Employee engagement and task performance in state‐owned enterprises in developing countries: The case study of the power sector in Ghana

A growing number of studies prove a relationship between employee engagement (EE) and performance. Unfortunately, almost all originate in the developed world; the few that look at developing countries, including their public sectors, have focused more on the civil service and agencies, and neglect state‐owned enterprises (SOEs), despite their importance for delivery of public services. The purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of EE on task performance in SOEs in developing countries, with particular reference to Ghana. We purposively selected SOEs in the power sector and quantitatively surveyed their employees. We employed regression analysis to examine the link between EE and employee task performance. Our study, like those before it, shows that EE has a positive and significant effect on employee task performance. Our findings further suggest that for SOEs to achieve their targets with employees' performance, appropriate strategies should be adopted to ensure that employees are highly engaged.