INVESTIGATING THE STATUS OF EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT IN SMES OF AN EMERGING ECONOMY: CASE OF INDIA.

With the advances in globalization and growing diversity in the workforce, employee engagement is becoming inevitable for organization's sustainability and success. However, most of the literature on engagement is based on studies conducted in large organizations despite the importance of SMEs in job creation and their economic contribution, little attention has been paid to this sector. Therefore, the paper aims to explore the current status of employee engagement in SMEs of an emerging economy, India. It also examines the key issues related to employee engagement and the three categories of engagement; vigor, dedication and absorption. The study follows a descriptive approach. Data were collected through self administered questionnaire from a random sample of 139 employees working in SMEs of Delhi NCR region. SPSS 25.0 was used to analyze the data. Overall, the results depict an encouraging representation of employee engagement among SME employees. Moreover, the vigor and dedication scales of engagement were found to be significant and strongly correlated. With limited resources, most SMEs face a major challenge to engage employees. Both, theoretical and practical implications can be drawn from this study. Since, little is researched on SMEs, this paper contributes to the current literature of employee engagement and application in SME sector. The study provides an insight into the current status of employee engagement, which would help managers of SMEs to devise new ways which could help improve the engagement among the workforce. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]