Antecedents and Outcomes of Employee Engagement in Small to Medium Businesses from Romania

The purpose of this research paper is to investigate the antecedents and outcomes of employee engagement within SMEs in Romania. The paper illustrates the importance of addressing how organizational culture, leadership and the complexity of dealing with the new information and communication technologies (NICT) influence employee engagement, and how these factors can benefit, ultimately, the organizational image, through word of mouth (WOM). To do so, we used the ISA Engagement scale measuring intellectual, social and affective engagement. For the aims of this explorative study, a quantitative method was used, and the data was collected through an online questionnaire, from a sample of 130 employees working in SMEs, in Romania. The conceptual framework included factors, which were proved to have affected satisfaction and work engagement such as (1) relationship with the leader, (2) organizational shared values, (3) dealing with information and communication technologies (ICT). Then, considering that employees can play an important role in building an organizational reputation, we analyzed the relationship between employee engagement and word-of-mouth (WOM).