Blog 03

Post-retirement engagement

Professor K. Dissanayake

University of Colombo, Faculty of Management and Finance

Engagement has been studied across various domains, including education (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1998; Rockquemore & Schaffer, 2000), consumer behavior (Bowden, 2009), marketing (Graffigna & Gambetti, 2015), organizational behavior (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008; Kahn, 1990), and community engagement (De Weger et al., 2018). Consequently, concepts such as student engagement, consumer/brand engagement, work engagement, personal engagement at work, and community engagement are well-explored in existing research.

Work engagement is a well-defined term in engagement research (Kelders et al., 2020). The Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES; Schaufeli et al., 2006) is widely recognized as a common measurement tool for work engagement. Research on work engagement indicates that engagement is not always objective or relatively stable; instead, it can be subjective, processual, and relational. It may also be contextual or socially situated and is not always experienced positively (Wittenberg et al., 2024).

In a systematic review, Kelders et al. (2020) identified that, across research domains, engagement is viewed as a "state of being engaged" (with something). However, they also note that nearly all domains consider engagement as a "process," which may include getting engaged, staying engaged, disengaging, and re-engaging. In contexts where learning is integrated with civic responsibilities (such as service-learning), student learning process is understood as a cognitive process involving stages of shock, normalization, and engagement (Rockquemore & Schaffer, 2000). Kelders et al. (2020) indicate that across various domains, engagement is predominantly regarded as a multidimensional construct. Furthermore, engagement is seen as an interaction, an alliance, and a co-production between parties (Gambetti & Graffigna, 2010).

Graffigna (2017), in a review of engagement in organized settings, found that engagement: (1) is different from empowerment and activation; (2) is a multi-componential psychological experience; (3) is a self-transformative experience; (4) develops within a relational context; and (5) is a systemic phenomenon.

As such, existing literature evidence that engagement is not a one-size-fits-all concept and cannot be uniformly defined and applied across all contexts. Thus, post-retirement engagement should be approached from a perspective that aligns with the demographic profile of the cohorts, the context, and the diverse nature of the engagements involved. James et al. (2010) identified four types of engagement among older adults: work, volunteering, caregiving, and education (lifelong learning). However, in today’s socio-economic context, older adults are engaged across a much broader spectrum.

Therefore, post-retirement engagement can be multi-faceted. Some examples are as follows:

•  Work engagement – commitment, involvement, and satisfaction towards the job

• Community engagement – participation in community (civic) activities

•  Educational engagement – level of interest, motivation, and participation in learning activities

• Social engagement – investing in social relationships

•  Family engagement – spending time and securing family relationships 

• Activism – commitment towards political / environmental activities

• Spiritual engagement – spending time on spiritual activities

• Creative work engagement – spending time in creative work (drawing, painting, crafting)

• Care service engagement (caregiving)

Furthermore, from an organizational management perspective, post-retirement engagement can be categorized into two types: (1) economically active engagement and (2) economically inactive engagement. Thus, we identify the below categorization of post-retirement engagement for an exploratory study.

References

1. 1. Bakker, A.B., & Schaufeli, W.B. (2008). Editorial: Positive Organizational Behavior: Engaged Employees in Flourishing Organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 29(2), 147-154.

   2. Bowden, J.L.H. (2009). The Process of Customer Engagement: A Conceptual Framework. Journal of Marketing Theory and Practice, 17(1), 63–74. https://doi.org/10.2753/MTP1069-6679170105

   3. Gambetti, R.C., & Graffigna, G. (2010). The concept of engagement: A systematic analysis of the ongoing marketing debate. International Journal of Market Research, 52(6), 801-826.

   4. Graffigna, G., & Gambetti, R. C. (2015). Grounding Consumer-brand Engagement: A field driven conceptualisation. International Journal of Market Research, 57(4), 605–630. http://doi.org/10.2501/IJMR-2015-049

   5. Graffigna, G. (2017). Is a Transdisciplinary Theory of Engagement in Organized Settings Possible? A Concept Analysis of the Literature on Employee Engagement, Consumer Engagement and Patient Engagement. Frontiers in Psychology, 8, 872. http://doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00872  

   6. Kahn, W.A. (1990). Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and Disengagement at Work. The Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), 692-724.

   7. Kelders, S.M., van Zyl, L.E., & Ludden, G.D.S. (2020). The Concept and Components of Engagement in Different Domains Applied to eHealth: A Systematic Scoping Review. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 926, 1-14. http://doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00926

   8. Kearsley, G., & Shneiderman, B. (1998). Engagement Theory: A Framework for Technology-Based Teaching and Learning. Educational Technology, 38(5), 20-23.

   9. Miliszewska, I., & Horwood, J. (2006). Engagement theory: A framework for supporting cultural differences in transnational education. ACM SIGCSE Bulletin.

   10. Rockquemore, K.A., & Schaffer, R.H. (2000). Toward a Theory of Engagement: A Cognitive Mapping of Service-Learning Experiences. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 14-25.

   11. De Weger, E., Van Vooren, N., Luijkx, K.G., Baan, C.A., & Drewes, H.W. (2018).  Achieving successful community engagement: a rapid realist review. BMC Health Service Research, 18, 285. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12913-018-3090-1

   12. Schaufeli, W. B. (2014). What Is Engagement? In C. Truss, K. Alfes, R. Delbridge, A. Shantz, & E. Soane (Eds.), Employee Engagement in Theory and Practice (pp. 15-35). Routledge.

   13. Schaufeli, W.B., Bakker, A.B., Salanova, M. (2006). The measurement of work engagement with a short questionnaire: A cross-national study. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 66(4), 701-716.

   14. Wittenberg, H., Eweje, G., Taskin, N., & Forsyth, D. (2024). Different perspectives on engagement, where to from here? A systematic literature review. International Journal of Management Reviews, 26, 410-434.