ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews what catalyzed and intense interest in engagement as a sought-after business advantage. It shows that strong relationship of high levels of engagement to not only workplace health but to worker’s physical and emotional well-being. The chapter looks at some “wrong paths taken” on the way to defining engagement, and how these wrong paths actually strengthened the definition and understanding of engagement. The positive psychology movement catalyzed a great deal of interest in engagement, beyond William Kahn’s article, and also spurred interest in a similar topic, “flow”, which shares some of the same fundamental strengths as engagement. Since Kahn’s article in 1990, this “top-down” approach has created a number of theories and constructs which have been studied. Kahn’s research suggested that engagement is the personal expression of “self-in-role”; someone is engaged when they are able to express their “authentic self” and to invest themselves personally into their job.
