Examination of the relationship between employees' dignity and engagement in work environment and the moderator role of abusive management behavior

The issue of dignity in working life has been gaining importance in the literature and practices in recent years. Numerous studies have shown that violations of dignity reduce the engagement of employees. Conversely, employee engagement can be motivated by factors that conceptually overlap with dignity in the organization. On the other hand, there are various variables that increase or decrease the effect of dignity on engagement. Among these variables, abusive management behavior was considered as a moderator variable in our study. In addition, it was also examined whether the perceptions of employees about dignity and abusive management and engagement differ in terms of demographic variables. Although there are studies in which the variables of dignity, engagement, and abusive management are examined separately or in pairs, in the literature review, no study was found in which these variables were evaluated together. With this aspect, it is thought that this study can contribute to the fields of Human Resources Management and Organizational Behavior in terms of its theoretical framework and results. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between the dignity and engagement of employees and to determine whether abusive management has a moderating effect in this relationship. For this purpose, data were collected from 224 participants working in the private sector in Istanbul, using the convenience sampling method, by creating a questionnaire covering the scales of dignity, engagement and abusive management. The collected data were analyzed using the SPSS 26 statistical program. Following the validity and reliability analyses of the scales, correlation analysis was performed to examine the relationships between the variables. In addition, hierarchical regression analyses were carried out to test the moderating relationship. Findings show that dignity, tangible and intangible dignity, which are sub-dimensions of dignity, and also not being exposed to abusive management positively affect engagement. In the research, no moderating effect of abusive management was found in the relationship between dignity and engagement, and the relationship between tangible dignity and engagement. However, the research results show that abusive management plays a moderator role in the relationship between intangible dignity and engagement, which is another sub-dimension of dignity. In addition, as a result of the difference tests (one-way ANOVA and independent sample t-test) performed for demographic variables, it has been determined that there were differences between the perceptions of abusive management according to the age, as well as the total seniority and in-house seniority. According to these variables, it has been also determined that the perceptions of dignity and engagement of the employees do not differ. Finally, the results show that there is no significant difference between the employees' perceptions of dignity and abusive management and their engagement in terms of demographic variables which includes gender, education level and title.