Work Engagement of the Royal Thai Volunteer Rangers in the Fourth Army Area for the Security Mission in the Southern Border Provinces

Abstract

Work engagement of performers lead to achievement of organization. This present work aims to 1) study the work engagement of volunteer rangers for the security mission in the southern border provinces 2) compare their work engagement based on demographic factors 3) investigate the influence of career commitment and work motivation on work engagement. The tools used to gather data were a questionnaire for 577 volunteer rangers in the fourth royal Thai army and 9 focus groups with a total of 58 volunteer rangers. The results revealed that the rangers’ work engagement was at a high level. Differences based on demographic factors showed no differences in the level of work engagement. The findings also showed that career commitment and work motivation had a statistically significant positive correlation with work engagement (p<.01). However, only two out of three facets of career commitment (affective and normative) and both factors of work motivation (i.e., motivator and hygiene) explained 47.40 % of the rangers’ work engagement. Additionally, the focus groups showed that to enhance work engagement, the commanders should emphasize the above mentioned factors as well as organizational commitment and military ideology for their work.