Same same but different? Can work engagement be discriminated from job involvement and organizational commitment?

The present study investigates whether work engagement (measured by the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale; UWES) could be empirically separated from job involvement and organizational commitment. In addition, psychometric properties of the Swedish UWES were investigated. Discriminant validity of the UWES was tested through inspection of latent intercorrelations between the constructs, confirmatory factor analyses, and patterns of correlations with other constructs (health complaints, job and personal factors, and turnover intention) in a sample of Information Communication Technology consultants (N = 186). Conclusion: Work engagement, job involvement, and organizational commitment are empirically distinct constructs and, thus, reflect different aspects of work attachment. The internal consistency of the Swedish UWES was satisfactory, but the dimensionality was somewhat unclear.