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Occupational differences in work engagement: A longitudinal study among eight occupational groups in Norway
Author(s) -
Innstrand Siw Tone
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/sjop.12298
Subject(s) - psychology , structural equation modeling , work engagement , social psychology , burnout , antecedent (behavioral psychology) , scale (ratio) , developmental psychology , work (physics) , clinical psychology , statistics , engineering , mechanical engineering , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics
The aim of the present study was to explore occupational differences in the experience of engagement both with regard to differences in the level of work engagement as well as in the predicting value of different antecedent variables. Multigroup latent mean analysis was performed on eight different occupational groups in Norway (lawyers, physicians, nurses, teachers, church ministers, bus drivers, and people working in advertising and information technology; N = 3,475). Tests for factorial invariance supported the use of the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory scale across occupational groups and that the latent means were comparable across the groups. Results indicated significant occupational differences in the experience of vigor and dedication. The lawyers reported the most vigor and the church ministers the most dedication. Least vigor was reported among the teachers and the advertising group reported to be least dedicated. Cross‐lagged multigroup structural equation modeling ( SEM ) analysis suggested there are different processes behind the development of engagement across occupations. Visualization of how some occupations cluster or differ from each other is important as it might engender theory building and further hypotheses testing.