Using organizational social networks to predict employee engagement

Abstract

Employee engagement (EE) has been shown to have important implications for the success of organizations. Most researchers have discussed employee engagement in terms of factors in a top-down, hierarchical model of the organization. However, there may also be contributing factors from an employee's intra-organizational social network. (IOSN). In this paper, we show that an employee's social network attributes can contribute to the prediction of engagement, primarily through centrality and homophily in a large, multinational company. Our research expands the range of theoretical factors that can predict employee engagement from a top-down vertical model to a mixedfactor horizontal model. We discuss how this work points toward a richer set of methods to predict engagement, as well as new ways of thinking about organizational networks.