Psychological Ownership, Hope, Resilience and Employee Work Engagement among Teachers in Selected Mission Schools

Abstract

Since the quality of education in Nigeria has continued to progressively decline in standard, there has been a sustained public outcry and suggestions on the possible ways to save the Nigerian education from total collapse. As a result many schools, especially the post primary schools (public) have undergone transformation. Teachers’ level of engagement has been suggested as one of the factors that may be responsible for this decline in education in Nigeria. The current study adopted the cross-sectional survey design to explore whether psychological ownership, hope and resilience could predict work engagement behaviour among teachers in selected mission schools. Contrary to speculation and in conflict with previous studies, results showed that psychological ownership did not predict work engagement behavior among teachers whereas hope and resilience significantly predicted work engagement behaviour among the teachers. The study’s implications point to the fact that since psychological ownership is seen as a vital organisational behavior, managers should endeavor to build a culture that will promote such ownership for the good of the organisation.

Keywords: Psychological ownership, hope, resilience, employee work engagement