Keywords

Readymade Garments (RMG), Employee Engagement, Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivational Factors, Transformational and Transactional Leadership Style.

Introduction

Employee engagement means the members of organization give their best performance everyday by putting extra time, energy and brain power to achieve organization goal. Kahn (1990) is among the first scholar who introduces the concept of employee engagement and proposes three psychological conditions necessary for engagement. Psychological meaningfulness; the level of employees perception on what they are doing in the organizations is worthwhile and valuable; psychological safety, or the extent to which employees are comfortable with their roles in the organizations; and psychological availability; i.e., the extent to which resources, tools, skills are accessible for executing their roles in the organization. These conditions can be further defined in the following ways:

1. When employees are given tasks that challenge their creativity and they are able to perform they feel worthy and appreciated and such condition is defined as psychological meaningfulness

2. When the employees are employed and they feel secured and positive with the workplace surrounding and the nature of the job the condition is known as Safety

3. When the employees have balanced personality which are portrayed physically, emotionally and psychologically stable, the condition is described as Availability

Gibbons (2008) proposes eight factors for employee engagement which include trust and integrity, shared individual performance and company performance, personal relationship with manager, career growth opportunities, pride of the company, employee development opportunities, nature of the job and teamwork among the coworkers/team members. These notions are consistent with the scope of job resources as proposed in Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Nader (2019) details that leadership is able to increase group performance and job satisfaction through motivation. Scott & McMullen (2010); Society for Human Resource Management (2013) state engagement and organizational performance are part of the major driver in motivation. In addition, leadership is needed to support the motivation factor in this research.

Previous studies on engagement focus on the influencing factor related with employee satisfaction, productivity, socio economic factors, labour unrest, leadership and so on (Ahmed et al., 2016; Bergström & Martínez, 2016; Othman et al., 2017;). But none of them have focused on mapping out the employee engagement through intrinsic and extrinsic motivation and leadership perspective jointly. Literature suggests the concepts of employee engagement and motivation should be dealt separately, but there is no extensive attempt to investigate the relationship between the two concepts (Putra et al., 2017). Bergström & Martínez (2016); Khan & Iqbal, (2013) examine the relationship between intrinsic motivational factors and extrinsic motivational factors, as well as employee engagement in various private and public organizations. However, they did not discuss on the effect of leadership strategies in their study. Thus, there is a need for more empirical research to support the theoretical proposition on the relationship of leadership styles, motivational factors and employee engagement. Therefore, this study intends to elaborate the relationship of leadership styles and employee engagement with moderating effect of motivational factor.

Literature Review

Drivers for Employee Engagement

According to Mansor et al. (2018) there are seven key drivers of employee engagement which are most frequently highlighted by the practitioner and academic literature, they include:

• Nature of the work. The work needs to be perceived as creative and exciting. Hence, employees also need to feel that the work they are doing is important for themselves and for others.

• Meaningful work. A perception that employees need to feel proud of their work and what organisation does, and they need to feel as though they are making a difference.

• Development opportunities. Employees need to have equal opportunities, and access to career growth, development and training opportunities in enabling them to be engaged with the organization.

• Recognition and reward. Employees need to feel valued and appreciated in the work they do by receiving timely recognition and rewards.

• Effective and assertive relationships. Developing mutual respect and trust between colleagues and managers is seen as the key factor to enable employees to be engaged with the organization.

• Quality communications. Having formal and open two way communication between managers and staff, may in still a sense of ownership over the outcomes.

• Inspiring leadership. Managers must be visibly committed to the organization and display a genuine responsibility to employees in their well-being.

Relationship between Leadership Style and Employee Engagement

Leadership is the main criteria identified as fundamental factor to show employee engagement (Anitha, 2014). Effective leadership is the higher order, multi-dimensional construct comprising of self-awareness, balanced processing of information, relational transparency and internalized moral standards (Walumbwa et al., 2007). Leadership development initiatives should be focused on aligning managers to be drivers in the key areas so that they would be able to drive employee engagement which in return drives business outcomes (Harter et al., 2002). Mung et al., (2011) posits that leaders play important roles in organization as they can affect employee engagement, satisfaction, commitment, performance and productivity by adopting the suitable leadership styles to lead the employees.

Furthermore, Yisa et al. (2013) highlight that leadership style which are practiced in any organization have an impact on the overall performance of the organizations, Othman et al. (2017) state that leadership style contributes in ensuring the high levels of engagement among the employees.

Chandio & Mallah (2013) discovered that leadership styles influenced the human resource management particularly in accumulating the competency in the organization by ensuing cost effective HR performance in the garment factories. Transactional leadership style is popular in many of the RMG factories in Karachi and freewheeling management is proven to be a damaging type of leadership. Nonetheless, transformational leadership style and aggravation method have caused qualitative creativity among the employees.

Raguž (2010) claimed that suitable leadership styles are determined by the size of the company and its purpose. A distinguished leader views dependability and trustworthiness among fellow workers, motivation, and the development of communication, leadership styles, organizational goal and the purpose of the workplace as vital in ensuring productivity among employees. The various leadership styles are executed based on the flow of authority and the distribution of power with the paradigm shift from the vertical structure to the flat distribution. Leadership style can be described as paternalist and consultative leadership style; however, the established companies normally choose firmed leadership style in order to sustain the large numbers of employees and the different levels of management personnel.

According to Barnes & Kozar (2008), 80% of the employees in the textiles companies are women. In their research, they discovered the pregnant women are discriminated and abused in China, Mexico, Nicaragua and Philippines. These countries are the hub for garment manufacturing and their main concern is on making profit, not the welfare of the employees. Most of the factories prepare rules and regulations at their level and ignore the laws. In order to fulfill the requirements of the inspections by the authority, the company produces records and documentations which are basically written on paper but not practiced. In the four countries, the factories even encourage abortion, ignored overtime payments, ignore benefits, unfair hiring procedures and promotions, and forced employees to work extra time as well as intense physical labour among the pregnant women that could endanger their health and well beings. Barnes & Kozar (2008) also describe the same phenomenon in their study.

According to Jayawardana & O ’Donnell (2009) in Sri Lankan textiles companies, line managers are empowered to carry out task taking and such practice has increased the productivity and enhanced employees’ satisfactions. Such practice is modified from the normal practice of hierarchical structure and rotating various roles in limited duration. The efficiency levels are increases from 41 per cent to 61 per cent when line managers are empowered. In addition, the rejected products decline from 10 per cent to 2 per cent, while absenteeism levels declined from 10 per cent to 2.4 per cent. In order to enhance the employee engagement (Bhatnagar, 2007) states a leader needs to continuously monitor the HR Another research by Stanislavov & Ivanov (2014) reveal that leadership styles lead to significant changes on employees and organization culture. They suggest the visionary style creates the highest level of engagement while commanding and pace setting styles create the lowest.

Transformational Leadership and Employee Engagement

Transformational leaders according to Bass (1985) stimulate subordinates to go beyond the basic needs to the needs of the organizational mission and purpose. The supporters in return, are likely to be more innovative and make considerable contributions towards their work as stated by Shin & Zhou (2003). The transformational leaders are likely to increase the intrinsic motivation of the followers when the employees contributions is not criticized, and thus increase their levels of dedication as mentioned by Bass & Bass (2008); Avolio & Bass (2001).

A central behavior in the transformational leadership style involves acting as a role model supervisor by displaying idealized influence behavior. Bass & Bass (2008) state that as a role model, leaders must be able to build loyalty and devotion and forgo their self-interests (Bass & Bass, 2008). Under this style, followers strive to emulate their transformational managers to serve as role models (Bono & Judge, 2003). When leaders are seen as examples to the followers, the employees perceived their sense of moral and ethics could contribute and enhanced their productivity and as a result, they would be engaged in their whole self in the work.

Personalized consideration reflects the behavior of transformational leaders that could be linked to employee engagement. The personalized consideration behavior shows personalized attention towards their supporters. These leaders are attentive to the employees need. They identify and respond to the employees’ demands and show each employee is important force in the workplace. According to Avolio & Bass (2001); Bass & Riggio (2006) these leaders also give extraordinary attention to the employees needs and development. Saks (2006) states personalized consideration shown by the leaders encourages and promotes engagement at work place. In terms of intellectually stimulating, Avolio & Bass (2001) suggest leaders should promote a positive working environment and encourage the employees to inculcate employee engagement at the workplace. Bass & Bass (2008) affirm that such encouragement would motivate the employees. They would also be involved in solving the problems which arise at the workplace. New perspectives would enhance problem solving creatively. It is also suggested that when supervisors display intellectual stimulation behavior, they will be able to influence employees’ involvement in work and thus work with high feelings of dedication, prior to the act of engagement.

Inspirational and motivational managers are capable of establishing and conveying high expectations that challenge and inspire subordinates to achieve more than they thought is possible (Bass & Riggio, 2006). Such motivational leaders are often expected to depend on idealistic visions and persuasive communication to influence followers to immerse themselves in their work. Mung et al. (2011); Zhu et al. (2009) suggest in their studies that transformational leadership style has a strong and positive relationship with employee engagement. This is because, using transformational leadership style, management delegates power to employees and involve them in decision making. This is not done by transactional leadership style (Men, 2010).

Transactional Leadership and Employee Engagement

Breevaart et al. (2014) investigate that in line with (Bernard, 1999 & 1985) theory, followers will be more engaged on days when their leader shows more transactional leadership style. Transactional leadership focuses on the relationship between leaders and followers. These exchanges enable leaders to meet their performance goals, to complete required assignments and to motivate followers through contracted, extrinsic rewards (McCleskey, 2014). Weber & Gerth (1947) describe individuals with transactional leadership styles are suitable as managers for the organizations instead of leaders of an organizations. Bass & Bass (2008) expound on Weber & Gerth (1947) definition of transactional leader by maintaining that transactional leaders styles which require the followers to obey the directions of the manager. If subordinates follow their managers, they are rewarded and if they do not, they would be punished (Fitch, 2009).

Transactional leadership style should be viewed as the basis of good leadership (Avolio & Bass, 2004) because it has been viewed as necessary in short-term objective, cost cutting initiatives within the organizations and is aimed at improving productivity within employees. The lack of involvement on the part of the leader frequently resulted in difficulty with job completion within an organization (Avolio & Bass, 2004). For the purpose of this study, laissez-faire leadership has been defined as a third leadership style instead of existing solely as a dimension of transactional leadership style.

Motivational Factor and Employee Engagement

Motivational factors have direct impact on employee engagement (Bergstrom & Martinez, 2016; Khan & Iqbal, 2013). Mehmood et al. (2013) indicates that attractive and reasonable reward system could improve employee’s engagement and better performance management in the organization. Kathirvel (2010) focuses on job security, salary, working conditions, relationship with superiors, relationship with co-workers, rewards and recognition, suggestions and opportunities to use ideas, nature of work and concept of self, communication and relationship with management, welfare measures, health conditions, training, individual adjustment, safety, social and community life, opportunity for advancement, job clarity, cleanliness, stress relaxation and opportunity to learn a job as factors which influence employee engagement. He examines these factors at several organizations such as the Jaganath Textile industry, the Murugan Mills, the Saradha Mills, the Sugana Textile Mills and the Cambodia Textile Mills in Coimbatore. Devi (2016) finds these are the significant factors which affect the climate of an organization and it has major influence on productivity of individuals and their engagement at the workplace.

San et al. (2012) show effective reward strategies not only fulfil the employee’s basic requirement but also increase their engagement in the organization. Prior to that, Mujtaba & Shuaib (2010) discuss that organizational rewards enhance good working habits and significantly boost the performance of each employee. Through reward strategies, management can attract a pool of qualified candidates and maintain a highly motivated workforce in the organization. Successful companies use the rewards programs to motivate and retain the top talent employee. Iqbal (2015) reveals that positive effect of reward is associated with higher level of employee engagement.

Intrinsic Motivational Factor and Employee Engagement

Ghanbahadur (2014) discusses the ability to utilize, achieve, create, independent, moral values, responsibility, and recognition as intrinsic factors which contribute to intrinsic job satisfaction. He discovers that the job itself intrinsically influence to motivate the Irish accountants and American Engineers. Jones & Sloane (2007) survey on jobs availability in the European Continent in the year 2002 and observed that employees fulfilment in their workload; job status and job activities have positive correlation. So, promotion and growth, as well as recognition act as motivators (Ash & Kay, 2012; Baah & Amoako, 2011) to increase employee engagement (Khan & Iqbal, 2013).

Extrinsic Motivational Factor and Employee Engagement

Vanam (2009) discover that job resources such as relationship with supervisor have positive significant relationship with employee engagement. Similar relationships also appear in salary, career opportunities, job security, relationship with supervisor, relationship with peer, role clarity, skill variety reduce job demand (Bakker et al., 2003; Demerouti et al., 2001). Remi et al. (2011) examine 15 companies selected from Oyo, Kwara, Osun & Ogun States of Nigeria. These are mid-sized companies that are involved in Educational Consultancy, Hotel and Catering Services, Transportation Services, Retail Services and Manufacturing. They found that job security, good working conditions, and good wages are the hygiene factor of the employee in Nigeria. Hygiene factors are supervision, working conditions, interpersonal relationships, salary, job security, and company policy, as well as administration (Khatun, 2017). Researchers investigate on job security, relations with supervisor (Ahmed et al., 2016); salary, bonus, working environment (Choudhury & Rahman, 2017); relationship between employers and employees (Hossan et al., 2012) in RMG industry in Bangladesh (Figure 1).

H1: There is significant positive effect of transformational leadership style on employee engagement in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

H2: There is significant positive effect of transactional leadership style on employee engagement in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

H3: Intrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between transformational leadership style and employee engagement in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

H4: Intrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between transactional leadership and employee engagement in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

H5: Extrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

H6: Extrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between transactional leadership and employee engagement in the RMG industry in Bangladesh.

Methodology

This study used a cross-sectional survey design featuring a researcher-administered questionnaire as the study instrument and a quantitative research design as the study framework. The population of the study is the permanent employee at the readymade garments industry in Bangladesh. The non-probability sampling specifically convenient sampling used to draw the sample as it is identified to be a better approach for this study, since the employee are sampled for their availability (Battaglia, 2011). The data were obtained from 387 employees (who have no supervisory power) from 25 readymade garments factories in Dhaka, which have more than 300 employees. The intrinsic and extrinsic job satisfaction are measured using the scales developed by Weiss et al. (1967) and also was used by Ghanbahadur (2014) known as the ‘Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire.’ The scale of employee engagement was developed by Schaufeli et al. (2006) and was tested by Vanam (2009) consisting of 9 items in the questionnaire to measure employee engagement. The transformational and transactional leadership constructs are measured by Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) (5X). The questions had been retrieved from validity study of the MLQ 5X. Smart PLS had been used to analyze the data in this study.

Data Analysis

Respondent’s Profile

There are 260 males (67.2 per cent) and 127 females (32.7) respondents; 226 employees are married (58.4 per cent), 161 employees (41.6 per cent) are single out of 387 respondents. They indicate there are 6 employees (1.6 percent) holding bachelor, 29 employees (7.3 percent) holding higher secondary certificate, 157 employees (40.6 percent) have completed their secondary certificate and 195 employees (50.4 percent) have completed primary education. 114 respondents (29.5 percent) work between 55 and 60 hours per week, 93 employees (24 percent) work between 48 and 54 hours, 68 employees (17.6 percent) work between 61 and 66 hours, 67 employees (17.3 percent) works between 67 and 72 hours. 40 employees (10.3 percent) work more than 72 hours and only 5 employees (1.3 percent) work below than 48 hours per week.

Data Analysis Using Smart PLS

According to the standard procedure, the measurement model should be assessed before the structural model. The measurement model analysis includes measuring construct reliability, convergent validity, and discriminant validity. Hair et al., (2014) suggested the use of composite reliability to assess the internal consistency of the study and the threshold value should achieve the value of 0.7. Based on Table 1, the composite reliability values of 0.768 (Employee engagement), 0.870 (Extrinsic motivation), 0.876 (Intrinsic motivation), 0.837 (Transactional leadership) and 0.889 (Transformational leadership) demonstrate that these constructs have high levels of internal consistency in this study.

Table 1 Composite Reliability and Validity
	Outer Loading	CA	CR	AVE
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT		0.602	0.768	0.461
ee3	0.467
ee5	0.775
ee8	0.686
ee9	0.744
EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION		0.813	0.87	0.572
em11	0.773
em13	0.724
em18	0.759
em21	0.798
em22	0.726
INTRINSIC MOTIVATION		0.788	0.876	0.702
im27	0.88
im35	0.809
im36	0.823
TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP		0.744	0.837	0.565
tal51	0.801
tal52	0.833
tal55	0.679
tal56	0.68
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP		0.843	0.889	0.616
tfl42	0.864
tfl43	0.712
tfl47	0.73
tfl48	0.812
tfl49	0.796

Average Variance Extracted (AVE) is used to check the level of convergence of a given individual construct in comparison to the measure of other constructs (Urbach & Ahlemann, 2010). This indicates the degree upon which a latent construct elaborates the variances that exist within its indicators (Hair et al., 2017). Table 1 illustrates that all of the AVE values for this study are around 0.5. Discriminant validity is commonly used to assess the degree of shared variance between the latent variables of the model. The results in Table 2 illustrate satisfactory or sufficient discriminant validity as recommended, where the square roots of AVE (diagonal) are higher than the correlations (off-diagonal) for all the reflective constructs.

Table 2 Discriminant Validity, Inner VIF and F Square
Variable	Fornell and Larcker					Inner VIF	f Square
	Y1	Y2	Y3	Y4	Y5	Y1	Y1
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT (Y1)	0.679
EXTRINSIC MOTIVATION (Y2)	0.672	0.757				3.47	0.033
INTRINSIC MOTIVATION (Y3)	0.642	0.753	0.838			2.76	0.031
TRANSACTIONAL LEADERSHIP (Y4)	0.602	0.678	0.6	0.752		1.92	0.061
TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP (Y5)	0.616	0.749	0.722	0.521	0.785	2.63	0.026

According to the results shown in Table 2, it can be observed that the inner VIF values for each construct are within the range of 3.47-1.92, thus there is absence of multi collinearity issues in this study. The f square value of 0.35, 0.15 and 0.02 represents large, medium, and small effect sizes, respectively (Hair, Hult, Ringle & Sarstedt, 2016). Based on the result in Table 2, transformational leadership (0.026), transactional leadership (0.061), intrinsic motivation (0.031) and extrinsic motivation (0.033) are shown to have a small effect size (f square) on employee engagement. The coefficient of determination score is used to assist a given model’s ability to predict. In other words, the R square measures a given model’s predictive ability. Hair, et al., (2017) proposed a range of 0.75, 0.5, and 0.25 as typical substantial, moderate, and weak levels of predictive accuracy, respectively. Table 3 suggests that employee engagement responsible for 53.3% by predictive variables that are moderate effects.

An additional criterion for evaluating the quality of the model is the blindfolding procedure to assess a model’s capability to predict (Hair et al., 2011). Hair et al., (2011) recommended using cross-validated redundancy where the use of PLS-SEM is required to estimate both the structural model and the measurement model for data prediction (Figure 2 and Figure 3). Cross-validated redundancy is perfectly suitable for the PLS-SEM approach. Fornell & Cha (1994) suggested that if the Q square value is greater than zero, then the model has predictive relevance. From Table 3, the values of Q square for employee engagement show that it is greater than 0, hence predictive relevance is attained.

Table 3 R Square and Q Square
	R Square	R Square Adjusted	SSO	Construct Cross Validated Redundancy
				SSE	Q² (=1-SSE/SSO)
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT	0.533	0.528	1548	1159.566	0.251

Hypothesis Testing

Path coefficient

Path coefficient is utilized to examine the significant, magnitude, and sign (positive or negative) between an independent and dependent variable. The range of the Beta shall be between -1 to 1 at significant level of 0.05, and when it is closer to 1 and -1; it demonstrates strong positive and negative relationship, respectively (Hair et al., 2017).

There is positive effect of extrinsic motivation on employee engagement (b=0.243, t=3.076, p=0.002); intrinsic motivation on employee engagement (b=0.175, t=2.807, p=0.005); transactional leadership on employee engagement (b=0.232, t=4.471, p=0.000); transformational leadership on employee engagement (b=0.192, t=2.878, p=0.004). Transactional leadership plays a moderating role between the relationship of extrinsic motivation and employee engagement (b=0.145, t=2.019, p=0.044); Transactional leadership plays moderating role between the relationship of intrinsic motivation and employee engagement (b=-0.311, t=4.809, p=0.000) and transformational leadership moderates the relationship between intrinsic motivation and employee engagement (b=0.200, t=3.282, p=0.001). On the other hand, there is no moderating role of transformational leadership between the relationship of extrinsic motivation and employee engagement (b=-0.051, t=0.732, p=0.465).

Discussion

The findings of the study help to understand in-depth the factors of engagement among the employees of RMG industry in Bangladesh by focusing on motivation and their relationships with the leaders. So as to give in-depth and noteworthy learning about the subjects, the study contributes to our understanding of employee engagement by showing the effects of two contemporary leadership styles. The present study suggests that the effects of extrinsic motivation is more than the effect of intrinsic motivation and the effect of transactional leadership is more than transformational leadership on employee engagement among the employee of RMG industry in Bangladesh.

The first objective of the study is to determine the effect of leadership (transformational and transactional) on employee engagement among the employee of RMG industry in Bangladesh. The result of the current study discovers positive significant effect of leadership (transformational and transactional) on employee engagement. Hypothesis H1 claims that TFL are positively related with employee engagement and the result supports this hypothesis based on the data presented. Moreover, these findings are similar with Tims et al. (2011) discoveries that give proof of direct decidedly noteworthy connection between transformational leadership style and employee engagement. Thus, hypothesis H1 has been accepted. Hypothesis H2 suggests that transactional leaders are positively associated with employee engagement and the findings provide evidence that indicates the hypothesis is supported by the data. Tims et al. (2011) argue that transactional leaders are unable to influence the followers’ work engagement but Breevaart et al. (2014) show that transactional behaviors are able to stimulate followers’ work engagement which is similar to result of this research. Therefore, hypothesis H2 has been accepted.

The second objective is to investigate the moderating role of motivational factor (intrinsic and extrinsic) between the relationship of leadership style (transformational and transactional) and employee engagement. Hypotheses H3, H4, H5 and H6 have fulfilled this objective. Based on the data analysis, there is positive effect of extrinsic and intrinsic motivation on employee engagement. Hypothesis H3 has been accepted that intrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement. If intrinsic motivation becomes an increase in one unit, then the relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement will stronger and if intrinsic motivation becomes decrease in one unit, then the relationship between transformational leadership and employee engagement will weaker. Hypothesis H4 also has been accepted that intrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between transactional leadership on employee engagement. But the moderating effect is negative. That’s mean, if intrinsic motivation becomes an increase in one unit, then the relationship between transactional leadership and employee engagement will weaker and if intrinsic motivation becomes decrease in one unit, then the relationship between transactional leadership and employee engagement will stronger. If extrinsic motivational factors are established between the relationship of transformational leadership and employee engagement, it will not influence the relationship. Because, there is no moderating effect of extrinsic motivation between the relationship of transformational leadership and employee engagement, therefore, hypothesis H5 has been rejected. Nonetheless, extrinsic motivation influence the relation between transactional leadership and employee engagement because, extrinsic motivation moderates the relationship between transactional leadership on employee engagement. Thus, hypothesis H6 has been accepted.

Conclusion

The study has important implications for both theoretical and practical reasons. In particular, most of the previous related literature on employee engagement studied the issues in the context of western industry. This paper is one of the few studies, which focus in the factory of readymade garments which is one of the most important industries in Bangladesh. This study is also important because, the respondents were from the operational level, which in many cases, are the low-income group employees, who put high hope to have employers, who can overcome dissatisfaction and meet the satisfaction and motivational expectation of them. In this study, the Herzberg two factors and the Full range leadership theory are utilized to validate leadership styles and motivational factors on employee engagement in the context of leadership styles and motivational factors. Before they can focus on how to boost employee engagement, managers must put more effort into increasing the motivating elements of the employees. In conclusion, the study found that in the case of Bangladesh's RMG sectors, management must focus on motivating elements, particularly extrinsic values. Using transformational and transactional leadership styles, managers must be able to express their expectations and concerns to their employees clearly.

Limitations of the Study and Suggestions for Future Research

Transactional and transformational leadership were used as predictors in this study, with extrinsic and intrinsic motivating factors acting as moderators. The moderated mediation might be used in future studies. In this study, the researchers employed cross-sectional and single source data; however, future studies might include longitudinal and multilevel data. This is because longitudinal and multilevel data will let participants obtain more in-depth insights through analysis, discussions, and explanations.

Author Contributions

Dalowar Hossan is studying for a PhD at the School of Business and Economics, University Putra Malaysia (UPM). He has completed MSc (by research) on the topic of “motivational factors and mediating role of leadership on employee engagement in readymade garments industry in Bangladesh” in 2020 from UPM. Any discussion/inquire related to the article can be made via mail at dalowarhossan.bd@gmail.com

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