The study of engagement at work from the artificial intelligence perspective: A systematic review

Abstract

Engagement has been defined as an attitude toward work, as a positive, satisfying, work‐related state of mind characterized by high levels of vigour, dedication, and absorption. Both its definition and its assessment have been controversial; however, new methods for its assessment, including artificial intelligence (AI), have been introduced in recent years. Therefore, this research aims to determine the state of the art of AI in the study of engagement. To this end, we conducted a systematic review in accordance with PRISMA to analyse the publications to date on the use of AI for the analysis of engagement. The search, carried out in six databases, was filtered, and 15 papers were finally analysed. The results show that AI has been used mainly to assess and predict engagement levels, as well as to understand the relationships between engagement and other variables. The most commonly used AI techniques are machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP), and all publications use structured and unstructured data, mainly from self‐report instruments, social networks, and datasets. The accuracy of the models varies from 22% to 87%, and its main benefit has been to help both managers and HR staff understand employee engagement, although it has also contributed to research. Most of the articles have been published since 2015, and the geography has been global, with publications predominantly in India and the US. In conclusion, this study highlights the state of the art in AI for the study of engagement and concludes that the number of publications is increasing, indicating that this is possibly a new field or area of research in which important advances can be made in the study of engagement through new and novel techniques.