Exploring Organizational Alignment-Employee Engagement Linkages and Impact on Individual Performance

Statement of Purpose

The purpose of our work was to explore existing perspectives of organizational alignment and employee engagement to better understand what factors might be associated with enhancing individual performance. To do this, we integrated two bodies of literature to better understand the performance consequences of organizational alignment on employee engagement. Linking alignment and employee engagement offered a better understanding of the potential value of HRD in enhancing employee performance through training and development, organization development, and change efforts. Furthermore, the specific influence of alignment and linkage to performance at the individual level is a relatively new area of exploration in HRD.

Within both fields of HRD and management, there is a continuing body of emerging research on employee engagement. For example, several scholars have suggested engagement as a positive psychological state, rather than as trait (e.g., Macey & Schneider, 2008; Parker & Griffin, 2011) or as a specific behavioral outcome (e.g., Parker & Griffin, 2011; Shuck & Reio, 2013). Engagement has been further positioned as an active psychological state that emerges within those conditions that promote the nurturing of the experience itself (e.g., the engagement of condition; Shuck & Rose, 2013; Zigarmi, Nimon, & Shuck, 2013). This parallels other research in HRD that has explored the topic in depth (e.g., Chalofsky & Krishna, 2009; Rurkkhum & Bartlett, 2012; Song, Kolb, Lee, & Kim, 2012).

In support of this framework, several streams of work have surfaced within HRD on engagement that press the boundaries of the field. Of particular note is the special issue of Advances in Developing Human Resources on meaning and purpose (Chalofsky & Cavallaro, 2013). Within this issue, several authors explored the reframing of meaning and purpose as a lens for HRD. Following suit, Shuck and Rose (2013) explored the reframing of meaning and purpose within the construct of engagement as means to examine the boundaries, missions, and purposes of the emerging HRD field. Moreover, Shuck, Ghosh, Zigarmi, and Nimon (2013) have explored the nomological network of engagement, suggesting theoretical distinction between engagement and the work attitudes (i.e., job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and job involvement)—weighing in on the debate of engagement as old wine in a new bottle. More recently, several articles appeared in the flagship empirical journal for the HRD field, Human Resource Development Quarterly, exploring the specific challenges (Saks & Gruman, 2014) and opportunities (Sarti, 2014; Shuck, Twyford, Reio, & Shuck, 2014) in the application of engagement to the practice of HRD.

Within a limited sampling of research, it seems clear that scholarly activity on employee engagement in HRD is on the rise. Moreover, and broadly speaking, one theme within the existing literature is that engagement seems good for both organizations and individuals because it generally promotes positive performance and the broadening of employee resources such as creativity and innovation (Shuck & Reio, 2013; Song et al., 2012). Noticeably missing, however, is any research in HRD, conceptual or empirical, focused on the relation between organizational alignment and employee engagement.

Within the alignment literature, several broad themes focus on the alignment of functional strategies with the organization such as information technology (IT), manufacturing, and marketing strategies (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Powell, 1992). The strategy–alignment fit is an important aspect of the organization; however, few studies examine the overarching similarities and differences that support and or hinder alignment and the resulting effect on individual performance. More importantly, the alignment literature has received scant attention from scholars in the management sciences with the exception of few scholars (e.g., Bergeron, Raymond, & Rivard, 2004; Campbell, Kay, & Avison, 2005; Kathuria, Joshi, & Porth, 2007) in the last 10 years! Thus, even though broad themes in the alignment literature advocate different perspectives on fit, the collective insights regarding alignment suggest there is much work to be done if we are to develop cumulative knowledge of how alignment can be linked to performance at the individual level. To manage the scope of the research inquiry, we sharpened our focus on the linkages of alignment and individual performance as it overlapped with employee engagement. This linkage offered an important and useful way of renewing scholarly interest in organizational alignment and updating the extant alignment literature with the relatively fresh and new findings emerging from the engagement literature.

Notwithstanding, organizational alignment has received limited interest in the HRD literature with the exception of a few seminal studies (e.g., Alagaraja, 2013b; Anderson, 2009; Sender, 1997). Consequently, there is extant value in exploring the topic for HRD. HRD focuses on individual knowledge, skills, and abilities as they relate to training and development, career development, and organization development (Swanson, 2009). Linking the two conceptual areas of organizational alignment and employee engagement will add value to HRD and enhance our current understanding of the critical organizational and individual factors that affect employee performance. As such, through the relatively new and emerging lens of engagement, we argue for increased focus on organizational alignment to better highlight the potential enablers and or barriers to performance that employees can face in organizations based on the extent of alignment of (a) their skills, knowledge, and attributes with (b) job characteristics, criteria, and responsibilities, as well as (c) organizational systems, routines, and procedure. Thus, the alignment–engagement linkages offer implications for HRD professionals and organizational decision makers in terms of developing policies and practices that can maximize individual contributions in the workplace as well as optimize performance at the level of the organization (Alagaraja, 2014).

Research Questions

Three main research questions ultimately guided our work:

From these questions, we integrate existing perspectives of organizational alignment and employee engagement from the literature and develop a conceptual framework linking alignment, individual performance, and employee engagement. This article first reviews the alignment literature, identifying different perspectives of alignment that address individual performance and are therefore, of particular relevance to HRD. We then shift focus to the employee engagement literature and elaborate on the conceptual and empirical linkages with individual performance. Finally, we explore the employee engagement–organizational alignment linkages and their consequent impact on individual performance. In what follows, we review organizational alignment literature and explore potential linkages to employee performance

Organizational Alignment

The notion of alignment as a valuable skill and scarce resource positions alignment as a dynamic capability for the organization (Powell, 1992). Alignment brings attention to both internal and external attributes of the organization (Burn, 1996) with clear performance consequences (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Powell, 1992). This linkage to performance is important as it suggests alignment as a deliberate approach toward enhancing organizational outcomes. Powell’s (1992) conceptualization of alignment suggests that the “extent of alignment results from skill rather than luck” (p. 119). This perspective is especially useful for organizational leaders as it posits an institutional orientation of alignment. Furthermore, this perspective positions alignment as a resource that has a “higher order of integrative capacity” (Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967, p. 245), which characterizes high-performing organizations.

Employee Engagement

Several frameworks exist for examining the construct of employee engagement (Shuck, 2011). Of popular interest, Rich et al. (2010) proposed a three-dimensional model of engagement—cognitive–emotional–behavioral—that captured relevant, context sensitive cues regarding an employee’s interpretation of their organizational climate. Most recently, Shuck et al. (2014) expanded on this three-dimensional framework from an HRD context and paralleled the definitional offering of Shuck and Wollard (2010). As such, we drew from Shuck et al. (2014) to better align definitional and conceptual support for our exploration as well as to establish parallel agreement across fields of study—a common issue when exploring the experience of employee engagement. In the following, each psychological facet of the model is discussed in brief.

Exploring Organizational Alignment and Employee Engagement Linkages

The employee engagement literature stream has emphasized the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional schema of employees as a mechanism for interpreting the organization structure, culture, and environment. Thus, engagement can distinctly influence employee performance behaviors that ultimately affect organizational success (e.g., market share, sales or revenue per employee, customer satisfaction) as a salient outcome indicator for how alignment is appraised, experienced, and ultimately acted on within the organization.

In the context of alignment, engagement occurs when there is psychological agreement between individual and organizational goals (Macey, Schneider, Barbera, & Young, 2009; i.e., “heading in the same direction,” p. 90). This sense of engagement coupled within organizational alignment develops from the fostering of a positive organizational culture and from continuously monitoring each component of the organization’s strategy that includes both the strategy being executed and the strategy being experienced. For example, employees’ might look for indications that a process is collaborative and cooperative or, indications of command and control. Both denote expected outcomes (i.e., keep your head down, do your work, and don’t speak up—it’s not safe to do so). Culture in this sense is the lens an employee uses to make judgments about the meaningfulness and safety of the workplace (Shuck et al. 2011). Engagement occurs only when an organization’s processes and practices are aligned with their espoused goals in a meaningful and safe environment; it seems unlikely to expect any other outcome.

In full display, behaviorally engaged employees align their efforts toward identified organizational objectives that move the organization in a positive direction. The previous processes of internalizing organizational propose and goals provide dividends in the form of positive organizational outcomes. For example, researchers (Christian et al., 2011; Macey et al., 2009; Shuck et al., 2011) have suggested that behaviorally engaged employees often work harder, turnover less, are involved in fewer accidents on the job, and experience higher levels of overall well-being.

We contend that the three dimensions of employee engagement offer a directly relevant conceptualization of alignment at the individual level. We suggest that the alignment provides meaning, a sense of purpose and understanding of the organization such that the employee is able to interpret, search for, make meaning, and identify with the organization’s current and future course of actions. Thus, cognitively engaged employees understand and share a common purpose with their organization, and are therefore willing to make a personal investment. Emotionally engaged employees further identify their personal values and norms with those of the organization and are invested in productive, organizationally aligned behavior. Finally, behaviorally engaged employees align their efforts through incentive and reward structures to achieve the organization’s vision and mission.

Alignment of different internal components in the organization is more likely to impact the extent to which an individual employee performs effectively at work. For example, performance can be motivated by the alignment of strategy-structure; organizational size and strategic planning, and strategy-culture (Mintzberg, 1978). Combined together, these internal components can be described as the organizational processes, procedures, and routines that impact and affect how an individual employee perceives and reacts to work and the organization in specific ways. Thus, effective optimization of business processes, internal alignment of organizational structure, strategy, and culture and connection to the external market may influence an employee’s cognitive and psychological appraisal and interpretation of the work environment. A positive appraisal and interpretation is likely to produce performance behaviors that support the organization. Conversely, a negative framing of the work environment is likely to result in poor or ineffective performance. We propose this as an important linkage emerging from the exploration of the alignment-engagement literatures and the recognition of its effect on employee performance. We identify employee engagement as a linking pin that explicates how alignment can support and/or hinder the consequent effect on individual performance.

Conceptual Model Linking Alignment, Engagement, and Performance

Figure 1 identifies how we envisioned the prototypical-overlapping pathway for linking organizational alignment, engagement, and individual performance. In the figure, we emphasize the outcomes associated with alignment as well as the intersection of the three dimensions of focus in this work—(a) organizational systems, practices, and routines; (b) job specifications, procedures, and criteria; and (c) individual skills, knowledge, and attributes. The integration of employees’ roles as well as job responsibilities and their integration with individual departments as well as cross-functional processes strengthen alignment of organizational goals (Powell, 1992). Put in another way, removal of barriers between departments can not only enhance cooperation but also increase alignment and improve departmental and individual employee performance (Alagaraja & Egan, 2013). Furthermore, tighter alignment of job specifications, procedures, and criteria with individual skills and knowledge can enhance employee performance (Hale, 2007). Thus, it is imperative that organizational systems, procedures, and routines are aligned with job specifications, responsibilities, and criteria as an important means for optimizing employee performance. Our conceptual model highlights this important but under-examined assumptions of aligning organizational-level systems with job characteristics that translate organizational goals, values, and routines into everyday management of roles, responsibilities, and tasks both at the department/functional and the individual level. The alignment of organizational-level systems (e.g., organizational design), procedures (e.g., reward structures), and routines (e.g., existing cultural norms) influence the design of jobs, role specifications, and performance criteria of individual employees (Alagaraja, 2013a; Swanson, 2009). Thus, our conceptual model addresses the existing gap in the HRD and management literature by suggesting that the importance of alignment between different factors (organizational, departmental, job characteristics, as well as individual skills and knowledge) can affect employees’ behaviors and performance outcomes in the organization. We further posit that employee engagement specifically emphasizes the third component (c) individual skills, knowledge, and attributes as critical for individual performance. We also note that any one component is dynamic and constantly in flux (represented by the curved lines moving away from each intersection) as an employee continuously appraises their work environment and sense of alignment. See Figure 1.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

Individual performance as the dynamic outcome of alignment–engagement linkage.

Depicted within Figure 1, organizational vision and mission, strategic goals, values, and norms, reward systems, processes, and tactics reflect the workplace, as well as the job itself. This reflection is indicative of how employees understand, infer, make meaning, and create unique ways that affect their performance on the job. When there is misalignment or when organizational goals are disconnected from processes and work flow (the circles in our diagram get further apart), managers can expect misfires and miscues in performance. On the contrary, employees’ understanding of the vision and mission, developing meaning of their job and fit of skills, attributes, and knowledge spurs the idea of engagement (the circles overlap and get closer), high levels of performance are a likely outcome. Alignment is not just the organizational conditions that produce the experience of the engagement phenomena. Much more, when employees are aligned, this state allows for engagement to flourish—however, like an organizational hygiene factor, alignment does not guarantee engagement. Alignment is not a sufficient condition for engagement, although we note the conceptual linkage.

We would further suggest that it is critical to monitor alignment to nurture the positive, psychological state of engagement. We suggest that the continuous application of alignment principles remains important; those who lead organizations must develop a drive for alignment, not so much focus on practice of alignment as is the norm. For example, improving formal communications in the organization is a well-intended HRD initiative that has developing and disseminating newsletters as an outcome of alignment. However, this outcome does not necessarily drive engagement nor does it guarantee performance (Shuck, 2013).

Organizations must drive alignment by connecting the overarching goals at the individual level, such that this individual connection generates emotion, drives behavioral intention and resulting performance. The physical, mechanistic, rational aspect of alignment represents the espoused organization. The practice of alignment as we suggest in the above example in fact, reveals the potential and in times embedded tension in the different ways employees encounter the espoused organization different from the organization they experience day-to-day. The experienced organization is reflected by the states of engagement employees live, feel, think, and act on. Do not be fooled though—engagement is not what we see, but what an employee experiences and how they direct the intensity of their energies. Central to our position then, is that we propose employee engagement as a psychological state reflective of an employee’s continuous calibration of their organizational environment. This continuous calibration helps prompts employee to make decisions regarding whether to pull toward or away from their coworkers, team, department, or the entire organization. We note the potential disjointment here between job engagement (Rich et al., 2010), work engagement (Hallberg & Schaufeli, 2006), and employee engagement (Shuck & Wollard, 2010) with personal engagement (Kahn, 1990) in the context of alignment. Although this is a subjective process, unique to each individual, we suggest that a primal, logical decision-making process revolving around the interplay between cognitions and emotions drives this activity—all set within the context of an employees’ personal sense of organizational and personal well-being (i.e., alignment).

In sum, we used theoretical contributions from both HRD and management sciences to build on several aspects of seminal work in alignment, engagement, and employee performance. Instead of considering employee performance, employee engagement, and organizational alignment as mutually exclusive concepts, we theorized the importance of linking alignment with engagement and position employee performance as an outcome of the potential tension/harmony that is produced as a result of the alignment–engagement linkage. We also challenged the notion that employee performance outcomes, including turnover, retention, and productivity, should be generally conceptualized at the individual level. Instead, we argued and demonstrated that the very nature of employee performance is inherently an outcome of the embedded organizational system. In particular, we suggested that the state of engagement is realized and contingent on the ability of the organization to drive alignment at all levels. Furthermore, we contend that as an embedded system, employee engagement has the potential to affect not only the individual employee but also influence the performance of others in the organization.

Moreover, this literature review revealed a dearth in scholarly studies reviewing and connecting organizational alignment with employee engagement. Through our review, organizational alignment, and their associated outcomes where linked as critical for enhancing employee engagement. Stronger alignment implied that organizational systems, processes, procedures, culture, structure, and strategy fit well together. The integration of alignment outcomes with the three main facets of employee engagement (cognitive, emotional, and behavioral) augments linkages to employee performance. Alignment can produce, shape, or influence any one of the three types of engagement—and we note the distal power of how influential cognitive and emotional engagement can be. The level of full engagement an employee experiences as a result of alignment can have a specific, measurable impact on individual performance. We strongly recommend future research explore this area fully.

Finally, from a system’s perspective, alignment in the technology and systems of the larger organization can provide support for the optimum performance of individual employees. We trace the typical pathway for linking alignment with individual performance and identify employee engagement as a means to develop a richer understanding of overall performance. Greater harmony between various organizational alignment outcomes can strengthen the link between involvement, willingness, and engagement of the employee to perform toward the job. As an exploratory offering to advance both theory and practice in HRD, our conceptual model enhances the understanding and interpretation of dynamic aspects of individual performance that is shaped by the individual contributions of employees as much as it is influenced by job characteristics and organizational systems.

Overall, increasing overlap between the three dimensions (organizational systems, job characteristics, and individual attributes), indicate greater alignment toward the achievement of shared organizational goals as well as increased engagement of employees at work. When organizational goals, job, and task responsibilities as well as individual employees are heading in the same direction (Weiser, 2000), employees are more likely to exhibit both necessary and discretionary behaviors. Such employees are more likely to make decisions to pull toward their coworkers, team, department, and the entire organization. They generally share a coupled purpose with their organization; make personal investment of resources, willingly give of their knowledge, skills, and abilities, which facilitate individual performance.

Implications for HRD Theory, Research, and Practice

Within HRD, the concept of engagement is only beginning the processes of maturation. Consequently, little is known about the inner-related workings of the phenomenon as they are experienced in real time in our field. Thus, the application or organizational alignment theory to engagement provides ample opportunity to advance theory development in HRD. For example, one of the most salient opportunities for advancement is in progressing the three-dimensional model espoused by several scholars within a framework of context (Rich et al., 2010; Shuck & Reio, 2013; Shuck et al., 2014). For example, unattached, engagement is simply an occurring phenomenon within the psychology of the employee. Applied to a framework such as the process and relational perspectives of alignment, engagement is given context. It also seems practical that climate, in the form of alignment, is critical for understanding the application of both prevailing areas of study, advancing each literature stream. This convergence of organizational alignment and engagement extends that work specifically by naming those areas of organizational design and rewards, existing cultural norms, and performance barriers between different departments that connote the conditions of any one organization. Moreover, this work extends into the work of Brown and Leigh (1996) who grounded a model of psychological climate, which has been used extensively in research on and around engagement. Contextualizing that environment through the lens of organizational alignment gives our model directionality and sensitivity to that theoretical base (i.e., Kahn, 1990), suggesting that not only do organizations need climates of work that are psychologically safe, but they also need alignment within those environments—a nuance that is underrepresented in theoretical application of engagement at this time.

Within the areas of HRD research, we maintain that this conceptual model requires testing, and we suspect that as a result, further refinement will occur. As a way to broaden generalizability, future research might focus on a cross-section of industries, nationally and internationally, which would apply the three-dimensional framework of engagement alongside measures of organizational alignment and job specifications as a means for understanding the empirical interplay and practical significance of the two areas. We note that it is possible for engagement and alignment to both operate uniquely in differing contexts and thus, would argue for research to apply this framework across multiple settings and cultures. Likewise, because HRD can lend itself to intervention research and program evaluation using prospective and retrospective approaches (Nimon, Zigarmi, & Allen, 2011), experimental methods that couple varying alignment strategies as a means for developing higher levels of engagement might also examine the external validity of the alignment framework, method, and measures espoused in our model. Still further, as the techniques for empirical examination in HRD gain in sophistication, qualitative approaches to understanding the phenomenon of engagement within the context of alignment seem prudent. Developing a grounded understanding of how employees actually experience alignment, how they interpret the structures of alignment, and how their perceptions lead to states of heightened individual performance would be not only informative but also one of only a handful of studies that have explored engagement from a rigorous, qualitative lens.

Finally, we name three specific implications for practice. First, engagement as an outcome must be preceded by those conditions that nurture the phenomenon as mentioned. Notwithstanding, the concept of alignment offers a way to understand, contextualize, and apply those conditions. For example, the optimization of business processes in ways that create meaning and purpose (Shuck & Rose, 2013), internal alignment of organizational structure so that employee’s experience meaning and safety (Kahn, 2010), communicating strategy and culture in ways that connect to external stakeholders indicate the relative importance of work that could influence levels of engagement (Alagaraja, 2013b). Seeking engagement without organizational alignment seems a futile exercise in the shuffling of resources. Second, we highlight the interdependent nature of alignment and engagement. Practically, those organizations who seek higher levels of engagement must understand the connection between how employees experience alignment and how this alignment influences cognitive and emotional appraisal and interpretation of the work environment. If a positive appraisal of the environment within the lens of alignment is likely, than influencing those factors that influence the appraisal can be powerful for organizations—transformational at the very least. It is our experience that all engagement cascades upward from individuals, to work teams, departments and to the whole organization, and thus, alignment occurs on these levels as well. This is not to diminish the role of leaders and managers, but rather to identify the true power of engagement—which lies within the individual. Consequently, we could apply the construct of engagement within the function of alignment. That is, within each level of organizational alignment, engagement is a distal indicator of how well alignment is occurring. As such, organizations must work to intentionally create those structures that are aligned with the outcomes they seek. For example, engagement is not likely to occur in misaligned areas of work teams or with misguided one-on-one conversations with a leader. Rather, it is when these structures and relations are aligned that organizations may reap the advantageous benefits of a highly engaged employee base.

Finally, the experiences of organizational alignment and employee engagement act as silent indicators of organizational identity. Organizational alignment connotes how well embedded workplace structures and practices lend themselves to broader goals. Employee engagement connotes how well individual employees are reacting to those embedded structures and practices. The two are intertwined and neither can be demanded. But the power for both lay in different areas. For example, the ability to create and influence embedded structures and practices lies within the purview of the organization. An employee often cannot create these for himself or herself, as they are a collective experience of artifacts. Nonetheless, the power of engagement lies with the employee as a response to those embedded structures and practices. We note then, that neither can be demanded—they can only be cultivated, fostered, and developed. Leaders and managers must understand their ability to positively influence these two areas as dynamic systems and that they are, in part, a reflection of their leadership. Misalignment and disengagement do not happen by accident and they are not the fault of a few bad apples on the frontline; they are developed and cultivated within intentional systems and practices. Thus, we implore for organizations, leaders, managers, and employees to explore their levels of engagement as a function of alignment and to be willing to create those conditions of environmental success proportionate to the levels of performance they desire.