Work Engagement in the Public Service: A Multicultural Model

Abstract The objective of this study is to propose a model to measure work engagement in Brazilian and Portuguese public service. The research is supported by a review of the literature that seeks to delineate the area of organizational behavior, the cross - cultural studies and the hypothetical theoretical model, which presents the ontological vision of the work. The unit of analysis are public institutions of both countries, the sample, which is of the convenience type, was composed of 609 respondents public servants. Three research instruments were used: the Articulación entre la Persona y la organización (APO) of Ramos, Jordão and Morais (2012); the Escala de Satisfação no Trabalho (EST) by Siqueira (2008); and the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES) tool by Schaufeli, Bakker and Salanova (2006). The results did not reject the hypotheses of the model, both of the Portuguese and Brazilian samples, and the comparison between them shows that in general the Portuguese are more satisfied and more engaged in the work than the Brazilians. The exception was observed only in the hypothetical factors Promotion and Salary.