Employee loyalty and engagement in UAE public sector

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between employee loyalty (Organizational Commitment) and its two dimensions namely, affective commitment (AC) and continuance commitment (CC) with employee engagement. Design/methodology/approach – A self-administered questionnaire was used for collecting the study data from 50 employees who represent three managerial levels from the government sector in United Arab Emirates (UAE). Three hypotheses were developed in order to test the said relationship. Hypotheses were tested through using various testes namely: the correlation coefficient and the regression analysis from the Statistical Package for Social Science software. Findings – The findings indicated that there is a significant relationship between loyalty and engagement. AC was found to be more important in affecting employee's engagement when compared with CC. Research limitations/implications – The study is based on a small number of employees working mostly in one single organization which limits the generalizability of the results; a limitation that does not allow for statistical generalization but allows for analytical generalization. Originality/value – The study contributes to the literature of OC and more specifically to the relationship between employee loyalty and engagement in the UAE public sector. The outcome of the research draws decision makers’ attention to the importance of employees’ loyalty and its impact on their engagement.