Employee Engagement From a Self-Determination Theory Perspective

Macey and Schneider (2008) draw on numerous theories to explain what engagement is and how it is similar to and different from related constructs in the organizational behavior literature. As a result, we now have a better understanding of some of the key ‘‘components’’ of engagement. What appears to be missing, however, is a strong unifying theory to guide research and practice. We believe that such a theory exists in the form of self-determination theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Ryan & Deci, 2000) and its various corollaries, self-concordance theory (SCT; Sheldon & Elliot, 1999), hierarchical theory (Vallerand, 1997), and passion theory (Vallerand et al., 2003). Although Macey and Schneider acknowledged the relevance of SDT and SCT, we believe that much greater use of these theories could be made to justify and extend their conceptual model.