The meaning of employee engagement is ambiguous among both academic researchers and among practitioners who use it in conversations with clients. We show that the term is used at different times to refer to psychological states, traits, and behaviors as well as their antecedents and outcomes. Drawing on diverse relevant literatures, we offer a series of propositions about (a) psychological state engagement; (b) behavioral engagement; and (c) trait engagement. In addition, we offer propositions regarding the effects of job attributes and leadership as main effects on state and behavioral engagement and as moderators of the relationships among the 3 facets of engagement. We conclude with thoughts about the measurement of the 3 facets of engagement and potential antecedents, especially measurement via employee surveys.

The article by Macey and Schneider (2008) brings me nostalgically back to 1975–1979 and my graduate program at the University of South Florida. In the Industrial-Organizational (I-O) program, Dr. Herb Meyer was reminding us of “split roles in performance appraisal,” and in the Clinical program, Dr. Charlie Spielberger was gaining fame on his state–trait anxiety research—propelling him to president of the American Psychological Association in 1991. The logic of “state–trait” was compelling then and has withstood the test of time. It is surprising that it has taken this long to apply state–trait logic to other important measurements. As a practitioner who is soon to hire 12,000 new employees under one roof to open CityCenter in Las Vegas (2009), it is my hope that we can move beyond concept to selection tools that can help organizations create engaged cultures.

Top management teams (TMTs) of postmodern multinational corporations are increasingly confronted by new multiple context shifts defining our advancing global knowledge era (Grant, 2000). These include seven major context changes, not the least of which is knowledge becoming the new driver, not labor, machine, or money (Graen, in press). In addition, some complicating elements are the dysfunctions of human psychology under drastic changes in contexts (Snowden & Stanbridge, 2004). Clearly our 20th-century organizational designs and processing engineering systems are in need of continuous improvement to remain competitive. What TMTs seek are new practical ways to bring about needed changes in corporate structures and systems (Graen, 2007).

We emphasize that science and practice issues are equally salient when pursuing thinking and research on employee engagement. We agree with much of what the commentaries have to say, especially that organizational competitive advantage is the relevant focus of engagement research and practice and that engagement is not a new construct but one that required clarification vis-a-vis existing constructs. We also agree that state engagement can be highly variable, that disengagement needs study, that negative situations can induce engagement behaviors, that engagement surveys should yield actionable data, and that people can be hired who are more likely to be engaged. We disagree with the idea that all employee attitudes are essentially equal and that existing conceptualizations of performance make engagement behavior a nonuseful construct.

Assessment centers (ACs) are often designed with the intent of measuring a number of dimensions as they are assessed in various exercises, but after 25 years of research, it is now clear that AC ratings that are completed at the end of each exercise (commonly known as postexercise dimension ratings) substantially reflect the effects of the exercises in which they were completed and not the dimensions they were designed to reflect. This is the crux of the long-standing “construct validity problem” for AC ratings. I review the existing research on AC construct validity and conclude that (a) contrary to previous notions, AC candidate behavior is inherently cross-situationally (i.e., cross-exercise) specific, not cross-situationally consistent as was once thought, (b) assessors rather accurately assess candidate behavior, and (c) these facts should be recognized in the redesign of ACs toward task- or role-based ACs and away from traditional dimension-based ACs.