A Timeline of events

A.1 Spring 2019

This is believed to be Eagle I.O’s initial definition of engagement:

A state of personal immersion in work characterized by enthusiasm, dedication, and personal investment, expressed cognitively, affectively, and behaviorally in the proactive pursuit of advancing organizational goals.

This definition was created by Eagle I.O Spring 2019, and modified by Kulas and Renata the following Fall semester of 2019 to include the four dimensions of Fulfillment, Absorbtion, Dedication, and Vigor.

A.2 Spring 2020

We considered removing fulfillment.

Fulfillment: finding meaning in one’s work, while having a sense of autonomy, growth, usefulness, achievement, and feeling appreciated by org. [Satisfaction(?)]

It was decided to operationalize fullfillment as an outcome of engagement rather than a definitional element

A.2.1 February 4, 2020

We lost the document where we had saved the citations for the creation of our engagement dimensions. we found it today (02/04/2020).

Three out of the four dimensions (Dedication, Vigor, and Absorbtion) came from Schaufeli et al. (2002), and we are trying to find where Fulfillment came from. We are also trying to improve the definition of each domain by looking at the current items and conducting a Modified Q sort (not correct name) to create piles of items that have commonalities within each domain.

A.2.2 February 24, 2020

Definitional amendment notes and considerations:

Absorption: being fully concentrated and happily immersed in ones work [time passes quickly and has difficulty detaching from ones work; Schaufeli et al. (2002)]

Dedication/Commitment: being strongly involved in one’s work and experiencing a sense of enthusiasm, inspiration, pride, and challenge. (Schaufeli et al., 2002) Identifying as an organizational member/ambassador

This includes conceptual elements of identification with the organization, a sense of “oneness”, seeking continuous learning and improvement. We got rid of “challenge” altogether and moved the “inspiration” and “pride” elements to other categories.

Dedication: seeking continous imporvement and demonstrating initiative

Vigor: investing consistent effort, persistence, energy, and mental resilience while working (Schaufeli et al., 2002) maybe add enthusiasm here as well

Vigor: Experiencing persistent levels of energy and enthusiasm while working

A.2.3 Structural considerations

It was considered to potentially change from a focus on affective, cognitive, and behavioral to whether their engagement stems from content/satisfaction with the organization or the people they work with. This idea was however abandoned Spring 2020.

After completing individual Q-sorts (Kulas and Renata) we decided to revisit the originally specified substantive definitions and build them up a little to make the difference between them more noticeable (and we also retained the affect, behavior, cognition focus).

A.3 Summer 2020

Definitions as of 5/19/2020:

Absorption: Being fully immersed in one’s work, where time passes quickly and one has difficulty detaching from work tasks

Vigor: Experiencing persistent levels of energy, effort, and enthusiasm while working

Dedication: Experiencing pride and challenge in ones work, as well as strong feelings of support from and loyalty toward the organization

The development team “content validation” as well as the broader content validation to inform the pilot administration (see Chapter 2.3) retained these definitions we ordered all the items according to the ones we individually selected for each category and created an item bank with the remaining items. Together we placed the items in the bank into the agreed upon categories.