelling with a sample of 569 Muslim employees in Bandung, Indonesia. This study reveals that religiosity dimensions (practice, altruism, and belief) significantly influence employee engagement. However, among the religiosity dimensions, only altruism has both a direct and indirect effect on employee engagement. While this unique study confirms the link between engagement and job performance, it offers a new understanding of the employee engagement role and the link between employee religiosity and employee job performance. With no previous studies in this area, it offers new insights and theoretical and managerial implications.
Downloads
References
Agarwala, R., Mishra, P., & Singh, R. (2019). Religiosity and consumer behavior: a summarizing review. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 16(1), 32-54. doi: 10.1080/14766086.2018.1495098
Alessandri, G., Consiglio, C., Luthans, F., & Borgogni, L. (2018). Testing a dynamic model of the impact of psychological capital on work engagement and job performance. Career Development International, 23(1), 33-47. doi:10.1108/CDI-11-2016-0210
Bailey, C., Madden, A., Alfes, K., Fletcher, L., D, R., & Holmes, J. (2015). Evaluating the evidence on employee engagement and its potential benefits to NHS staff: a narrative synthesis of the literature.
Health Service Delivery Research, 3(26), 1-424. doi: 10.3310/hsdr03260
Barhem, B., Younies, H., & Muhamad, R. (2009). Religiosity and work stress coping behavior of Muslim employees. Education, Business and Society: Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues, 2(2), 123-137. doi: 10.1108/17537980910960690
Batson, D. C., & Rebecca, A. G. (1981). Religious orientation and helping behavior: Responding to one's own or the victim's needs? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40(3), 511–520. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.40.3.511
Brien, A., Anthonisz, A., & Suhartanto, D. (2019). Human capital in the Dubai hotel industry: A study of four- and five-star hotels and the HR challenges they face. Journal Of Human Resources In Hospitality & Tourism, 18(20), 1-19. doi: 10.1080/15332845.2019.1558489
Chin, W. W., Peterson, R. A., & Brown, S. P. (2008). Structural equation modeling in marketing: Some practical reminders. Journal of marketing theory and practice, 16(4), 287-298. doi: 10.2753/MTP1069-6679160402
Clayton, R. R., & Gladden, J. W. (1974). The Five Dimensions of Religiosity: Toward Demythologizing a Sacred Artifact. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 13(2), 135-143. doi: 10.2307/1384375
Dean, D., Suhartanto, D., & Kusdibyo, L. (2019). Predicting Destination Image in Creative Tourism: A Comparative between Tourists and Residents. International Journal of Applied Business Research, 1(1), 1-15. doi: 10.35313/ijabr.v1i01.36
Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56, 218-226.
Guest, D. E. (2015). Voice and employee engagement. In P. Ackers & S. Johnstone (Eds.), Finding a Voice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hair, J. E., Hult, G. T., Ringle, C. M., & Sarstedt, M. (2017). A Primer on Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) (2 ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Hair, J. F., Black, W. C., Babin, B. J., & Anderson, R. E. (2018). Multivariate data analysis (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River: Chengage.
Hamza, K. (2010). Measuring Religiosity in Consumer Research From an Islamic Perspective. Journal of Economic and Administrative Sciences, 26(1), 52-78. doi: 10.1108/10264116201000003
Haruna, A. Y., & Marthandan, G. (2017). Foundational competencies for enhancing work engagement in SMEs Malaysia. Journal of Workplace Learning, 29(3), 165-184. doi: doi:10.1108/JWL-07-2016-0066
Ismail Hussein, N. (2019). Employee engagement and job performance in Lebanon: the mediating role of creativity. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 68(3), 506-523. doi: 10.1108/IJPPM-02-2018-0052
Johansen, M. S., & Sowa, J. E. (2019). Human resource management, employee engagement, and nonprofit hospital performance. Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 29(4), 549-567. doi: 10.1002/nml.21352
Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692-724. doi: 10.2307/256287
Kim Shyan, F., David, S. W., & Erdogan, B. Z. (2004). The influence of religion on attitudes towards the advertising of controversial products. European Journal of Marketing, 38(5/6), 537-555. doi: 10.1108/03090560410529204
King, J. E., & Williamson, I. O. (2005). Workplace Religious Expression, Religiosity and Job Satisfaction: Clarifying a Relationship. Journal of Management, Spirituality & Religion, 2(2), 173-198. doi: 10.1080/14766080509518579
Kutcher, E. J., Bragger, J. D., Rodriguez-Srednicki, O., & Masco, J. L. (2010). The Role of Religiosity in Stress, Job Attitudes, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(2), 319-337. doi: 10.1007/s10551-009-0362-z
Mathew, G. C., Prashar, S., & Ramanathan, H. N. (2018). Role of spirituality and religiosity on employee commitment and performance. International Journal of Indian Culture and Business Management, 16(3), 302-322. doi: 10.1504/ijicbm.2018.090913
Milliman, J., Gatling, A., & Kim, J. (2018). The effect of workplace spirituality on hospitality employee engagement, intention to stay, and service delivery. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 35, 56-65. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2018.03.002
Moon, T.-W., Youn, N., Hur, W.-M., & Kim, K.-M. (2020). Does employees’ spirituality enhance job performance? The mediating roles of intrinsic motivation and job crafting. Current Psychology , 39, 1618–1634. doi: 10.1007/s12144-018-9864-0
Nikolova, I., Schaufeli, W., & Notelaers, G. (2019). Engaging leader – Engaged employees? A crosslagged study on employee engagement. European Management Journal, 37(6), 772-783. doi: 10.1016/j.emj.2019.02.004
Osman-Gani, A. M., Hashim, J., & Ismail, Y. (2013). Establishing linkages between religiosity and spirituality on employee performance. Employee Relations, 35(4), 360-376. doi: 10.1108/ER-04- 2012-0030
Rehman, A., & Shabbir, M. S. (2010). The relationship between religiosity and new product adoption. Journal of Islamic Marketing, 1(1), 63-69. doi: 10.1108/17590831011026231
Saks Alan, M. (2019). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement revisited. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, 6(1), 19-38. doi: 10.1108/JOEPP-06-2018-0034
Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21(7), 600-619. doi: 10.1108/02683940610690169
Saroglou, V. (2011). Believing, Bonding, Behaving, and Belonging: The Big Four Religious Dimensions and Cultural Variation. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 42(8), 1320-1340. doi: 10.1177/0022022111412267
Schaufeli, W. (2014). What is Engagement? In C. Truss, K. Alfes, R. Delbridge, A. Shantz & S. E (Eds.), Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice. London: Routledge.
Sikorska-Simmons, E. (2005). Religiosity and Work-Related Attitudes Among Paraprofessional and Professional Staff in Assisted Living. Journal of Religion, Spirituality & Aging, 18(1), 65-82. doi: 10.1300/J496v18n01_05
Souiden, N., & Rani, M. (2015). Consumer attitudes and purchase intentions toward Islamic banks: the influence of religiosity. International Journal of Bank Marketing, 33(2), 143-161. doi:10.1108/IJBM- 10-2013-0115
Suhartanto, D., & Brien, A. (2018). Multidimensional engagement and store performance: The perspective of frontline retail employees. International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management, 67(5), 809-824. doi:10.1108/IJPPM-03-2017-0065
Suhartanto, D., Gan, C., Sarah Ira, S., & Setiawan, S. (2019). Loyalty towards Islamic banking: service quality, emotional or religious driven? Journal of Islamic Marketing, 11(1), 66-80. doi: 10.1108/JIMA-01-2018-0007
Suhartanto, D., & Leo, G. (2018). Small business entrepreneur resistance of ICT adoption: a lesson from Indonesia. International Journal of Business and Globalisation, 21(1), 5-18. doi: 10.1504/IJBG.2018.10015253
Tiliouine, H., Cummins, R. A., & Davern, M. (2009). Islamic religiosity, subjective well-being, and health. Mental Health, Religion & Culture, 12(1), 55-74. doi: 10.1080/13674670802118099
Article Sidebar
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Author’s Warranties
The author warrants that the article is original, written by the stated author(s), has not been published before, contains no unlawful statements, does not infringe the rights of others, is subject to copyright that is vested exclusively in the author and free of any third party rights, and that any necessary written permissions to quote from other sources have been obtained by the author(s).
Copyright
The copyright is transferred to Publishers. As a condition of publication, the authors must grant the IJABR the right to distribute their manuscripts to the widest possible readership in online/electronic format. In this term, the corresponding author must fill out the Copyright Transfer Agreement that we have provided. If the article was jointly prepared by other authors, the signatory of this form warrants that he/she has been authorized by all co-authors to sign this agreement on their behalf, and agrees to inform his/her co-authors of the terms of this agreement.
User Rights
International Journal of Applied Business Research objective is to disseminate articles published are as free as possible. Under the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY-SA 4.0), this journal permits users to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the material) the work for any purpose, even commercially with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in IJABR. Users will also need to attribute authors and this journal to distributing works in the journal. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in IJABR. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work.