Psychometric Properties of the Job Engagement Scale: A Cross-Country Analysis

Abstract

Job engagement is a motivational construct that refers to the willingness of employees to invest their physical, emotional and cognitive energies in their jobs in a holistic and simultaneous manner. Researchers use the Job Engagement Scale (JES) to measure the above conceptualization of job engagement, whose application is recent in job engagement research and is based largely on Western samples. In order to examine how job engagement is perceived in Asian contexts, this exploratory study aimed to provide a cross-country analysis of psychometric properties of the JES. We utilized data from earlier research of the first author, which were collected from 347 Pakistani and 498 Malaysian employees worked at diverse organizations. Psychometric analyses with reliability and validity estimations were performed using the Structural Equation Modeling. Results showed good internal consistency reliability, convergent validity and factorial validity of the JES for both Pakistani and Malaysian samples. However, psychometric properties of the JES for Pakistan outperformed those for Malaysia in all the estimations. Implications for future use of the JES and limitations of the study are discussed.